January 12 Through History

Explanation: Berry Gordy founded Motown with just 800 dollars borrowed from his family. The label launched artists like Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye and Diana Ross, becoming a symbol of American soul and R&B music.

Explanation: The National Assembly of Epidaurus proclaimed Greek independence during the war of independence against the Ottoman Empire. Official international recognition of Greece would only come with the Treaty of Constantinople in 1832.

Explanation: Jack London lived a life as adventurous as his novels, searching for gold in the Klondike and sailing the Pacific. His works often reflect his own experiences of survival in extreme conditions.

Explanation: The magnitude 7.0 earthquake devastated Port-au-Prince and its surroundings, killing between 200,000 and 316,000 people according to estimates. It was one of the deadliest natural disasters of the XXIst century, triggering a massive international humanitarian response.

Explanation: The sinking of the ocean liner Afrique remains the worst maritime disaster in the history of the French merchant navy. It sank during a violent storm while sailing from Bordeaux to Dakar. Despite distress calls, rescuers arrived too late.

Explanation: The Académie Goncourt, founded by the will of Edmond de Goncourt, awards the Prix Goncourt every year, the most prestigious French literary prize. At this first meeting, the jury was made up of ten members, a number that remains the rule to this day.

Explanation: This treaty, known as the Additional Protocol to the Oviedo Convention, was signed under the aegis of the Council of Europe. It explicitly prohibits any intervention aimed at creating a human being genetically identical to another living or dead human being.

Explanation: Emmanuel Levinas, born in Lithuania and naturalized French, profoundly shaped 20th-century philosophy with his notion of the 'face of the other'. A student of Husserl and Heidegger, he developed an ethics grounded in responsibility toward others.

Explanation: Ricci-Curbastro developed the absolute differential calculus (tensor calculus), a mathematical tool that Einstein used to formulate his theory of general relativity. Without this work, general relativity would have been much harder to express mathematically.

Explanation: Dynasty depicted the Carrington family, an oil dynasty from Colorado. The show popularized extravagant outfits and oversized shoulder pads, becoming a symbol of 1980s aesthetics. Joan Collins played the character Alexis Colby.