It's a new year! Here are the top 5 things in January you need to know to be the smartest person in the room -- or the Zoom
Plus a complete rundown of the holidays and celebrations this month--some zany, some serious. Share them with your friends, and make your frenemies jealous of your intellectual superpowers
#1 Out with the Old, In with the Old
Only twice in American history have presidents lost re-election only to come back four years later to be inaugurated for a second term.
The first was Grover Cleveland, who served as our 22nd president from 1885 to 1889 and then the 24th president from 1893 to 1897.
Now comes Donald Trump. He was the 45th president from 2017 to 2021 and will begin his second term as the 47th president on inauguration day Jan. 20.
With the recent death of former President Jimmy Carter, and age being such a big issue in the most recent election, this might be a good time to review presidential life expectancies.
When he takes his oath of office for the second time, Trump will be 78 years and 220 days old making him the most elderly man ever sworn in, even older than when current President Joe Biden was inaugurated.
Most presidents die after their terms of office expire. But not all. Eight commanders-in-chief have lost their lives while in office, four from assassinations, and four from natural causes.
The median age of death is 73 for all the men (no women so far) who have helmed the Oval Office.
John F. Kennedy was the youngest chief executive to die of any cause at 46 years old when he was shot during a motorcade in Dallas. Our oldest leader to expire was Jimmy Carter, the 39th president, who left this world on Dec. 29, 2024, after living 100 years.
In all cases of presidents who died on the job, they were succeeded in office by their vice presidents. The incoming vice president, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, will be the second youngest veep, tied at age 40 with Richard Nixon. The youngest ever was John C. Breckinridge who was 36 when sworn in in 1857.
As for the actuarial tables, both Biden at 82 and Trump at 78 have lived longer than average. Males born in 1942 like Biden had a life expectancy at birth of 71.4 years. Trump, born in 1946, could have expected to live to 74.8.
However, the older we live, the longer our continuing life expectancies are. In Trump’s case, he can anticipate living another 10-12 years if he is in good health today.
On another note, the beginning of Trump’s second term is remarkable not only for his comeback, like Cleveland. He will also be the first president to be sworn in after having been impeached twice, one of those times for inciting an insurrection to disrupt the counting of the Electoral College vote that led to his defeat.
In both cases, the Senate failed to convict Trump, just as it failed to convict previous U.S. presidents facing impeachment, Bill Clinton and Andrew Johnson. Richard Nixon was facing impeachment and was told the Senate had the votes to convict when he resigned in the aftermath of the Watergate Scandal.
#2 GOP Takes Over Congress
A new Congress assembles on Jan. 3. Control of the Senate will switch to the Republicans who will hold a 53-45 majority over the Democrats with two senators registered as independents.
Sen. John Thune of South Dakota will be the new Senate majority leader. And as a tiebreaker, if one is needed, incoming Vice President J.D. Vance will sit as Senate president.
Leadership of the House of Representatives is slightly more uncertain. While Republicans retain control of the lower chamber in the 119th Congress, internal divisions among GOP representatives could foreshadow a challenge when Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana seeks re-election as speaker of the House. The political prediction site, Polymarket, gives him a 75 percent chance of winning.
In any event, the numbers between the two parties are tight: 219 Republicans to 215 Democrats. It only will take three Republican defections on any given vote to switch the balance of power.
Essential Fact: The 119th Congress will have only three states (Maine, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin) with senators from different parties, the lowest number of split delegations since direct popular election of senators began in 1914.
#3 We Have a Winner
January 20 is a big day this month not just because of the inauguration. It’s also when the collegiate national championship game will be held.
College football is more than fun. It’s big business. This year, a new playoff scheme was initiated in which the top 12 teams in the country competed for the title of No. 1. That means more playoff games and more ticket sales.
How rich are collegiate sports, football being the biggest cash cow? Here’s the list of the top 10 programs and their valuation:
Ohio State: $1.32 billion
Texas: $1.28 billion
Texas A&M: $1.26 billion
Michigan: $1.06 billion
Alabama: $978 million
Notre Dame: $969 million
Georgia: $950 million
Nebraska: $943 million
Tennessee: $940 million
Oklahoma: $928 million
#4 Remembering MLK
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s actual birthday is Jan. 15, but the date we celebrate his life moves around from year to year to create a three-day holiday, this year on Jan. 20.
Best known for his fight for the rights of African Americans during the Civil Rights Movement, here are a few Essential Facts you can share:
He was actually born Michael King, but his dad later changed his name.
When he was only 6 years old, King experienced segregation for the first time when he was told he was no longer allowed to play with his white friends.
Rosa Parks, who refused to give up her seat on a bus in 1955, played a crucial role in King’s evolution as a civil rights leader. In response, he organized a boycott of Montgomery, Ala., city buses, which led to their desegregation.
King believed in peaceful protest, inspired by the Indian activist Mahatma Gandhi. Less known is that Gandhi, in turn, was inspired by, among others, American naturalist and essayist Henry David Thoreau’s work, Civil Disobedience.
#5 A Day That Lives in Infamy
January 6 is a day that will live in infamy. It was on this day in 2021 that outgoing President Donald Trump, having lost his re-election bid, exhorted a mob to storm the U.S. Capitol to block the counting of the Electoral College votes.
For this, Trump was subsequently impeached, as noted earlier, and indicted.
However, his re-election in 2024 prompted prosecutors to place on hold his trial on criminal charges. Whether he will ever face a day in court over this remains uncertain.
What is known is that more than a thousand of the rioters have been charged with federal crimes with three-quarters of them so far found guilty. More than 170 police officers were injured defending the seat of our federal government during the attempted coup.
