Historical Events
- Jan 3 Scottish factory owner Robert Owen buys 30,000 acres in Indiana as site for New Harmony utopian community
- Jan 19 Ezra Daggett and nephew Thomas Kensett patent food storage in tin cans
- Jan 25 1st US engineering college opens, Rensselaer Polytechnic, Troy, NY
Trail of Tears
Jan 27 US Congress approves Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma), clearing the way for the forced relocation of the Eastern Indian tribes via the "Trail of Tears"
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Famous Birthdays
- Jan 10 Alexander Travis Hawthorn, American Brigadier-General (Confederate Army), born in Conecuh County, Alabama (d. 1899)
- Jan 11 Bayard Taylor, U.S. poet and writer (d. 1878
- Jan 12 Joseph Robert Davis, Brigadier General (Confederate Army), (d. 1896)
- Jan 18 Edward Frankland, Lancaster, U.K, British structural chemist who co-discovered helium and developed the theory of valence
- Jan 21 Imre Madách, Hungarian writer (d. 1864)
- Jan 28 George Edward Pickett, Major General (Confederate Army), (d. 1875)
Famous Deaths
- Jan 4 Ferdinand I, King of Sicily/Naples (Ferdinand IV), dies at 73
Eli Whitney
Jan 8 Eli Whitney, American inventor (Cotton Gin), dies of prostate cancer at 59
Eli Whitney
- Jan 14 George Dance the Younger, English architect (b. 1741)