Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/January
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Selected anniversaries/On this day archive
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| An archive of historical anniversaries that appeared on the Main Page 2008 day arrangement |
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- 1801 – Italian astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi (pictured) discovered the dwarf planet Ceres, naming it after the Roman goddess of growing plants.
- 1801 – The Kingdom of Ireland formally merged with the Kingdom of Great Britain, adding St. Patrick's saltire to the Union Flag.
- 1808 – As a result of the lobbying efforts by the Abolitionist Movement, the importation of slaves into the United States was officially banned.
- 1901 – The British colonies of New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, and Western Australia federated as the Commonwealth of Australia.
- 1995 – The World Trade Organization, the international organization designed to supervise and liberalize international trade, came into being to replace the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.
More events: December 31 – January 1 – January 2
- 366 – The Alamanni, an alliance of west Germanic tribes, crossed the frozen Rhine in large numbers to invade the Roman Empire.
- 533 – Mercurius became Pope John II, the first pope to adopt a regnal name upon elevation to the papacy.
- 1492 – The Reconquista: The Catholic Monarchs, Queen Isabella I of Castile and King Ferdinand II of Aragon, expelled Abu 'abd-Allah Muhammad XII of Granada, the last of the Moorish rulers, from the Iberian Peninsula.
- 1942 – In the largest espionage case in United States history, 33 members of a German spy ring led by former South African Boer soldier and adventurer Fritz Joubert Duquesne (pictured) were convicted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
- 1959 – The Soviet spacecraft Luna 1 (illustrated by model), the first spacecraft to reach the vicinity of the Moon, was launched by the Vostok rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome near Tyuratam, Kazakh SSR.
More events: January 1 – January 2 – January 3
January 3: Perihelion (00:00 UTC, 2008)
- 1521 – Pope Leo X (pictured) issued the papal bull Decet Romanum Pontificem, excommunicating Martin Luther from the Roman Catholic Church after Luther refused to retract 41 of his 95 theses.
- 1749 – Benning Wentworth, Governor of the New Hampshire Colony, began to issue the New Hampshire Grants on land which was also claimed by New York, and is now Vermont.
- 1958 – Ten former British colonies in the Caribbean joined to form a new self-governing West Indies Federation.
- 1959 – The History of Alaska: The Alaska Territory, an organized incorporated territory of the United States, became the 49th state of the union, and the first U.S. state outside of the 48 contiguous states.
- 1990 – United States invasion of Panama: General Manuel Noriega, the deposed "strongman of Panama", surrendered to American forces.
More events: January 2 – January 3 – January 4
- 1698 – Most of the Palace of Whitehall in London, the main residence of the English monarchs dating from 1530, was destroyed by fire.
- 1884 – The Fabian Society, an intellectual movement whose purpose is to advance the socialist cause by gradualist and reformist methods rather than revolutionary means, was founded in London.
- 1936 – Billboard magazine published its first music hit parade.
- 1948 – Burma achieved independence from the British Empire, with U Nu of the Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League as its first Prime Minister.
- 2004 – The NASA Mars Rover Spirit (artist's concept pictured) landed successfully on Mars at 04:35 Ground UTC.
- 2007 – Nancy Pelosi became Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, becoming the highest-ranking woman in the history of the U.S. Government.
More events: January 3 – January 4 – January 5
January 5: Twelfth Night (Western Christianity)
- 1477 – Burgundian Wars: Charles the Bold (pictured), the Duke of Burgundy, died at the Battle of Nancy, eventually leading to the partition of Burgundy between France and the House of Habsburg.
- 1527 – Felix Manz, co-founder of the original Swiss Brethren Anabaptist congregation in Zürich, was executed by drowning, becoming one of the first martyrs of the Radical Reformation.
- 1968 – The Prague Spring: Alexander Dubček came to power in Czechoslovakia, beginning a political reform known as "Socialism with a human face" that introduced a period of political liberalization that still enabled the Communist Party to maintain real power.
