Historical Events
- Jan 1 1st running of San Francisco's famed "Bay to Breakers" footrace (7.63 miles/12.3 km); first winner Robert Vlught 44:10
Republic Of China
Jan 1 Sun Yat-sen forms the Republic of China
- Jan 2 Brookyln Superbas Baseball Club President Charles Ebbets announces purchase of 4.5 acres of land to build a new concrete-and-steel stadium to seat 23,000; Ebbets Field opens in 1913
Australasia Win
Jan 2 International Lawn Tennis Challenge, Christchurch, NZ: Norman Brookes & Alfred Dunlop beat Americans Maurice McLoughlin & Beals Wright 6-4, 5-7, 7-5, 6-4; Australasia unassailable 3-0 lead; win 4-0
Liberty Bell
Jan 3 Southern Pacific Railroad offers to bring the Liberty Bell to the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco for free
Continental Drift Theory Presented
Jan 6 Geophysicist and meteorologist Alfred Wegener presents his controversial theory of continental drift in a lecture at the Geological Association (Geologischen Vereinigung) at the Senckenberg-Museum, Frankfurt
- Jan 6 New Mexico becomes 47th state of the Union
- Jan 8 Chiefs, representatives of people's and church organizations, and other prominent individuals form the African National Congress and declare its aim to bring all Africans together as one people to defend their rights and freedoms
- Jan 9 US Marines send troops to Honduras
- Jan 10 Caillaux government in France resigns
- Jan 10 World's 1st flying boat's maiden flight, (Glenn Curtiss in NY)
- Jan 11 Bread & Roses Strike begins in Lawrence, Massachusetts following a pay cut
- Jan 12 -47°F (-44°C), Washta, Iowa (state record)
- Jan 13 -40°F (-40°C), Oakland, Maryland (state record)
Raymond Poincaré PM
Jan 14 Raymond Poincaré becomes Prime Minister of France for the first time
Scott Reaches the Pole
Jan 17 Captain Robert Scott's expedition arrives at the South Pole, one month after Roald Amundsen
Famous Birthdays
- Jan 1 Boris Vladimirovich Gnedenko, Russian mathematician (d. 1995)
Kim Philby (1912-1988)
Jan 1 British spy and Soviet mole who was a member of the "Cambridge Five", born in Ambala, Punjab, India
- Jan 1 Victor Reuther, American labor leader (United Automobile Workers union), born in Wheeling, West Virginia (d. 2004) [1]
- Jan 2 André Amellér, French double bassist (Paris Opéra, 1937-53), conductor, composer, and educator (École Nationale de Musique - Dijon, 1953-81), born in Arnaville, France (d. 1990)
- Jan 2 Barbara Pentland, Canadian concert pianist and composer, born in Winnipeg, Manitoba (d. 2000)
- Jan 3 Armand Lohikoski, Finnish director (d. 2005)
- Jan 3 Cliff Melton, American baseball pitcher (MLB All Star 1942; NL saves leader 1937; NY Giants), born in Brevard, North Carolina (d. 1986)
- Jan 3 Renaude Lapointe, Canadian journalist and senator (d. 2002)
- Jan 3 Robert Flemyng, British actor (The Deadly Affair, Funny Face), born in Liverpool, England (d. 1995)
- Jan 5 Frank Pace Jr., US Secretary of Army (1950-53), born in Little Rock, Arkansas (d. 1988)
Danny Thomas (1912-1991)
Jan 6 American actor, comedian and TV host (Danny Thomas Show), born in Deerfield, Michigan
- Jan 6 Jacques Cesar Ellul, French philosopher and sociologist, born in Bordeaux, France (d. 1994)
- Jan 7 Bob Zurke [Boguslaw Zukowski], American jazz pianist, arranger (Bob Crosby Orchestra), and composer (Old Tom - "Cat On The Keys"), born in Hamtramck, Michigan (d. 1944)
- Jan 7 Charles Addams, American artist and cartoonist (New Yorker, The Addams Family) known for darkly humorous and macabre characters, born in Westfield, New Jersey (d. 1988)
- Jan 7 Günter Wand, German conductor (Cologne Opera and Gürzenich Orchestra, 1948-74; NDR Symphony, 1982-90), and composer, born in Elberfeld, Germany (d. 2002)
José Ferrer (1912-1992)
Jan 8 Puerto Rican actor and director (Blood Tide, Dune), born in San Juan, Puerto Rico
- Jan 8 Rudolf George Escher, Dutch composer (True Face of Peace), born in Amsterdam, Netherlands (d. 1980)
