1912This year is notable for the sinking of the Titanic on April 15, 1912. January 1912 January 1 – The Republic of China is established. January 5 – The Prague Conference (6th All-Russian Conference of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party) opens. January 6 German geophysicist Alfred Wegener first presents his theory of continental drift. New Mexico become the 47th U.S. State. January 8 – The African National Congress is founded as the South African Native National Congress, at the Waaihoek Wesleyan Church in Bloemfontein, to promote improved rights for black South Africans, with John Langalibalele Dube as its first president.
1917Below, the events of World War I have the "WWI" prefix. January 1917 January 9 – WWI – Battle of Rafa: The last substantial Ottoman Army garrison on the Sinai Peninsula is captured by the Egyptian Expeditionary Force's Desert Column. January 10 – Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition: Seven survivors of the Ross Sea party were rescued after being stranded for several months. January 11 – Unknown saboteurs set off the Kingsland Explosion at Kingsland (modern-day Lyndhurst, New Jersey), one of the events leading to United States involvement in WWI.
1933January 1933 January 11 – Sir Charles Kingsford Smith makes the first commercial flight between Australia and New Zealand. January 17 – The United States Congress votes in favour of Philippines independence, against the wishes of U.S. President Herbert Hoover. January 28 – "Pakistan Declaration": Choudhry Rahmat Ali publishes (in Cambridge, UK) a pamphlet entitled Now or Never; Are We to Live or Perish Forever?, in which he calls for the creation of a Muslim state in northwest India that he calls "Pakstan"; this influences the Pakistan Movement.
1932January 1932 January 4 – The British authorities in India arrest and intern Mahatma Gandhi and Vallabhbhai Patel. January 9 – Sakuradamon Incident: Korean nationalist Lee Bong-chang fails in his effort to assassinate Emperor Hirohito of Japan. The Kuomintang's official newspaper runs an editorial expressing regret that the attempt failed, which is used by the Japanese as a pretext to attack Shanghai later in the month. January 22 – The 1932 Salvadoran peasant uprising begins; it is suppressed by the government of Maximiliano Hernández Martínez.
1918This year is noted for the end of the First World War, on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, as well as for the Spanish flu pandemic that killed 50–100 million people worldwide. Below, the events of World War I have the "WWI" prefix. January 1918 January – 1918 flu pandemic: The "Spanish flu" (influenza) is first observed in Haskell County, Kansas. January 4 – The Finnish Declaration of Independence is recognized by Soviet Russia, Sweden, Germany and France. January 9 – Battle of Bear Valley: U.
19961996 was designated as: International Year for the Eradication of Poverty January 8 – A Zairean cargo plane crashes into a crowded market in the center of the capital city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kinshasa, killing 300 people. January 9–20 – Serious fighting breaks out between Russian soldiers and rebel fighters in Chechnya. January 11 – Ryutaro Hashimoto, leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, becomes Prime Minister of Japan. January 13 – Italy's Prime Minister, Lamberto Dini, resigns after the failure of all-party talks to confirm him.
