Historical Events
- Jan 3 Meiji Restoration returns authority to Japan's emperors
- Jan 4 Wilkie Collins' "The Moonstone" is first serialized in "All the Year Round" owned by Charles Dickins
- Jan 7 Arkansas constitutional convention meets in Little Rock
- Jan 7 Mississippi constitutional convention meets in Jackson
- Jan 14 North Carolina constitutional convention meets in Raleigh
- Jan 14 SC constitutional convention meets with a black majority
- Jan 16 Refrigerator car patented by William Davis, a fish dealer in Detroit
- Jan 20 Florida constitutional convention meets in Tallahassee
Famous Birthdays
- Jan 1 Snitz Edwards, Hungarian actor (College, Phantom of the Opera), born in Budapest, Austria-Hungary (d. 1937)
- Jan 2 Arthur Gore, British tennis player (Wimbledon 1901, 08-09), born at Lydhurst, England (d. 1928)
- Jan 3 Franz V M Cumont, Belgian religious historian
- Jan 6 Vittorio Monti, composer
- Jan 7 Abraham M "Mark" Lidzbarski, Polish/German orientalist
- Jan 8 Frank Dyson, proved Einstein right about light bent by gravity
- Jan 9 S. P. L. Sørensen, Danish chemist (d. 1939)
- Jan 11 Cai Yuanpei, Chinese educator (d. 1940)
- Jan 14 Catharina A M de Savornin Lohman, Dutch author (Belief)
- Jan 15 Noach Zjordanija, Georgian veterinarian/premier (1918-21)
- Jan 16 Cyril Metodej Hrazdira, composer
- Jan 19 Gustav Meyrink, writer
- Jan 23 Juventino Rosas, composer
- Jan 27 Cato Engelen-Sewing, Dutch soprano prima donna (Dutch Opera), born in Amsterdam (d. 1961)
- Jan 28 Frederick Archibald Lamond, composer
- Jan 28 Julian Aguirre, composer
- Jan 31 Theodore William Richards, chemist (atomic weights, Nobel-1914)
Famous Deaths
- Jan 3 Moritz Hauptmann, composer, dies at 75
- Jan 7 William Batchelder Bradbury, American composer, dies at 51
- Jan 14 Heinrich Schenker, Austrian musicologist (Urlinie) know for his Schenkerian analysis of music, dies at 66
- Jan 22 Moritz Ganz, composer, dies at 61
- Jan 28 Adalbert Stifter, Austrian author (Witiko), commits suicide at 62