The 20th day of the year
Born on 20 January
In UTC, since 1920, 20 January has been Capricorn all day in 15 years and Aquarius all day in 6 years. In the other 86, the sun moved from Capricorn into Aquarius during the day, so a birthday then is Capricorn or Aquarius depending on the hour; the table below gives the moment. Those are UTC days: in 21 more years a crossing on the day before or after fell on 20 January by the clocks somewhere east or west of Greenwich, listed below the table.
- Star sign
- Capricorn or AquariusThe sun changed sign on this date in 86 of 107 years.
- Birthstone
- GarnetThe same as on the 1912 list.
- Birth flower
- Carnation, SnowdropUsually taken today to mean devotion and hope.
- Most common weekdays
- Tuesday and Friday16 times each between 1920 and 2026.
The date split most often
No date has been divided between two signs more often. On 20 January, and on 22 November, the sun changed sign during the day in 86 of the 107 years from 1920 to 2026, in UTC, so in those years a birth before the moment was Capricorn and a birth after it Aquarius.
The moment moves through the day. It drifts almost six hours later each year and falls back in the year after each leap year, so recently it came at 14:07 UTC in 2024, then on the 19th in 2025, then at 01:45 UTC in 2026. The latest in the whole period was 23:54 UTC in 1968, six minutes before midnight; the earliest was 00:17 UTC in 2001.
At the two ends of the period the crossing missed the day altogether. Until 1964 it sometimes arrived early on the 21st, and in those 15 years a 20 January birthday was Capricorn all day; since 2005 it has arrived on the 19th every fourth year, and in those six years 20 January was Aquarius from its first minute. For a 20 January birthday, then, the year decides the sign, and in most years so does the hour. The table below gives the moment for each year.
Your year
Without JavaScript, the pages for each birth year give the generation and Chinese animal for a birth on 20 January in any year.
Which sign, by year
The sun moves from Capricorn into Aquarius at an instant that falls about six hours later each year and jumps back most of a day at each leap year. On 20 January that instant has fallen inside the day in 86 years since 1920; those years show the moment, in UTC and to the minute. A birth before it is Capricorn, after it Aquarius. To read one of these times on your own clock on 20 January, add your time zone's offset east of Greenwich or subtract it to the west, or put the year into the calculator above, which works in your own time zone.
Every year from 1920 to 2026. Where a cell shows a time, the sun entered Aquarius at that moment, UTC. Why the day moves →
Other time zones
A date begins earlier east of Greenwich and later to the west, so in these years the sun changed sign on the day before or after in UTC, at a moment when clocks somewhere on earth already, or still, showed 20 January — worked out from the time zones in use at that moment, as the IANA time zone database records them. A birth there on 20 January that year could be either sign, and the calculator above works it out for your own time zone.
- 1920: the sun entered Aquarius on 21 January, 08:04 UTC
- 1923: the sun entered Aquarius on 21 January, 01:35 UTC
- 1924: the sun entered Aquarius on 21 January, 07:29 UTC
- 1927: the sun entered Aquarius on 21 January, 01:12 UTC
- 1928: the sun entered Aquarius on 21 January, 06:56 UTC
- 1931: the sun entered Aquarius on 21 January, 00:17 UTC
- 1932: the sun entered Aquarius on 21 January, 06:07 UTC
- 1936: the sun entered Aquarius on 21 January, 05:12 UTC
- 1940: the sun entered Aquarius on 21 January, 04:44 UTC
- 1944: the sun entered Aquarius on 21 January, 04:07 UTC
- 1948: the sun entered Aquarius on 21 January, 03:19 UTC
- 1952: the sun entered Aquarius on 21 January, 02:38 UTC
- 1956: the sun entered Aquarius on 21 January, 01:49 UTC
- 1960: the sun entered Aquarius on 21 January, 01:10 UTC
- 1964: the sun entered Aquarius on 21 January, 00:41 UTC
- 2005: the sun entered Aquarius on 19 January, 23:22 UTC
- 2009: the sun entered Aquarius on 19 January, 22:41 UTC
- 2013: the sun entered Aquarius on 19 January, 21:52 UTC
- 2017: the sun entered Aquarius on 19 January, 21:24 UTC
- 2021: the sun entered Aquarius on 19 January, 20:40 UTC
- 2025: the sun entered Aquarius on 19 January, 20:00 UTC
Which weekday 20 January falls on
Across the 107 years from 1920 to 2026, 20 January falls on every day of the week: Tuesday 16, Friday 16, Thursday 15, Saturday 15, Sunday 15, Wednesday 15, Monday 15.
Showing 20 January in the 36 most recent years. Every weekday →
How common a birthday 20 January is
In England and Wales, from 1995 to 2014, an average of 1,783 babies were born on 20 January in each year of the twenty, making it the 267th most common of the 366 dates, where 26 September came first with 1,974 and 26 December last with 1,359.
Office for National Statistics, How popular is your birthday? Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. What a ranking like this can and cannot say →
Born on 20 January
| Name | Years | Known for |
|---|---|---|
| Federico Fellini | 1920–1993 | Italian filmmaker |
| André-Marie Ampère | 1775–1836 | French physicist and mathematician |
| Buzz Aldrin | 1930– | American astronaut |
| David Lynch | 1946–2025 | American filmmaker |
| Johannes V. Jensen | 1873–1950 | Danish author |
| Jeffrey Epstein | 1953–2019 | American sex offender and financier |
| Aristotle Onassis | 1906–1975 | Greek shipping magnate |
| Nikki Haley | 1972– | American politician and diplomat |
| Charles III of Spain | 1716–1788 | King of Spain from 1759 to 1788 |
| Patricia Neal | 1926–2010 | American stage and film actress |
| Gordian III | 225–244 | Roman emperor |
| Alp Arslan | 1029–1072 | second sultan of the Seljuk Empire (1063–1072) |
| David Lee | 1931– | American physicist and Nobel Prize laureate |
| Göran Persson | 1949– | Prime Minister of Sweden from 1996 to 2006 |
| Sebastian, King of Portugal | 1554–1578 | King of Portugal from 1557 to 1578 |
| Bill Maher | 1956– | American stand-up comedian and television host |
| Owen Hargreaves | 1981– | English association football player |
| Evan Peters | 1987– | American actor |
Died on 20 January
| Name | Years | Known for |
|---|---|---|
| Audrey Hepburn | 1929–1993 | British actress |
| John Ruskin | 1819–1900 | English writer and art critic |
| George V | 1865–1936 | King of the United Kingdom from 1910 to 1936 |
| Barbara Stanwyck | 1907–1990 | American actress |
| Al-Shafi'i | 767–820 | Arab Muslim theologian, writer and scholar |
| Garrincha | 1933–1983 | Brazilian association football player |
| Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor | 1552–1612 | Holy Roman Emperor, King of Hungary and Croatia, King of Bohemia and Archduke of Austria |
| Jean-François Millet | 1814–1875 | French painter |
| Johnny Weissmuller | 1904–1984 | American swimmer, water polo player, and actor |
| Claudio Abbado | 1933–2014 | Italian conductor |
| Etta James | 1938–2012 | American singer |
| Charles IV of Spain | 1748–1819 | King of Spain from 1788 to 1808 |
Names are the titles of the English Wikipedia articles; years and the short descriptions are from Wikidata, which publishes under CC0, checked and corrected by hand where they needed it, and nothing is said about anybody beyond that. Ask for a removal.