The 28th day of the year
Born on 28 January
Every 28 January birthday from 1920 to 2026 was Aquarius, in every time zone.
- Star sign
- AquariusAir, fixed, ruled by Saturn.
- Birthstone
- GarnetThe same as on the 1912 list.
- Birth flower
- Carnation, SnowdropUsually taken today to mean devotion and hope.
- Most common weekdays
- Wednesday and Saturday16 times each between 1920 and 2026.
Nineteen years apart
The new year has fallen on 28 January five times since 1920, and four of them are nineteen years apart: 1960, the Metal Rat; 1979, the Earth Goat; 1998, the Earth Tiger; and 2017, the Fire Rooster. The first was 1922, the Water Dog. The next is 28 January 2036, the Fire Dragon, nineteen years after the last.
Nineteen years is the Metonic cycle: 235 lunar months come within about two hours of nineteen solar years, so the new moons, and the new year that is counted from them, return to almost the same dates. Almost is the important word. The fit is not exact and the calendar's leap days do not fall evenly across nineteen years, which is why 1941, nineteen years after 1922, fell a day earlier, on 27 January.
A 28 January birthday came on or after the new year in 27 of the 107 years from 1920 to 2026 and before it in 80. It was Aquarius every year, in every time zone.
Your year
Without JavaScript, the pages for each birth year give the generation and Chinese animal for a birth on 28 January in any year.
Which Chinese animal, by year
From 1920 to 2026 the lunar new year, reckoned in Beijing, came after 28 January in 80 of the 107 years, and in those years a birthday on it belonged to the animal of the year before; in the other 27 the new year had already begun. It was the first day of the new year itself in 1922, 1960, 1979, 1998 and 2017.
Shaded: 28 January came before that year's new year. Hatched: the new year began on 28 January. How the new year is found →
Which weekday 28 January falls on
Across the 107 years from 1920 to 2026, 28 January falls on every day of the week: Wednesday 16, Saturday 16, Friday 15, Sunday 15, Monday 15, Thursday 15, Tuesday 15.
Showing 28 January in the 36 most recent years. Every weekday →
How common a birthday 28 January is
In England and Wales, from 1995 to 2014, an average of 1,770 babies were born on 28 January in each year of the twenty, making it the 314th 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 28 January
| Name | Years | Known for |
|---|---|---|
| Nicolas Sarkozy | 1955– | 23rd president of the French Republic from 2007 to 2012 |
| Jackson Pollock | 1912–1956 | American painter |
| Gianluigi Buffon | 1978– | former Italian footballer |
| José Martí | 1853–1895 | Cuban poet, philosopher and nationalist |
| Colette | 1873–1954 | French novelist |
| Ismail Kadare | 1936–2024 | Albanian writer |
| Elijah Wood | 1981– | American actor |
| Henry VII of England | 1457–1509 | King of England from 1485 to 1509 |
| Pope Clement IX | 1600–1669 | pope of the Catholic Church from 1667 to 1669 |
| Carlos Slim | 1940– | Mexican business magnate and investor |
| Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa | 1950– | King of Bahrain |
| Arthur Rubinstein | 1887–1982 | Polish-American classical pianist |
| Mustafa III | 1717–1774 | 26th Sultan of the Ottoman Empire (1757–1774) |
| Alan Alda | 1936– | American actor |
| Jamie Carragher | 1978– | English football pundit and former player |
| Johannes Hevelius | 1611–1687 | astronomer of Danzig, a founder of lunar topography |
| Vladimir Solovyov | 1853–1900 | Russian philosopher |
| Yasuhito Endō | 1980– | Japanese association football player |
Died on 28 January
| Name | Years | Known for |
|---|---|---|
| Charlemagne | 748–814 | King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor from 800 to 814 |
| W. B. Yeats | 1865–1939 | Irish poet and playwright |
| Joseph Brodsky | 1940–1996 | Russian-American poet |
| Henry VIII | 1491–1547 | King of England from 1509 to 1547 |
| Astrid Lindgren | 1907–2002 | Swedish writer of fiction and screenplays |
| Pope Paul V | 1552–1621 | 233rd pope of the Roman Catholic Church from 1605 to 1621 |
| Zora Neale Hurston | 1891–1960 | American writer, anthropologist and folklorist |
| Johannes Hevelius | 1611–1687 | astronomer of Danzig, a founder of lunar topography |
| Ludvig Holberg | 1684–1754 | Danish-Norwegian writer, philosopher and historian |
| Cicely Tyson | 1924–2021 | American actress |
| Christa McAuliffe | 1948–1986 | American educator and astronaut |
| Émile Clapeyron | 1799–1864 | French physicist |
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.