BIRTHS

Elisabeta Polihroniade (1935-23.01.2016), a Romanian Woman Grandmaster, and an International Arbiter who won 7 Women’s Romanian Championships.
Axel Otto Ornstein (1952), a Swedish International Master who was was eight times Swedish Champion.
Camilla Baginskaite (1967), a Woman Grandmaster who was U.S. Champion in 2000. She is married to U.S. GM Alex Yermolinsky.
Monika Socko (1978), a Polish Grandmaster who won the Polish Women’s Championship eight times.
Josep Manuel Lopez Martinez (1980), a Spanish Grandmaster who was few times vice-champion of Spain.
Karen Asrian (1980-09.06.2008), an Armenian Grandmaster who won the Armenian  Championship in 1999, 2007, and 2008. He had died of a suspected heart attack while driving.
Laszlo Gonda (1988), a Hungarian Grandmaster.

DEATH

Max Romih (22.05.1893-1979), an Italian Master who participated in 5 Olympiads before WWII.

CHESS EVENTS

1883 England. 1st use of the mechanical double-faced chess clock at the London.tournament.
1975 During a formal ceremony in the Hall of Columns, Moscow, A. Karpov USSR was proclaimed the 12^th World Champion.
1992 The Board recommended the full membership of South Africa after 15 years of exclusion.

WORLD EVENTS

1184 BC – Traditional date of the fall of Troy.
1856 – Philippe Pétain, French general and politician, 119th Prime Minister of France (d. 1951) was born.
1923 – In Vienna, the paper Das Ich und das Es (The Ego and the Id) by Sigmund Freud is published, which outlines Freud’s theories of the id, ego, and super-ego.
1942 – Barbra Streisand, American singer, actress, and producer was born.
1967 – Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov dies in Soyuz 1 when its parachute fails to open. He is the first human to die during a space mission.
1970 – The Gambia becomes a republic within the Commonwealth of Nations, with Dawda Jawara as its first President.
1993 – An IRA bomb devastates the Bishopsgate area of London.
2005 – Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger is inaugurated as the 265th Pope of the Roman Catholic Church taking the name Pope Benedict XVI.
(Source: Wikipedia)

GAME OF THE DAY