Historical Events
- Jan 13 British lease Vancouver Island to the Hudson's Bay Company for seven shillings a year, granting them exclusive trading rights
First Woman Earns US Medical Degree
Jan 23 Elizabeth Blackwell becomes 1st woman in the US to earn a medical degree graduating from New York's Geneva Medical College
- Jan 23 US Patent granted for an envelope-making machine to Jesse K. Park and Cornelius S. Watson
- Jan 31 Corn Laws abolished in Britain
Famous Birthdays
- Jan 9 John Hartley, English tennis player (Wimbledon 1879-80), born in Tong, Shropshire (d. 1935)
- Jan 11 Oskar Lassar, German dermatologist (electrophysical therapy, advocated for public bath houses), born in Hamburg (d. 1907)
- Jan 12 Jean Béraud, French Belle Époque painter, born in St. Petersburg, Russia (d. 1935)
Edmund Barton (1849-1920)
Jan 18 Australian politician, statesman, jurist and the 1st Prime Minister of Australia (1901-03), born in Glebe, colony of New South Wales
- Jan 22 August Strindberg 'Father of modern Swedish Literature', Swedish dramatist and novelist (Apologia), born in Stockholm, Sweden (d. 1912)
Famous Deaths
- Jan 6 Hartley Coleridge, English poet, dies at 52
- Jan 9 Jan Kops, Dutch agronomist and botanist (Flora Batava), dies at 83
- Jan 16 Wilhelm Martin Leberecht de Wette, German theologist, dies at 69
- Jan 25 Elias Parish Alvars, British harpist and composer ("Voyage d'un Harpiste en Orient"), dies of pneumonia at 40
- Jan 26 Thomas Lovell Beddoes, English poet (Death's Jest-Book), commits suicide at 45