- 2005 – Eris, the largest known dwarf planet in the Solar System, was discovered by a team led by Michael E. Brown using images originally taken on October 21, 2003 at the Palomar Observatory in San Diego County, California, USA.
More events: January 4 – January 5 – January 6
January 6: Tenth of Tevet (Judaism, 2009); Epiphany in Western Christianity
- 1661 – Thomas Venner and the Fifth Monarchists unsuccessfully attempted to seize control of London from the newly restored government of Charles II.
- 1781 – At the Battle of Jersey, British forces stopped France's last attempt to militarily invade Jersey, the largest of the Channel Islands in the English Channel.
- 1838 – Samuel Morse and his assistant Alfred Vail successfully tested the electrical telegraph for the first time at Speedwell Ironworks in Morristown, New Jersey, USA.
- 1907 – Italian educator Maria Montessori (pictured) opened her first school and day care center for working class children in Rome.
- 1995 – A suspicious fire in a Manila flat led to the foiling of the Bojinka Plot, a precursor to the September 11, 2001 attacks.
More events: January 5 – January 6 – January 7
January 7: Christmas (Christianity-Julian calendar)
- 1558 – Francis, Duke of Guise (pictured) retook Calais, England's last continental possession, for France.
- 1610 – Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei first observed three of Jupiter's natural satellites through his telescope: Io, Europa, and Callisto
- 1785 – Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American John Jeffries became the first to cross the English Channel by balloon.
- 1924 – The International Hockey Federation, the global governing body for field hockey, was founded in Paris in response to the sport's omission from the 1924 Summer Olympics.
- 1979 – Phnom Penh, Cambodia fell to the People's Army of Vietnam, effectively ending the Khmer Rouge regime under Pol Pot.
More events: January 6 – January 7 – January 8
- 1815 – War of 1812: American forces led by General Andrew Jackson defeated the British army at the Battle of New Orleans near New Orleans, two weeks after the United States and Great Britain signed the Treaty of Ghent to end the war.
- 1889 – Statistician Herman Hollerith received a patent for his electric tabulating machine.
- 1956 – Operation Auca: Five Evangelical Christian missionaries from the United States were killed by the Huaorani in the rainforest of Ecuador shortly after making contact with them.
- 1989 – Kegworth air disaster: British Midland Flight 092 crashed onto the embankment of the M1 motorway near Kegworth, Leicestershire, UK, killing 47 people and injuring 79 others.
- 2004 – RMS Queen Mary 2 (pictured), at the time the longest, widest and tallest passenger ship ever built, was christened by her namesake's granddaughter, Queen Elizabeth II.
More events: January 7 – January 8 – January 9
January 9: Martyrs' Day in Panama
- 1839 – The French Academy of Sciences announced the Daguerreotype photographic process, named after its inventor, French artist and chemist Louis Daguerre.
- 1861 – The civilian ship Star of the West was fired upon as it attempted to send supplies and reinforcements to Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor before the American Civil War.
- 1878 – Umberto I became King of Italy.
- 1916 – World War I: The last British troops evacuated from Gallipoli, as the Ottoman Empire prevailed over of a joint British and French operation to capture Istanbul at the Battle of Gallipoli.
- 1923 – The autogyro (pictured), a type of rotorcraft invented by civil engineer and pilot Juan de la Cierva, made its first successful flight at Cuatro Vientos Airfield in Madrid, Spain.
- 1972 – RMS Queen Elizabeth, an ocean liner which sailed the Atlantic Ocean for the Cunard White Star Line, was destroyed by fire in Victoria Harbour, Hong Kong.
- 2005 – Mahmoud Abbas was elected President of the Palestinian National Authority to replace Yasser Arafat, who died in 2004.
More events: January 8 – January 9 – January 10
January 10: The Remembrance of Muharram in Shi'a Islam begins (2008, A.H. 1429)
- 1475 – Moldavian-Ottoman Wars: At the Battle of Vaslui near Vaslui in present-day Romania, Stephen the Great and his Moldavian forces successfully repelled an Ottoman attack led by Hadân Suleiman Pasha, the Beylerbeyi of Rumelia.
