- Jan 1 1st practical fire engine (horse-drawn) in US enters service
- Jan 3 Solomon Northup, author of the memoir "Twelve Years a Slave, is freed after 7 illegal years in slavery with aid of Washington Hunt, Governor of New York
Historic Event
Jan 6 Franklin Pierce, the President-elect of the United States at the time, and his family are involved in a train wreck in Massachusetts
Music Premiere
Jan 19 Giuseppe Verdi's opera "Il Trovatore" premieres in Rome
Historic Event
Jan 23 John Wilkes Booth is baptized at St. Timothy's Protestant Episcopal Church
- Jan 27 US whaling and sealing vessel the Levant captained by Mercator Cooper, makes the first known landing on mainland Antarctica at Oates Coast, Victoria land