Historical Events
- Jan 9 Clipper "Guiding Star" disappears in Atlantic, 480 dead
- Jan 23 1st bridge over the Mississippi River in what is now Minneapolis, Minnesota, opens; today made by the Father Louis Hennepin Bridge
- Jan 28 The first locomotive runs from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean on the Panama Railway
- Jan 31 Government of Lord Aberdeen in the United Kingdom falls, following heavy scrutiny of the Crimean War
- Jan 31 Treaty of Neah Bay: Makah Reservation established in US Territory of Washington for Makah nation, preserving tribal rights but ceding over 300,000 acres to the US government [1]
- Jan 31 Western railroads blocked by snow
Famous Birthdays
King C. Gillette (1855-1932)
Jan 5 American businessman and inventor of inexpensive and disposable safety razor blades, born in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin
- Jan 10 Peter J. Blok, Dutch historian (History of the Dutch People) (d. 1929)
- Jan 15 Jacques Damala [Aristides Damalas], Greek military officer and actor, born in Piraeus, Greece (d. 1889)
- Jan 20 Ernest Chausson, French Romantic composer (Poème; Solitude dance le bois), born in Paris, France (d. 1899)
- Jan 22 Albert Neisser, German physician who discovered the bacteria that cause gonorrhea and leprosy, born in Schweidnitz, Prussian Empire (d. 1916)
- Jan 22 Ernst Kullak, German pianist, and composer of parlor music, born in Berlin, Kingdom of Prussia (d. 1914)
- Jan 23 John Moses Browning, American weapons manufacturer, born in Ogden, Utah Territory (d. 1926)
- Jan 26 Arthur Hervey, Irish orchestral and operatic composer, and musicologist, born in Paris, France (d. 1922)
- Jan 28 William Seward Burroughs, American inventor of the 1st workable adding machine, born in rural New York (d. 1898)
Famous Deaths
- Jan 6 Giacomo Beltrami, Italian explorer (b. 1779)
- Jan 8 Diponegoro, Javanese prince who opposed Dutch colonial rule and Indonesian national hero, dies at 69
- Jan 10 Mary Russell Mitford, English playwright and poet (Julian), dies at 67
- Jan 25 Dorothy Wordsworth, English poet, diarist and sister of William Wordsworth, dies at 83
- Jan 26 Gérard de Nerval, French writer (b. 1808)
