is the most depressing day of the year, according to some "scientific" formula or other. This fact is trotted out every 12 months, but this time round the Daily Mail has gone one better:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1121262/Feeling-blue-Today--January-19-2009--depressing-day-HISTORY-say-experts.html

It's also Martin Luther King Day – held on the third Monday in January each year – as well as being the occasion for a peculiar Baltimore tradition:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe_Toaster