- 1776 – Common Sense by English pamphleteer and revolutionary Thomas Paine (pictured), a document denouncing British rule which contributed to stimulating the American Revolution among the populace of the Thirteen Colonies, was published.
- 1863 – Service began on the Metropolitan Railway between Paddington and Farringdon Street, now the oldest segment of the London Underground.
- 1929 – The Adventures of Tintin, a series of comic books created by Belgian artist Hergé that has been sold in over 50 languages and more than 200 million copies to date, first appeared in a children's supplement to the Belgian newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle.
- 1946 – The first session of the United Nations General Assembly convened at the Westminster Central Hall in London with representatives from fifty-one member states.
More events: January 9 – January 10 – January 11
- 1787 – German-born British astronomer and composer William Herschel (pictured) discovered the Uranian moons Oberon and Titania. They were later named by his son John after the King and the Queen of the Faeries from William Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream, respectively.
- 1922 – Insulin was first administered to a human patient with diabetes at the Toronto General Hospital in Toronto, Canada.
- 1923 – Troops from France and Belgium invaded the Ruhr Area to force the German Weimar Republic to pay its reparation payments in the aftermath of World War I.
- 1964 – In a landmark report, U.S. Surgeon General Luther Leonidas Terry issued the warning that smoking may be hazardous for one's health, concluding that it has a causative role in lung cancer, chronic bronchitis, emphysema, and other illnesses.
- 1986 – The Gateway Bridge in Brisbane, Australia, at the time the longest prestressed concrete free cantilever bridge in the world, opened.
More events: January 10 – January 11 – January 12
- 1838 – In order to avoid anti-Mormon persecution, Latter Day Saint movement founder Joseph Smith, Jr. and his followers fled Kirtland, Ohio for Far West, Missouri.
- 1872 – Yohannes IV (pictured) was crowned Emperor of Ethiopia in Axum, the first imperial coronation in that city in over 200 years.
- 1967 – Seventy-three-year-old psychology professor James Bedford became the first person to be cryonically frozen with intent of future resuscitation.
- 1970 – The self-proclaimed Republic of Biafra in southeastern Nigeria capitulated, ending the Nigerian Civil War.
- 1971 – The American situation comedy All in the Family, starring Carroll O'Connor as reactionary, bigoted, blue-collar worker Archie Bunker, was first broadcast on the CBS television network. The show broke ground in its depiction of issues previously deemed unsuitable for U.S. network television comedy.
More events: January 11 – January 12 – January 13
January 13: St. Knut's Day (Christianity-Scandinavia), Old New Year (unofficial Eastern Orthodox Church tradition)
- 1842 – When he reached the safety of a garrison in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, William Brydon, an assistant surgeon in the British Army during the First Anglo-Afghan War, became the sole European survivor of a party of over 4,500 military personnel and over 10,000 civilian camp followers retreating from Kabul, excluding a few prisoners released later.
- 1898 – The Paris newspaper L'Aurore published "J'accuse...!", an open letter by French writer Émile Zola (pictured) to French President Félix Faure exposing the Dreyfus affair.
- 1968 – American singer Johnny Cash recorded his landmark album At Folsom Prison live at Folsom State Prison in Folsom, California.
- 1986 – A month-long violent struggle began in Aden, South Yemen between supporters of President Ali Nasir Muhammad and his predecessor Abdul Fattah Ismail, resulting in thousands of casualties.
- 1991 – The January Events: Soviet troops attacked Lithuanian independence supporters at the TV Tower in Vilnius, killing 14 people.
More events: January 12 – January 13 – January 14
January 14: Coming-of-Age Day in Japan (2008); Makar Sankranti in India
- 1301 – The Árpád dynasty, who ruled in Hungary since the late 9th century, ended with the death of King Andrew III.
- 1724 – Philip V, the first Bourbon ruler of Spain, abdicated the throne to his eldest son Louis.