New Year’s Resolutions
The tradition of making resolutions at the start of the new year dates back to ancient Babylonia as I noted in a recent Essential News column in Florida Weekly.
How can you be more successful in achieving your goals?
Find some essential tips here:
The Month Ahead
Jan. 1. Welcome to the new year. There are three college football bowl games today that will decide which teams make their way to the semi-final round of the national championships on Jan. 9 and 10. Here’s the lineup:
Jan. 2. National Science Fiction Day. And if you’re looking for a nifty sci-fi book, allow me to humbly suggest the Gold-Medal-winning time-travel adventure Strange Timing, named Book of the Year in the Royal Palm Literary Awards.
Jan. 3. Humiliation Day. I’m embarrassed to admit I have no idea why anyone would want to celebrate this.
Jan. 4. Trivia Day. And what better way to keep up with all those essential facts that prove you are the smartest person in the room — or the Zoom? By subscribing to this newsletter, of course. But don’t hog it. Help your friends be smart, too. It’s easy. Just forward this email to everyone you know.
Jan. 5. National Whipped Cream Day. How you decide to use it is up to you. We don’t judge. (But feel free to send pictures.)
Jan. 6. Day of Infamy
Jan. 7. Old Rock Day. And what’s the oldest rock? The Acasta Gneiss in the Canadian Northwest Territories (soon to be the 51st state of Canada, according to Trump). It’s 4 billion years old, nearly as old as the planet, currently estimated at 4.543 billion years of age.
Jan. 8. World Typing Day. (That’s every day for me.)
Jan. 9. Mourning in America. President Biden has declared this will be a national day to honor former President Jimmy Carter. Flags will be at half-staff for 30 days starting on the day of his death, Dec. 29.
Jan. 10. National Houseplant Appreciation Day. I’ll have more on this in an upcoming Essential News column in Florida Weekly. I’ll send you a notification and a link when it rolls off the presses. Hint: Plants aren’t as great at cleaning the air as you might think.
Jan. 11. Learn Your Name in Morse Code Day. First, of course, you’ll have to know a little code, right? Here’s a guide:
Jan. 12. Critics Choice Awards, which offer a preview of what we might see later at the Oscars, are on tonight at 7 p.m. on the CW.
Jan. 13. It’s Rubber Duckie Day, celebrating the best friend of Sesame Street’s Ernie. Also a fabulous song, which you can listen to here:
Jan. 14. World Logic Day. And how can you be more logical? By avoiding errors in reasoning. Here’s a list of logical fallacies. One of the most dangerous is “confirmation bias,” in which we only pay attention to information that confirms our pre-existing ideas, shutting out new information to the contrary. It’s why it took so long to convince people the Earth isn’t flat and that the election wasn’t stolen.
Jan. 15. National Bagel Day
Jan. 16. Appreciate a Dragon Day.
Jan. 17. Hat Day. Yes, this is the day you wear your favorite hat, and if you don’t have one, you can make one out of newspapers. Don’t have a newspaper? Go out and grab a copy of your local paper. Read it first. It’s good for your brain—you know, that thing your hat covers.
Jan. 18. National Thesaurus Day. A great, wonderful, marvelous day to use the same words over and over again, repetitiously, redundantly, duplicatively, and reiteratively.
Jan. 19. Oh, the shame. Here in Florida where I live, we do celebrate MLK Day. But, ironically, the state government in its wisdom also recognizes Robert E. Lee’s Birthday and Confederate Heroes’ Day on this date. The struggle continues.
Jan. 20. MLK Day. A federal and state holiday.
Jan. 21. National Hugging Day.
Jan. 22. National Blonde Brownie Day. I’d never heard of blonde brownies until researching this column, but I looked them up and they have chocolate in them, so OK.
Jan. 23. National Handwriting Day. If you can read it.
Jan. 24. National Fun at Work Day (not to be confused with Punch Your Annoying Co-worker Day).
Jan. 25. National Irish Coffee Day. Sláinte!
Jan. 26. National Green Juice Day. Not sure about this one, but maybe you’re overdue to clean out the fridge if that juice is supposed to be orange.
Jan. 27. National Chocolate Cake Day.
Jan. 28. National Kazoo Day.
Jan. 29. Chinese New Year.
Jan. 30. National Croissant Day (Chocolate filled are the best.)
Jan. 31. National Hot Chocolate Day.
They Said It
“The past has its own terrible inevitability. But it is never too late to change the future.”
—Heather Cox Richardson
Letters
Dear J.C.
Are any of the six novels in your Strange Files series available as audiobooks on Audible?
Nathan Agin
Why, yes, they are. Both Mister Manners and Strange Timing can be purchased as audiobooks, which you know full well since you were the narrator!
Dear J.C.
Hold on a sec. That previous letter. It was just another of your cheap commercial messages disguised as a legitimate letter to the editor, right?
Mister Manners
Don’t be ridiculous. I would never do such a thing. And please don’t punish me. The things you do to people in your eponymous book are terrifying.
Dear J.C.
Eponymous? Like your average person is supposed to know what that means? Come on!
M. Webster
Good point. However, in my defense we do celebrate National Thesaurus Day this month, right? Correct? True? Legit?
Parting Shot
J.C. Bruce is a journalist and author of The Strange Files series of mysterious novels (available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, other online booksellers, and at selected libraries). He holds dual citizenship in the United States of America and Florida. His latest novel, Strange Timing, was recently named Book of the Year in the Royal Palm Literary Awards where it also won Gold Medals in the Sci-Fi and Thriller categories. Join him on Jan. 28 for a round of Kazoo playing.
Sponsored by TROPIC PRESS, publisher of The Strange Files Series of Mysterious Adventures.
