Historical Events
- Jan 1 1st football game between black colleges-Atlanta U 10, Tuskegee 0
Event of Interest
Jan 2 The SS Commodore ship Stephen Crane was aboard founders off the Florida coast, an experience he recounts in his short story "The Open Boat"
Brazil's Teatro Amazonas
Jan 7 Teatro Amazonas in Manaus, Brazil, opens with a performance by Italian tenor Enrico Caruso
- Jan 8 Michael Eagan wins 1st US national amateur handball championship
John Gabriel Borkman
Jan 10 Henrik Ibsen's play "John Gabriel Borkman" premieres in Helsingfors
- Jan 10 Ukrainian bacteriologist Wademar Haffkine performs the first human trial for a vaccine for the plague on himself during the Bombay epidemic
Istar
Jan 10 Vincent d'Indy's "Istar" premieres in Amsterdam & Brussels
"My Pedagogic Creed"
Jan 16 American scholar John Dewey's essay "My Pedagogic Creed" appears in School Journal
- Jan 23 Elva Zona Heaster is found dead in Greenbrier County, West Virginia. Resulting murder trial of her husband perhaps only case in US history where the alleged testimony of a ghost helped secure a conviction.
- Jan 26 Battle at Bida Gold Coast: British troops beat Nupe's army
- Jan 27 British troops occupy Bida Gold Coast (Ghana)
Famous Birthdays
- Jan 1 Walter Greaza, American actor (Treasury Man, Martin Kane Private Eye), born in Saint Paul, Minnesota (d. 1973)
- Jan 2 Jim Londos, Greek wrestler (d. 1975)
- Jan 3 Marion Davies [Marion Cecelia Douras], American actress (Operator 13), born in Brooklyn, New York (d. 1961)
- Jan 3 Pola Negri [Apolonia Chalupec], Polish-American stage and silent and sound screen actress (Forbidden Paradise; Madame Bovary), and singer, born in Lipno, Kingdom of Poland, Russian Empire (d. 1987)
- Jan 5 Jack Wagner, American actor (The Razor's Edge, Under Two Flags, Jive Junction), born in Cleveland, Ohio (d. 1965)
- Jan 5 Theo Mackeben, German pianist and composer (Lady Fanny, Bel Ami), born in Starogard Gdański, Poland (d. 1953)
- Jan 6 Billy Greene, American actor (Single Room Furnished, One Man's Family), born in New York City (d. 1973)
- Jan 8 Dennis Wheatley, British author (d. 1977)
- Jan 9 Karl Löwith, German philosopher, born in Munich, Germany (d. 1973)
- Jan 9 Luis Gianneo, Argentine pianist, organist, conductor, composer, and teacher, born in Buenos Aires, Argentina (d. 1968)
- Jan 10 Albert Moeschinger, Swiss composer, born in Basel, Switzerland (d. 1985)
- Jan 10 Sam Chatmon, American Delta blues guitarist, banjo player, and singer (The Mississippi Sheiks), born in Bolton, Mississippi (d. 1983)
- Jan 11 August Heissmeyer, German SS officer (d. 1979)
- Jan 12 Hendrik Valk, Dutch painter, cartoonist and graphic artist (d. 1986)
- Jan 14 Hasso von Manteuffel, German WWII general (5th Panzer Army) and politician, born in Potsdam, Germany (d. 1978)
- Jan 15 Xu Zhimo, Chinese poet (d. 1931)
- Jan 16 Carlos Pellicer, Mexican poet, born in Villahermosa, Tabasco (d. 1977)
- Jan 17 Marcel Petiot, French mass murderer (d. 1946)
- Jan 17 Nils Asther, Swedish actor (Bluebeard, Night Monster), born in Malmö, Sweden (d. 1981)
- Jan 19 Natacha Rambova [Winifred Shaughnessy], American film costume designer, 2nd wife of Rudolph Valentino (1923-25), and Egyptologist, born in Salt Lake City, Utah (d. 1966)
- Jan 21 René Iché, French sculptor (d. 1954)
- Jan 22 "Blind" Willie Johnson, American gospel blues singer and guitarist ("Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground"), born in Pendleton, Texas (d. 1945)
- Jan 22 Josef Stanislav, Czech pianist and composer, born in Hamburg, German Empire (d. 1971)
- Jan 22 Rosa Ponselle [Ponzillo], American soprano opera diva ("Casta Diva"; La Forza del Destino - "Leonora"; Metropolitan Opera, 1918-37), born in Meriden, Connecticut (d. 1986)
- Jan 23 Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, Austrian architect, born in Vienna, Austria (d. 2000)
- Jan 23 Subhas Chandra Bose, Indian politician and nationalist, born in Cuttack, British India (d. 1945)
- Jan 23 William Stephenson, Canadian soldier & spymaster, born in Winnipeg, Canada (d. 1989)
- Jan 28 Valentin Kataev, novelist/playwright (Embezzled), born in Odessa Ukraine (d. 1986)
Famous Deaths
Isaac Pitman (1813-1897)
Jan 12 English teacher and inventor of Pitman shorthand (Stenographic Soundhand), dies at 84
- Jan 29 John E. Smith, American Brevet Major General (Union Army), dies at 80
