- Jan 1 Britain takes Mosquito Coast from Nicaragua
- Jan 3 Joseph Jenkins Roberts is sworn in as the first President of the independent African Republic of Liberia.
- Jan 8 Austrian soldiers kill 10 students, Pavia
- Jan 9 1st commercial bank in San Francisco established
- Jan 9 People's uprising in Palermo, Sicily
- Jan 12 Palermo rising against the Bourbon Kingdom of the Two Sicilies takes place in Sicily
- Jan 24 James Marshall finds gold in Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California
- Jan 28 King of Naples grants his subjects a constitution
- Jan 29 Sicily accepts new Constitution (choose parliament/freedom of press)