Historical Events
- Jan 6 Patent for reducing zinc ore granted to Samuel Wetherill, Penn
- Jan 8 Dion Boucicauly's "Poor of NY" premieres in NYC
- Jan 9 7.9 earthquake shakes Fort Tejon, California
- Jan 15 1st first-class game in Sydney, NSW v Vic at The Domain
- Jan 22 National Association of Baseball Players founded in New York
- Jan 24 University of Calcutta founded as the first full-fledged university in South Asia
- Jan 26 Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville delivers his design for a phonautograph, which created visual images of sound, to the French Academy
Famous Birthdays
- Jan 2 Frederick Opper, cartoonist (Maud, Alphonse & Gaston)
- Jan 2 Martha Carey Thomas, American educator, suffragist, linguist and second President of Bryn Mawr College, born in Baltimore, Maryland (d. 1935)
- Jan 6 Hugh Mahon, Irish-born Australian politician, born in Killurin, Republic of Ireland (d. 1931)
- Jan 6 William E. Russell, 37th Governor of Massachusetts, born in Cambridge, Massachusetts (d. 1896)
- Jan 9 Henry B Fuller, American writer (Under the Skylights)
- Jan 11 Fred[erick J] Archer, English jockey (won 5 Derbys)
- Jan 14 Alice Pike Barney, American painter, born in Cincinnati, Ohio (d. 1931)
- Jan 17 Eugene Augustin Lauste, developer (1st sound-on-film recording)
- Jan 17 Wilhelm Kienzl, Austrian composer (Evangelimann)
- Jan 18 Otto von Below, German commandant (WWI)
- Jan 23 Andrija Mohorovicic, Croatian meteorologist & seismologist (Moho discontinuity), born in Opatija, Croatia (d. 1936)
- Jan 26 Trinley Gyatso, 12th Dalai Lama, born in Tibet (d. 1875)
- Jan 31 George Jackson Churchward, Great Western Railway Chief mechanical engineer. (d. 1933)
Famous Weddings
Wedding of Interest
Jan 10 Novelist Jules Verne (28) weds Honorine de Viane Morel
Jules Verne