- 1761 – The Afghans led by Ahmad Shah Abdali defeated the French-supplied and trained Maratha troops at the Third Battle of Panipat in Panipat, present-day Haryana, India.
- 1814 – Sweden and Denmark–Norway signed the Treaty of Kiel, whereby Frederick VI of Denmark (pictured), a loser in the Napoleonic Wars, ceded Norway to Sweden in return for the Swedish holdings in Pomerania.
- 1939 – Norway claimed Queen Maud Land in Antarctica as a dependent territory.
- 1952 – Today, the world's first morning/breakfast television show, debuted on the American television network NBC.
- 2004 – The national flag of Georgia, the so-called Five Cross Flag, was restored to official use after a hiatus of some 500 years.
More events: January 13 – January 14 – January 15
January 15: Pongal (Tamils, 2008); John Chilembwe Day in Malawi; Korean Alphabet Day in North Korea
- 1759 – The British Museum (pictured) in London, today containing one of the largest and most comprehensive collections in the world, opened to the public in Montagu House, Bloomsbury.
- 1885 – American photographer Wilson Bentley took the first known photograph of a snowflake by attaching a bellows camera to a microscope.
- 1908 – Alpha Kappa Alpha, the first Greek-lettered sorority established by African American women, was founded at Howard University in Washington, D.C. by nine students.
- 1919 – Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, two prominent socialists in Germany, were tortured and murdered by the Freikorps.
- 1943 – The highest-capacity office building in the world, the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense known as the Pentagon, was dedicated.
- 1993 – Salvatore "The Beast" Riina, one of the most powerful members of the Sicilian Mafia, was arrested after three decades as a fugitive.
More events: January 14 – January 15 – January 16
January 16: Teachers' Day in Thailand
- 27 BC – Gaius Octavianus (pictured) was given the title Augustus by the Roman Senate.
- 929 – Emir Abd-ar-Rahman III of Cordoba declared himself caliph, thereby establishing the Caliphate of Córdoba.
- 1129 – The Council of Nablus was held, establishing the earliest surviving written laws of the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem.
- 1809 – Peninsular War: French forces under Nicolas Jean de Dieu Soult attacked the amphibious evacuation of the British under Sir John Moore at the Battle of Corunna in Corunna, Galicia, Spain.
- 1909 – The Nimrod Expedition led by Anglo-Irish explorer Ernest Shackleton reached the approximate location of the South Magnetic Pole.
- 1969 – Student Jan Palach set himself on fire in Wenceslas Square in Prague to protest the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia one year earlier. He died three days later from the third-degree burns he suffered.
- 1986 – The Internet Engineering Task Force, a standards organization that develops and promotes Internet standards, held its first meeting, consisting of twenty-one United States-government-funded researchers.
- 2006 – Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf was sworn in as President of Liberia, becoming Africa's first female elected head of state.
More events: January 15 – January 16 – January 17
- 1885 – Mahdist War: British troops defeated Mahdist Sudanese forces at the Battle of Abu Klea in Khartoum, Sudan.
- 1899 – The United States took possession of Wake Island in the Pacific Ocean.
- 1929 – Popeye the Sailor, a cartoon character created by E. C. Segar, first appeared in his newspaper comic strip Thimble Theater.
- 1946 – The United Nations Security Council (chamber pictured), the organ of the United Nations charged with the maintenance of international peace and security, held its first meeting at Church House in London.
- 1966 – The Palomares hydrogen bombs incident: A U.S. Air Force B-52 Stratofortress collided with a KC-135 Stratotanker during aerial refueling over the Mediterranean Sea, dropping three hydrogen bombs near the town of Palomares, Spain, and another one into the sea.
- 1995 – The Great Hanshin Earthquake struck near Kobe, Japan, killing over 6,000 people and causing over ¥10 trillion (US$200 billion) worth of damage.
More events: January 16 – January 17 – January 18
January 18: The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity begins
- 1535 – Conquistador Francisco Pizarro founded Ciudad de los Reyes, present-day Lima, Peru, as the capital of the lands he conquered for the Spanish Crown.
