January 2025: five Fridays and a very cold oath
The year opened on Wednesday 1 January and settled into 31 days. Business days numbered 23, and five Fridays stacked up on the 3rd, 10th, 17th, 24th and 31st. January 2025 also made awkward history in Washington. Bitter cold pushed the presidential oath indoors on Monday 20 January, a first since 1985. The rest of the grid behaved: five Wednesdays, five Thursdays, eight weekend days, ISO weeks 1 to 5.
The arithmetic, plainly
January 2025 carried five Wednesdays: the 1st, 8th, 15th, 22nd and 29th. Five Thursdays trailed them, the 2nd, 9th, 16th, 23rd and 30th. Add the five Fridays and the working month stood 23 business days deep. Saturdays and Sundays got four turns each, eight weekend days in all.
That shape rewards anyone planning by the week. Five Fridays gave the month five end-of-week slots to fill, and only four Saturdays to recover in. The arithmetic is honest, which is more than can be said for most resolutions.
One A4 sheet holds all 31 days with the ISO week numbers down the left. Two copies, one for the kitchen wall and one for the briefcase, and the month stops living in your head.
An oath taken out of the cold
The month's headline came in its fourth week. Donald Trump took the oath as the forty-seventh US president on Monday 20 January, indoors in the Capitol Rotunda. Dangerous cold had cleared the outdoor steps. It was the first indoor swearing-in since 1985.
The week around it stayed busy on calmer fronts. On Thursday 16 January two rockets made news inside 24 hours. Blue Origin's New Glenn reached orbit at the first attempt. Hours later SpaceX caught its booster, but the Starship upper stage was lost over the Caribbean.
The rest of the month, in order
January 2025 carried real grief: fires around Los Angeles, beginning on Tuesday 7 January, killed at least 30 people. More than 16,000 homes and other structures were destroyed or damaged. On Wednesday 29 January an airliner and an Army helicopter collided near Washington and fell into the Potomac River. All 67 people aboard were killed.
Jannik Sinner retained his Australian Open title on Sunday 26 January, beating Alexander Zverev in straight sets. On Monday 27 January a selloff triggered by the Chinese lab DeepSeek knocked roughly $589 billion off Nvidia's market value. No company had ever lost so much in a day. The moon, for its part, kept to the diary: full on Monday 13 January, new on Wednesday 29 January.
The month began on Wednesday 1 January and ended on Friday 31 January, a full 31 days. Week 6 handed the baton to February, which had four of everything and no spare Friday.