Events in History
- Jan 1 Massive Chinese/North Korean assault on UN-lines
- Jan 2 Philip Barry's play "Second Threshold," premieres in NYC
- Jan 3 9 Jewish Kremlin physicians "exposed" as British/US agents
- Jan 4 Korean War: Chinese forces recapture Seoul
- Jan 6 Ganghwa massacre: Hundreds of South Korean communist sympathisers are slaughtered
- Jan 8 Thought extinct since 1615, a Cahow (the Bermuda petrel) is rediscovered in Bermuda
- Jan 9 "Life After Tomorrow", 1st film to receive an "X" rating, premieres
- Jan 10 1st jet passenger trip made
- Jan 10 UN headquarters opens in Manhattan NY
- Jan 13 German general Christian Hansen freed early from Dutch prison
- Jan 15 "Cloud of Death" rolls down Mount Lamington, New Guinea kills 3-5,000
- Jan 15 Ilse Koch, also known as "The Bitch of Buchenwald", is sentenced to life imprisonment by a West German court
- Jan 15 Supreme Court rule "clear & present danger" of incitement to riot is not protected speech & can be a cause for arrest
- Jan 16 Viet Minh offensive against Hanoi
- Jan 16 World's largest gas pipeline opens (Brownsville Texas, to 134th St, New York City)
- Jan 17 China refuses ceases-fire in Korea
- Jan 18 1st use of lie detector in the Netherlands
- Jan 18 Hermann Flake sentenced to death due to "hate campaign against GDR"
- Jan 18 Mount Lamington in Papua New Guinea erupts, killing 2,942 people
- Jan 22 Bollingen Prize for poetry awarded to Johncrowe Ransom
- Jan 22 Fidel Castro is ejected from a Winter League baseball game after hitting a batter
- Jan 24 Dutch government Drees-van Schaik resigns
- Jan 27 US begins 126 nuclear tests at Nevada Test Site
- Jan 28 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- Jan 29 Baseball signs 6 year All-Star pact for TV-radio rights for $6 million
- Jan 30 Belgium refuses to allow communists to make speeches on radio
Birthdays in History
- Jan 1 Ashfaq Hussain, Urdu poet
- Jan 1 Frans Kellendonk, author (Ruin, The Good for Nothing)
- Jan 2 Alexander Pogrebinsky, Russian painter
- Jan 3 Frank Chikane, Secretary-General of South African Council of Churches
- Jan 3 Gary Nairn, Australian politician
- Jan 7 Mike Ward, American politician, born in White Plains, New York
- Jan 7 Talgat Musabayev, Kazakh test pilot & cosmonaut (TM-19, TM-27), born in Kargaly, Kazakhstan
- Jan 8 Kenny Anthony, Saint Lucian politician, born in Laborie, Saint Lucia
- Jan 12 Ann Althouse, American law professor, born in Wilmington, Delaware
- Jan 18 Bram Behr, Surinamese journalist, born in Curaçao, Netherlands Antilles (d. 1982)
- Jan 18 Elijah Cummings, American politician (Rep-Maryland (D) 1996-2019), born in Baltimore, Maryland (d. 2019)
- Jan 20 Magomed Omarovich Tolboyev, Russian cosmonaut & test-pilot, born in Sogratl', Russia
Eric Holder (72 years old)
Jan 21 American lawyer and judge (1st African American US Attorney General 2009-2015), born in The Bronx, New York
Chesley Sullenberger (72 years old)
Jan 23 American pilot (successfully executed emergency landing US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River), born in Denison, Texas
Deaths in History
- Jan 2 Sir William Campion, Governor of Western Australia, dies at 80
- Jan 5 Andrei P Platonov, Russian author (Prok, Kotlovan), dies at 51
- Jan 7 Johanna "Nelly" Bodenheim, Dutch illustrator and painter (Luilekkerland), dies at 76
- Jan 7 René Guénon, French-Egyptian author (b. 1886)
- Jan 10 Yoshio Nishina, Japanese physicist (known as the founding father of modern physics research in Japan), dies at 60
- Jan 10 [Harry] Sinclair Lewis, American writer (Nobel Prize in Literature 1930), dies from advanced alcoholism at 65
- Jan 18 Robert Mark, US chairman (Caste World Congress), dies at 41
- Jan 22 Karl Nessler, inventor of the perm (b. 1872)
Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim (1867-1951)
Jan 28 Finnish general and 6th President of Finland (1944-46), dies at 83
Authors
Civil Rights Activists
Inventors
Kings
Revolutionaries
Scientists