Historical Events
- Jan 1 1st recorded bowling match in US, Knickerbocker Alleys, NYC
- Jan 3 1st deep sea sounding by James Clark Ross in south Atlantic at 2425 fathoms (14,450 feet)
- Jan 5 Records show 95,820 licensed public houses in England on this date
- Jan 10 Uniform Penny Post mail system starts throughout the United Kingdom
- Jan 13 The steamship Lexington burns and sinks four miles off the coast of Long Island with the loss of 139 lives
- Jan 18 The Electro-Magnet, and Mechanics Intelligencer, 1st US electrical journal, appears
- Jan 20 Dumont D'Urville discovers Adélie Land, Antarctica
- Jan 20 Dutch King Willem II crowned
- Jan 22 New Zealand Company settlers arrive aboard the Aurora at Te Whanganui a Tara, which becomes Port Nicholson, Wellington
Historic Expedition
Jan 25 American naval expedition under Charles Wilkes is first to identify Antarctica as a new continent
Treaty of Waitangi
Jan 29 First Governor of New Zealand and co-author of the Treaty of Waitangi Captain William Hobson arrives in the Bay of Islands, NZ
Famous Birthdays
- Jan 3 Father Joseph Damien de Veuster, Belgian helped lepers in Hawaii
- Jan 5 John Doby Kennedy, Brigadier General (Confederate Army), born in Camden, South Carolina (d. 1896)
- Jan 10 Louis Nazaire Bégin, French Canadian archbishop and cardinal, born in Lévis, Canada (d. 1925)
- Jan 18 Austin Dobson, English poet, critic and biographer, born in Plymouth, England (d. 1921)
- Jan 18 Ernst Rudorff, German pianist, composer, and teacher, born in Berlin, Germany (d. 1916)
- Jan 21 Sophia Louisa Jex-Blake, Hastings, English Physician and feminist who was one of the first female medical students at a British university
- Jan 22 Ernest Roland Wilberforce, English bishop (d. 1907)
- Jan 23 Ernst Abbe, German physicist & optical scientist (Carl Zeiss Optics Company), born in Eisenach, Germany (d. 1905)
