1856January 8 – Borax deposits are discovered in large quantities by John Veatch in California. January 23 – American paddle steamer SS Pacific leaves Liverpool (England) for a transatlantic voyage on which she will be lost with all 186 on board. January 24 – U.S. President Franklin Pierce declares the new Free-State Topeka government in "Bleeding Kansas" to be in rebellion. January 26 – First Battle of Seattle: Marines from the suppress an indigenous uprising, in response to Governor Stevens' declaration of a "war of extermination" on Native communities.
1855January 1 – Ottawa, Ontario, is incorporated as a city. January 5 – Ramón Castilla begins his third term as President of Peru. January 23 The first bridge over the Mississippi River opens in modern-day Minneapolis, a predecessor of the Father Louis Hennepin Bridge. The 8.2–8.3 Wairarapa earthquake claims between five and nine lives near the Cook Strait area of New Zealand. January 26 – The Point No Point Treaty is signed in the Washington Territory. January 27 – The Panama Railway becomes the first railroad to connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
1831January 1 – William Lloyd Garrison begins publishing The Liberator, an anti-slavery newspaper, in Boston, Massachusetts. January 10 – Japanese department store, Takashimaya in Kyoto established. February–March – Revolts in Modena, Parma and the Papal States are put down by Austrian troops. February 2 – Pope Gregory XVI succeeds Pope Pius VIII, as the 254th pope. February 5 – Dutch naval lieutenant Jan van Speyk blows up his own gunboat in Antwerp rather than strike his colours on the demand of supporters of the Belgian Revolution.
1815January 2 – Lord Byron marries Anna Isabella Milbanke in Seaham, county of Durham, England. January 3 – Austria, Britain, and Bourbon-restored France form a secret defensive alliance treaty against Prussia and Russia. January 8 – Battle of New Orleans: American forces led by Andrew Jackson defeat British forces led by Sir Edward Pakenham. American forces suffer around 60 casualties and the British lose about 2,000 (the battle lasts for about 30 minutes). January 13 – War of 1812: British troops capture Fort Peter in St.
1786January 3 – The third Treaty of Hopewell is signed, between the United States and the Choctaw. January 6 – The outward bound East Indiaman Halsewell is wrecked on the south coast of England in a storm, with only 74 of more than 240 on board surviving. February 2 – In a speech before The Asiatic Society in Calcutta, Sir William Jones notes the formal resemblances between Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit, laying the foundation for comparative linguistics and Indo-European studies.
