- Jan 4 Alexander Freiherr von Bach, Austrian attorney and politician (Premier of Austria 1852-59), born in Loosdorf, Austria (d. 1893)
Isaac Pitman (1813-1897)
Jan 4 English teacher and inventor of Pitman shorthand (Stenographic Soundhand), born in Trowbridge, England
- Jan 4 Louis Lucien Bonaparte, English-French philogist and nephew of Napoleon, born in Grimley, England (d. 1891)
- Jan 5 Thomas Neville Waul, Brigadier General (Confederate Army), born in Sumter County, South Carolina (d. 1903)
- Jan 7 Ann Rutledge, said to be Abraham Lincoln's true love, born in Henderson, Kentucky (d. 1835)
Agostino Depretis (1813-1887)
Jan 13 Italian statesman, Prime Minister of Italy (1876-78, 1778-79, 1881-87), born in Bressana Bottarone, Kingdom of Italy
- Jan 15 James Marion Sims, American physician & surgical pioneer (vesicovaginal operation), born in Lancaster County, South Carolina (d. 1883)
- Jan 18 Joseph Glidden, American inventor of 1st commercial usable barbed wire, born in Charlestown, New Hampshire (d. 1906)
- Jan 19 Henry Bessemer, English inventor (Bessemer engine), born in Charlton, England (d. 1898)
- Jan 20 Jacon Gartner Lauman, American Brevet Major General (Union Army), born in Taneytown, Maryland (d. 1867)
- Jan 23 Franz Commer, German composer & musicologist, born in Cologne, Germany (d. 1887)
- Jan 26 Juan Pablo Duarte, Dominican founding father (d. 1876
- Jan 31 Samuel Sarphati, Amsterdam, physician, pharmacist and social activist in Amsterdam, born in Amsterdam (d. 1866)