- Jan 2 Léon Teisserenc de Bort, French meteorologist (stratosphere), dies at 57
- Jan 4 Alfred von Schlieffen, Prussian general-field marshal, dies at 79
- Jan 6 Frederick Hitch, English Victoria Cross Winner (b. 1856)
- Jan 7 Jack Boyle, American baseball player (b. 1866)
- Jan 13 Thomas P. Krag, Norwegian author and novelist (Jon Graeff, Ulf Ran), dies at 44
- Jan 16 Thaddeus S. C. Lowe, American aeronaut and inventor, dies at 80
- Jan 17 Carl Baermann, German composer, dies at 73
- Jan 18 Edmond Robert Hubert Regout, Dutch industrialist and politician, dies at 49
- Jan 19 David Emlyn Evans, British composer, dies at 69
- Jan 22 Ferdinand van der Haeghen, Flemish librarian/bibliographer, dies at 82
- Jan 22 Tokugawa Yoshinobu, 15th and last shōgun of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan, dies at 75
- Jan 23 Nazim Pasha, Turkey's PM, assassinated
- Jan 24 Gustav Luders, German-American composer, dies at 47