- 1778 – English explorer James Cook became the first known European to reach the Sandwich Islands, now known as the Hawaiian Islands.
- 1871 – Unification of Germany: A number of independent German states unified into the German Empire, with King Wilhelm I of Prussia (pictured) being proclaimed as its first Emperor.
- 1977 – The mysterious Legionnaires' disease was found to be caused by a novel bacterium now known as Legionella.
- 2003 – The 2003 Canberra bushfires: Bushfires burning out of control began blazing through residential areas of Canberra, Australia, eventually killing four people, and damaging or destroying more than 500 homes.
More events: January 17 – January 18 – January 19
January 19: Ashura in Islam (2008)
- 1764 – English radical and politician John Wilkes was expelled from the British Parliament and declared an outlaw for seditious libel.
- 1817 – An army of over 5,400 soldiers led by General José de San Martín (pictured) crossed the Andes from Argentina to liberate Chile and then Peru from Spanish rule.
- 1839 – The Royal Marines landed at Aden to occupy the territory and stop attacks by pirates against the British East India Company's shipping to India. The city in present-day Yemen remained under British control until 1967.
- 1935 – In Chicago, Coopers Inc. sold the world's first briefs, a new style of men's undergarment.
- 1977 – Iva Toguri, allegedly a Tokyo Rose, a generic name given by Allied forces during World War II to approximately twenty English-speaking female broadcasters of Japanese propaganda, was granted a full pardon by U.S. President Gerald Ford.
More events: January 18 – January 19 – January 20
- 1320 – After reuniting Poland, Władysław the Short (sarcophagus figure pictured) was crowned king in Kraków.
- 1885 – LaMarcus Adna Thompson, sometimes called the "Father of Gravity", patented the roller coaster.
- 1921 – The first Turkish Constitution was ratified by the Grand National Assembly, making fundamental changes in Turkey by enshrining the principle of national sovereignty.
- 1942 – World War II: At the Wannsee Conference held in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee, senior Nazi German officials decided the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question", accelerating The Holocaust.
- 1990 – Black January: The Soviet Red Army violently cracked down on Azeri pro-independence demonstrations in Baku, Azerbaijan SSR.
More events: January 19 – January 20 – January 21
January 21: Martin Luther King Day in the United States (2008)
- 304 – Saint Agnes was executed for refusing the prefect Sempronius' wish for her to marry his son. She is today the patron saint of girls, chastity, virgins, and others.
- 1525 – The Anabaptist Movement was born when founders Conrad Grebel, Felix Manz, and George Blaurock re-baptized each other and other followers in Zürich, Switzerland, believing that the Christian religious practice of infant baptism is invalid because a child cannot commit to a religious faith.
- 1793 – French Revolution: After being found guilty of treason by the National Convention, King Louis XVI (pictured) was guillotined in front of a cheering crowd at the Place de la Révolution in Paris.
- 1919 – The First Dáil Éireann first convened at the Mansion House in Dublin, adopting a Declaration of Independence calling for a new sovereign state: the Irish Republic.
- 1968 – Vietnam War: The Vietnam People's Army attacked Khe Sanh Combat Base, a U.S. Marines outpost in Quang Tri Province, South Vietnam, starting the Battle of Khe Sanh.
More events: January 20 – January 21 – January 22
January 22: Tu Bishvat (Judaism, 2008)
- 565 – Justinian the Great deposed Eutychius, Patriarch of Constantinople, after he refused the Byzantine Emperor's order to adopt the tenets of the Aphthartodocetae, a sect of Monophysites.
- 1863 – The January Uprising, the longest Polish, Belarusian and Lithuanian uprising against the Russian Empire, broke out, originally as a spontaneous protest by young Poles against conscription into the Russian Army.
- 1879 – Anglo-Zulu War: In the greatest British military defeat at the hands of native forces in history, Zulu forces of King Cetshwayo (pictured) fought to a pyrrhic victory at the Battle of Isandlwana in Isandlwana, South Africa.
