Today is Thursday, Jan. 1, the first day of 2026. There are 364 days left in the year. This is New Year\u2019s Day.<\/p>\n
Today in history:<\/p>\n
On Jan. 1, 1892, the Ellis Island Immigration Station in New York formally opened, processing nearly 700 immigrants on its first day; nearly 12 million immigrants would ultimately pass through the station before its closure in 1954.<\/p>\n
Also on this date:<\/p>\n
In 1804, Haiti declared itself independent from France, becoming the world\u2019s first Black-majority republic.<\/p>\n
In 1808, the federal law prohibiting the importation of enslaved people to the United States took effect.<\/p>\n
In 1818, Mary Shelley\u2019s novel \u201cFrankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus\u201d was first published in London, when Shelley was 20 years old.<\/p>\n
In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation during the Civil War, declaring that all enslaved people in rebellious states \u201care, and henceforward shall be free.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 1959, Fulgencio Batista resigned as Cuban president and fled the country, marking victory for Fidel Castro\u2019s rebel troops and the Cuban Revolution.<\/p>\n
In 2000, an anxious world held its breath as computers silently switched to the year 2000, but the dreaded \u201cY2K bug\u201d caused few serious issues.<\/p>\n
In 2013, thousands were trampled leaving a New Year\u2019s fireworks display at a stadium in Ivory Coast, leaving at least 64 people dead amid the chaos.<\/p>\n
In 2024, an earthquake rocked the west coast of Japan, collapsing homes, killing at least 260 people and forcing the evacuation of more than 3,000 others.<\/p>\n
In 2025, a man driving a pickup truck that bore the flag of the Islamic State group slammed into revelers during New Orleans\u2019 raucous New Year\u2019s celebration, killing 15 people. The man was shot dead by police and the attack was subsequently investigated by the FBI as an act of terrorism.<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s Birthdays:<\/p>\n
Filmmaker Frederick Wiseman is 96.
\nActor Frank Langella is 88.
\nMusician Country Joe McDonald is 84.
\nActor-comedian Don Novello is 83.
\nDJ Grandmaster Flash is 68.
\nActor Dedee Pfeiffer is 62.
\nActor Morris Chestnut is 57.
\nOlympic gold medalist ice dancer Meryl Davis is 39.
\nRapper Ice Spice is 26.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Today is Thursday, Jan. 1, the first day of 2026. There are 364 days left in the year.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":381610,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,151224,186209,3,31891,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-381609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-ellis-island","tag-january-1-history","tag-news","tag-today-in-history","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=381609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381609\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/381610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}