- Jan 9 Ralph Tubbs, British architect, born in Hadley Wood, United Kingdom (d. 1996)
- Jan 10 Maria Mandl, Austrian Nazi concentration camp worker (Lichtenburg; Ravensbrück) extermination camp official (Auschwitz II-Birkenau), and convicted war criminal, born in Münzkirchen, Austria-Hungary (d. 1948)
- Jan 10 Nick Cravat [Nicholas Cuccia], American actor (Twilight Zone - "Gremlin" in "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" episode), born in New York City (d. 1994)
- Jan 11 Donald "Red" Barry, American actor (Adventures of Red Ryder, Jesse James' Women), born in Houston, Texas (d. 1980)
- Jan 11 Lynwood Thomas "Schoolboy" Rowe, American baseball pitcher (Detroit Tigers), born in Waco, Texas (d. 1961)
- Jan 11 Roger Lewis, American businessman (CEO of Amtrak, Pan Am), born in Los Angeles, California (d. 1987)
- Jan 12 Charles Moeller, Belgian theologist (Humanism et saintete), born in Brussels, Belgium (d. 1986)
- Jan 12 Ivan Getting American physicist and engineer (developed Global Positioning System), born in New York City (d. 2003) [1]
- Jan 15 Horace Lindrum, Australian snooker and billiards player (World Snooker C'ship 1936, 37, 46 runner-up), born in Sydney, Australia (d. 1974)
- Jan 15 Michel Debré, French politician, born in Paris, France (d. 1996)
- Jan 16 Franz Tumler, Austrian writer (Cloak, Aufruf), born in Gries near Bozen, South Tyrol (d. 1998)
- Jan 17 Orest Evlahkov, Russian Soviet composer and educator (Leningrad Conservatory), born in Warsaw, Russian Poland (d. 1973)
- Jan 18 Wilhelm Herz, German motorcycle racer (first to 200mph), born in Lampertheim, Germany (d. 1998)
- Jan 18 William Sansom, English writer (Loving Eye), born in London (d. 1976)
- Jan 19 Leonid Kantorovich, Russian Soviet economist (Father of linear programming, Nobel Prize for Economics 1975), born in St Petersburg, Russia (d. 1986)
- Jan 20 Christopher Casson, Irish-English actor (Zardoz, Educating Rita, The Riordans), born in Manchester, Lancashire, England (d. 1996)
- Jan 20 Walter Briggs Jr, American sports executive (owner Detroit Tigers 1952-56), born in Detroit, Michigan (d. 1970)
- Jan 21 Konrad Emil Bloch, German-American biochemist (1964 Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology for work on cholesterol), born in Neisse, Germany (d. 2000)
- Jan 22 Harry Parry, Welsh jazz clarinetist and bandleader (BBC's Radio Rhythm Club), born in Bangor, Wales (d. 1956)
- Jan 24 Ken Weekes, West Indian cricket batsman (2 Tests, top score 137; first Test cricketer born in US), born in Boston, Massachusetts (d. 1998)
- Jan 25 Lucius E. Burch Jr., American attorney, born in Nashville, Tennessee (d. 1996)
- Jan 26 Cora Baird, American puppeteer (Kukla, Fran & Ollie), born in New York City (d. 1967)
- Jan 27 Arne Næss, Norwegian philosopher, born in Oslo, Norway (d. 2009)
- Jan 27 E. R. Braithwaite, Guyanese diplomat and writer (To Sir with Love), born in Georgetown, British Guiana (d. 2016)
Jackson Pollock (1912-1956)
Jan 28 American expressionist painter (Lavender Mist), born in Cody, Wyoming
- Jan 30 Barbara Tuchman, American historian and author (Pulitzer, Guns of August), born in New York (d. 1989)
- Jan 30 Francis Schaeffer, American Evangelical theologian and pastor, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (d. 1984)
Famous Deaths
- Jan 3 Felix Dahn, German historian, jurist and poet, dies at 77
- Jan 7 Sophia Louisa Jex-Blake, English physician and feminist who was one of the first female medical students at a British university, dies at 71
- Jan 14 Otto Liebmann, German philosopher (Kant & Epigones), dies at 71
- Jan 16 Georg Heym, German writer, dies in an ice skating accident at 24
- Jan 24 James Allen, English writer (As a Man Thinketh), dies at 47
- Jan 28 Gustave de Molinari, Belgian economist (b. 1819)
- Jan 29 Hermann Bang, Danish writer, dies at 54