- 1901 – After holding the title Prince of Wales for six decades, King Edward VII ascended to the British throne, replacing Queen Victoria whose death ended her reign that lasted 63 years and seven months, longer than any other British monarch.
- 1973 – The U.S. Supreme Court delivered its landmark legal decision in Roe v. Wade, striking down laws restricting abortion during the first six to seven months of pregnancy.
More events: January 21 – January 22 – January 23
- 1368 – Zhu Yuanzhang ascended to the throne of China as the Hongwu Emperor, initiating Ming Dynasty rule over China that would last for three centuries.
- 1656 – Under the pseudonym Louis de Montalte, French mathematician, physicist, and religious philosopher Blaise Pascal (pictured) published the first of his Lettres provinciales, attacking the Jesuits and their use of casuistic reasoning.
- 1912 – Twelve nations signed the International Opium Convention, the first international drug control treaty, to regulate the production and distribution of opiates.
- 1968 – USS Pueblo was seized by North Korean forces, who claimed that it had violated their territorial waters while spying.
- 2001 – Tiananmen Square self-immolation incident: Seven people attempted to set themselves on fire in Tiananmen Square on the eve of Chinese New Year, an act that many people claim was staged by the Communist Party of China to frame Falun Gong and escalate the persecution.
More events: January 22 – January 23 – January 24
- 41 – Roman Emperor Caligula (pictured) was brutally murdered by Cassius Chaerea and the disgruntled Praetorian Guards. Caligula's uncle Claudius was proclaimed emperor in his place.
- 1639 – The Fundamental Orders, the first written constitution in North American history, was adopted in Connecticut.
- 1848 – James W. Marshall discovered gold at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California, leading to the California Gold Rush.
- 1857 – The University of Calcutta, the first modern university in the Indian subcontinent, was established in Calcutta, India.
- 1984 – The first Apple Macintosh, today known as the Macintosh 128K, went on sale, becoming the first commercially successful personal computer to feature a mouse and a graphical user interface rather than a command line interface.
More events: January 23 – January 24 – January 25
January 25: Burns Night (Scots culture)
- 1327 – Fourteen-year old Edward III became King of England, but the country was ruled by his mother Queen Isabella and her lover Roger Mortimer.
- 1554 – Jesuit missionaries José de Anchieta (pictured) and Manoel da Nóbrega established a mission at São Paulo dos Campos de Piratininga, which grew to become São Paulo, Brazil.
- 1924 – The first Winter Olympic Games opened at the foot of Mont Blanc in Chamonix, Haute-Savoie, France.
- 1971 – General Idi Amin Dada seized power in a military coup d'état from President Milton Obote, beginning eight years of military rule in Uganda.
- 1993 – Five people were shot outside the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Langley, Virginia, USA, resulting in two deaths.
More events: January 24 – January 25 – January 26
January 26: Australia Day in Australia (1788); Republic Day in India (1950)
- 1500 – Spanish navigator, explorer, and conquistador Vicente Yáñez Pinzón reached the north coast of what today is Brazil.
- 1788 – The British First Fleet, led by Captain Arthur Phillip (pictured), landed at Sydney Cove, establishing the first permanent European settlement in Australia.
- 1905 – The Cullinan Diamond, the largest rough gem-quality diamond ever found, was discovered at the Premier Mine in Cullinan, Gauteng, South Africa.
- 1950 – Indian independence movement: India officially became a republic under a new constitution, with Rajendra Prasad as its first president.
- 1983 – The spreadsheet program Lotus 1-2-3, the IBM Personal Computer's first "killer application", was first released.
More events: January 25 – January 26 – January 27
January 27: International Holocaust Remembrance Day
- 1343 – Pope Clement VI issued the papal bull Unigenitus to justify the power of the pope and the use of indulgences.
- 1888 – Two weeks after a group of over thirty explorers and scientists met in Washington, D.C. to organize "a society for the increase and diffusion of geographical knowledge," the National Geographic Society, publisher of the National Geographic Magazine, was incorporated.
