1860January 2 – The discovery of a hypothetical planet Vulcan is announced at a meeting of the French Academy of Sciences in Paris, France. January 10 – The Pemberton Mill in Lawrence, Massachusetts collapses, killing 146 workers. January 13 – Battle of Tétouan, Morocco: Spanish troops under General Leopoldo O'Donnell, 1st Duke of Tetuan defeat the Moroccan Army. January 20 – Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour is recalled as Prime Minister of Piedmont-Sardinia.
1902January 1902 January 1 The Nurses Registration Act 1901 comes into effect in New Zealand, making it the first country in the world to require state registration of nurses. On January 10, Ellen Dougherty becomes the world's first registered nurse. Nathan Stubblefield demonstrates his wireless telephone device in the U.S. state of Kentucky. January 8 – A train collision in the New York Central Railroad's Park Avenue Tunnel kills 17 people, injures 38, and leads to increased demand for electric trains and the banning of steam locomotives in New York City.
1867January 1 – The Covington–Cincinnati Suspension Bridge opens between Cincinnati, Ohio, and Covington, Kentucky, in the United States, becoming the longest single-span bridge in the world. It was renamed after its designer, John A. Roebling, in 1983. January 8 – African-American men are granted the right to vote in the District of Columbia. January 11 – Benito Juárez becomes Mexican president again. January 15 – London Skating Disaster where 40 people died when the ice broke.
1886January 1 – Upper Burma is formally annexed to British Burma, following its conquest in the Third Anglo-Burmese War of November 1885. January 5–9 – Robert Louis Stevenson's novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is published in New York and London. January 16 – A resolution is passed in the German Parliament to condemn the Prussian deportations, the politically motivated mass expulsion of ethnic Poles and Jews from Prussia, initiated by Otto von Bismarck.
1871January 3 – Franco-Prussian War – Battle of Bapaume: Prussians win a strategic victory. January 18 – Proclamation of the German Empire: The member states of the North German Confederation and the south German states, aside from Austria, unite into a single nation state, known as the German Empire. The King of Prussia is declared the first German Emperor as Wilhelm I of Germany, in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles. Constitution of the German Confederation comes into effect.
1882January 2 The Standard Oil Trust is secretly created in the United States to control multiple corporations set up by John D. Rockefeller and his associates. Irish-born author Oscar Wilde arrives in the United States for an extended lecture tour; when asked by a customs official if he has anything to declare, he replies "I have nothing to declare but my genius" according to later tradition. January 5 – Charles J. Guiteau is found guilty of the assassination of James A.
1841January 20 – Charles Elliot of the United Kingdom, and Qishan of the Qing dynasty, agree to the Convention of Chuenpi. January 26 – Britain occupies Hong Kong. Later in the year, the first census of the island records a population of about 7,500. January 27 – The active volcano Mount Erebus in Antarctica is discovered, and named by James Clark Ross. January 28 – Ross discovers the "Victoria Barrier", later known as the Ross Ice Shelf. On the same voyage, he discovers the Ross Sea, Victoria Land and Mount Terror.
1838January 10 – A fire destroys Lloyd's Coffee House and the Royal Exchange in London. January 11 – At Morristown, New Jersey, Samuel Morse, Alfred Vail and Leonard Gale give the first public demonstration of Morse's new invention, the telegraph. January 21 – The first known report about the lowest temperature on Earth is made, indicating in Yakutsk. January 23 - A 7.5 earthquake strikes the Romanian district of Vrancea causing damage in Moldavia and Wallachia, killing 73 people.
