25 January 2026
► LOOKING at events on 25 January;
In 1915 Alexander Graham Bell inaugurated the U.S. transcontinental telephone service by speaking from New York to Thomas Watson in San Francisco.
Eight lives were lost in 1950, at the Garden Island dockyard in Sydney, when a massive explosion occurred aboard HMAS Tarakan, a tank landing ship,.
In 1955, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet in Moscow announced the end of the war between the USSR and Germany, which began in 1941. Until then, despite the end of World War 2, the USSR had still been formally at war with Germany.
In 1995, Russia almost launched a nuclear attack on the United States, after a Norwegian research rocket was mistaken for an incoming Trident missile.
The Mars rover Opportunity landed on the surface of the planet Mars in 2004. It’s mission was originally intended to last only 3 months, but it continued to transmit valuable scientific data for nearly 15 years. Opportunity also holds the off-Earth driving distance record of over 45 kilometres. The rover went into hibernation in June 2018 with the onset of a planet-wide dust storm, but failed to reboot afterward.
► ARRIVALS AND DEPARTURES ON 25 JANUARY
BORN: Jamesetta Hawkins alias Etta James, in 1938 in Los Angeles, California, U.S.A. She was a blues, soul, rock and roll, gospel and jazz singer and songwriter, best known for her performance of At Last, which has been featured in movies, television shows, commercials, and web-streaming services. She died in 2012.
BORN: Kay McLaren alias Kay Cottee, in 1954 in Sydney. She became the first female sailor to perform a single-handed, non-stop circumnavigation of the world, which she did in 1988 in her 11 metre sloop First Lady, taking 189 days
DIED: Ray Peterson, in 2005 in Smyrna, Tennessee, U.S.A. at the age of 65. He was a pop singer of the late 1950s and early 1960s, remembered for his hits Corrine Corrina and Tell Laura I Love Her.
DIED: Demis Roussos, in 2015 in Athens Greece, aged 68. He was a singer who had a number of hits during the 1970s, and sold over 60 million albums worldwide.
DIED: Mary Tyler Moore, in 2017 in Greenwich, Connecticut, U.S.A., aged 80. She was an actress, known for her roles in television sitcoms such as The Dick Van Dyke Show between 1961 and 1966, and for her later role in the Mary Tyler Moore Show between 1970 and 1977 as Mary Richards, a single woman who worked as a local news producer in Minneapolis.
Today’s photo: Early morning reflections in the King River, western Tasmania.
Today’s playlist is an all-Australian/New Zealand SPECIAL, in view of the declared Australia Day tomorrow (26 January):
| TRACK | RELEASE YEAR | TIME | PREVIOUS PLAYS | LAST PLAYED |
| Graeme Connors – The Great Australian Dream | 2025 | 06:06 | 4 | 18/10/2024 |
| Denis Gibbons – Botany Bay | 06:13 | 3 | 26/1/2025 | |
| Harry & Wilga Williams & Country Outcasts – Blue Gums Calling Me Back Home | 06:17 | 9 | 23/6/2023 | |
| For A Listener: INXS – Mystify | 06:22 | 0 | ||
| Kathy Carver – Yellow Moon On The Swan | 2025 | 06:25 | 4 | 2/1/2026 |
| Oodgeroo Noonuccle – Civilisation | 06:29 | 8 | 26/1/2025 | |
| Alisha Smith – Man From The Never Never | 06:34 | 9 | 18/10/2024 | |
| Slim Dusty – The New Australian Bushman | 06:38 | 3 | 26/2/2021 | |
| Jimmy Little – Namatjiri | 06:41 | 4 | 10/8/2025 | |
| Simon Gallaher – Australia Be Proud | 06:44 | 3 | 26/4/2015 | |
| Lee Kernaghan – Goondiwindi Moon | 06:47 | 0 | ||
| John Williamson – True Blue | 06:52 | 10 | 3/11/2024 | |
| Clelia Adams – Looking Forward, Looking Back | 2022 | 06:57 | 13 | 6/7/2025 |
| Seekers – I Am Australian | 07:06 | 10 | 25/7/2025 | |
| COUNTRY ROAD + Alan Caswell – He Loves His Radio | 2024 | 07:13 | 4 | 22/6/2025 |
| + Andrew Ryan – In The Warrego | 07:16 | 6 | 13/7/2025 | |
| For A Listener: Colin Buchanan – The Local District Show | 07:21 | 7 | 26/1/2025 | |
| James Blundell – Kimberley Moon | 07:27 | 6 | 21/12/2025 | |
| Brian May & ABC Melbourne Showband – Beatles Medley~Eleanor Rigby~My Sweet Lord~Let It Be | 07:32 | 1 | 1/12/2021 | |
| Alex Hood – Two Hundred Years Ago | 07:38 | 2 | 2/10/2020 | |
| Ali Mills – Waltjim Bat Matilda | 07:40 | 8 | 26/1/2025 | |
| Vintage Vinyl Col Joye & Joy Boys – Oh Yeah Uh Huh | 1959 | 07:46 | 3 | 7/9/2025 |
| The Band That Never Was – Ten Thousand Miles Away | 07:48 | 8 | 26/1/2024 | |
| John Clarke – The Fred Dagg Medley | 07:52 | 10 | 23/2/2025 | |
| Lindsay Butler – Country Strings | 07:55 | 0 | ||
| John Sidney – Medley~Wunderbar~Wonderful Copenhagen | 07:58 | 2 | 3/12/2023 | |
| Lee Kernaghan – Listen To The Radio | 08:04 | 5 | 26/1/2024 | |
| COMFORT ZONE + Judy Stone – Our Day Will Come | 08:10 | 1 | 5/1/2025 | |
| + Jean Stafford & Smoky Dawson – I’ll Paint You A Song | 08:13 | 4 | 8/3/2024 | |
| Slim Dusty & His Bushlanders – Medley~Along The Road To Gundagai~I’m Going Back To Yarrawonga~The Man From The Never Never~That Old Bush Shanty of Mine | 08:18 | 2 | 20/4/2025 | |
| Penny Davies & Roger Ilott – Beside A Railway Line | 08:25 | 5 | 17/10/2025 | |
| Mark White – Both Sides Now | 08:32 | 3 | 4/3/2022 | |
| Barry Crocker – Sayonara | 08:37 | 1 | 30/10/2020 | |
| Curly Rivers & Dusty Trail Ramblers – The Ferryboat Shuffle | 1975 | 08:39 | 5 | 11/5/2025 |
| Vintage Vinyl Nola Hirst – Meet Me In The Chapel | 1958 | 08:43 | 6 | 10/7/2020 |
| Webb Brothers – The Jockeys Are Striking | 1960 | 08:46 | 0 | |
| Ashley Cook – The Sydney Jillaroo | 08:50 | 8 | 19/1/2024 | |
| Graeme Clarke – Living Down Under | 08:54 | 8 | 24/12/2021 |