January 19 Through History

Explanation: Il trovatore, with a libretto by Salvatore Cammarano, is one of the most performed operas in the world. Its famous "Miserere" scene and the aria "Di quella pira" make it an iconic work of Romantic bel canto.

Explanation: The Lisa was one of the first personal computers to feature a mouse and a graphical user interface (GUI). Although a commercial failure due to its high price, it foreshadowed the Macintosh launched the following year in 1984.

Explanation: Indira Gandhi, daughter of India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, held power twice: from 1966 to 1977, then from 1980 until her assassination in 1984. She remains to this day the only woman to have held this position in India.

Explanation: Georges Claude, nicknamed "the French Edison", publicly presented his neon tubes for the first time at the Grand Palais in Paris in 1910. His 1915 patent allowed him to commercialize this technology in the United States as early as the 1920s, transforming global illuminated advertising.

Explanation: Edgar Allan Poe, born in Boston, is considered the father of the modern detective novel and the fantastical short story. Works like "The Raven", "The Fall of the House of Usher", and "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" influenced authors as different as Baudelaire, Conan Doyle, and Lovecraft.

Explanation: The Prix Goncourt, whose academy was officially recognized by decree as early as 1903, is today the most prestigious literary prize in France. Symbolically endowed with just ten euros, it actually guarantees sales of several hundred thousand copies for its winner.

Explanation: The Beetle, originally designed under the Nazi regime in the 1930s, became a symbol of freedom and counterculture in the 1960s. With more than 21 million units produced in total, it long held the world record for production of a single car model.

Explanation: James Watt did not invent the steam engine but significantly improved its efficiency by adding a separate condenser, reducing coal consumption by 75%. His name was given to the international unit of power, the watt, in tribute to his contribution to the industrial revolution.

Explanation: New Horizons reached Pluto in July 2015, revealing detailed images of this dwarf planet for the first time, including its ice mountains and its famous nitrogen "heart". It then flew by the object Arrokoth in the Kuiper Belt in January 2019, setting a new record for exploration of the solar system.

Explanation: Born into a poor family in Tennessee, Dolly Parton is one of the best-selling country music artists in history, with more than 100 million albums sold. Beyond music, she is also known for her activism in support of children's literacy through her program «Dolly Parton's Imagination Library».