This Day, That Year – January 25

Virginia Woolf was an English writer born on this day in 1882, considered to be one of the most important modernist twentieth-century authors.

Did you know that:

• Gustavus Dows patented a modern form of the soda fountain on this day in 1870
• Michael Brassil received a patent for a candlestick on this day in 1881
• The first nuclear fission experiment was performed in the US, in the basement of Pupin Hall, by a Columbia University team on this day in 1939