- 1945 – The Soviet Red Army liberated over 7,500 prisoners left behind by Nazi personnel in the Auschwitz concentration camp (entrance pictured) in Oświęcim, Poland.
- 1967 – The Apollo 1 spacecraft was destroyed by fire at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, killing astronauts Gus Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee.
- 1973 – The Paris Peace Accords were signed in Paris, temporarily ending the Vietnam War with a ceasefire. North Vietnam would violate the treaty one year later when it attacked South Vietnam on December 13, 1974.
More events: January 26 – January 27 – January 28
- 1077 – Walk to Canossa: Pope Gregory VII lifted the excommunication of Henry IV after the Holy Roman Emperor made his trek from Speyer to Canossa Castle to beg the pope for forgiveness for his actions in the Investiture Controversy.
- 1573 – The Warsaw Confederation was signed, sanctioning religious freedom in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
- 1820 – A Russian expedition led by naval officers Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen and Mikhail Petrovich Lazarev approached the coast of Antarctica.
- 1855 – A train on the Panama Railway made the world's first transcontinental crossing, a 48-mile (77 km) trip from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean across the Isthmus of Panama.
- 1986 – The NASA Space Shuttle Challenger disintegrated (pictured) 73 seconds into its tenth mission, killing all seven crew members.
More events: January 27 – January 28 – January 29
- 904 – Sergius III came out of retirement to take over the papacy from the deposed antipope Christopher.
- 1850 – U.S. Senator Henry Clay introduced the Compromise of 1850, a series of laws designed to balance the interests between the slaveholding Southern United States and the free states of the north.
- 1856 – The Victoria Cross was created, originally to recognise acts of valour by British and Commonwealth military personnel during the Crimean War.
- 1886 – German engine designer and engineer Karl Benz filed a patent for the Motorwagen (replica pictured), the first purpose-built, gasoline-driven automobile.
- 2002 – In his State of the Union Address, U.S. President George W. Bush described governments that he accused of sponsoring terrorism and seeking weapons of mass destruction as an "axis of evil", specifically naming Iran, Iraq and North Korea.
More events: January 28 – January 29 – January 30
- 1649 – English Civil War: King Charles I was beheaded for high treason in front of the Banqueting House in London.
- 1826 – The Menai Suspension Bridge connecting the island of Anglesey and the mainland of Wales, one of the world's first modern suspension bridges, opened.
- 1930 – The world's first radiosonde, a device attached to weather balloons to measure various atmospheric parameters, was launched by meteorologist Pavel Molchanov in Pavlovsk, USSR.
- 1948 – Nathuram Godse shot Mahatma Gandhi (pictured), political and spiritual leader of India and the Indian independence movement, to death at Birla House in Delhi.
- 1968 – Vietnam War: Forces of the Viet Cong and the Vietnam People's Army launched the Tết Offensive on Tết (Vietnamese New Year's Day) to strike military and civilian command and control centers throughout South Vietnam.
More events: January 29 – January 30 – January 31
January 31: Independence Day in Nauru (1968); Fat Thursday (2008)
- 1606 – Explosives expert Guy Fawkes and several others were hanged, drawn and quartered for their involvement in the Gunpowder Plot, an attempt to destroy the Houses of Parliament in London during the State Opening.
- 1747 – The London Lock Hospital, the first clinic specialising in the treatment of venereal diseases, opened.
- 1917 – World War I: Germany announced its U-boats would resume unrestricted submarine warfare, less than two years after suspending its attacks when the United States protested about the sinking of the ocean liner RMS Lusitania.
- 1953 – The North Sea flood and its associated storm hit the coastlines of several European countries along the North Sea, killing more than 2,000 people.
- 1961 – Aboard NASA's Mercury-Redstone 2, Ham the Chimp (pictured) became the first hominid launched into outer space.
More events: January 30 – January 31 – February 1
Selected anniversaries/On this day archive
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