1977January 1977 January 8 – Three bombs explode in Moscow within 37 minutes, killing seven. The bombings are attributed to an Armenian separatist group. January 10 – Mount Nyiragongo erupts in eastern Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). January 17 49 marines from the and are killed as a result of a collision in Barcelona harbour, Spain. January 18 Scientists identify a previously unknown bacterium as the cause of the mysterious Legionnaires' disease. Australia's worst railway disaster at Granville, a suburb of Sydney, leaves 83 people dead.
1931January 1931 January 2 – South Dakota native Ernest Lawrence invents the cyclotron, used to accelerate particles to study nuclear physics. January 4 – German pilot Elly Beinhorn begins her flight to Africa. January 22 – Sir Isaac Isaacs is sworn in as the first Australian-born Governor-General of Australia. January 25 – Mohandas Gandhi is again released from imprisonment in India. January 27 – Pierre Laval forms a government in France.
1901January 1901 January 1 The British colonies of New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia federate as the Commonwealth of Australia; Edmund Barton becomes the first Prime Minister of Australia. Nigeria becomes a British protectorate. January 9 – Lord Kitchener reports that Christiaan de Wet has shot one of the "peace" envoys, and flogged two more, who had gone to his commando to ask the Burgher citizens of South Africa to halt fighting.
1900As of March 1 (O.S. February 17), when the Julian calendar acknowledged a leap day and the Gregorian calendar did not, the Julian calendar fell one day further behind, bringing the difference to 13 days until February 28 (O.S. February 15), 2100. The year 1900 also marked the Year of the Rat on the Chinese calendar. January 1900 January 2 – U.S. Secretary of State John Hay announces the Open Door Policy, to promote American trade with China. January 3 – The United States Census estimates the country's population to be about 70 million people.
1961January 1961 January 3 United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower announces that the United States has severed diplomatic and consular relations with Cuba (Cuba–United States relations are restored in 2015). Aero Flight 311 (Koivulahti air disaster): Douglas DC-3C OH-LCC of Finnish airline Aero crashes near Kvevlax (Koivulahti), on approach to Vaasa Airport in Finland, killing all 25 on board, due to pilot error: an investigation finds that the captain and first officer were both exhausted for lack of sleep, and had consumed excessive amounts of alcohol at the time of the crash.
1919January 1919 January 1 The Czechoslovak Legions occupy much of the self-proclaimed "free city" of Pressburg (now Bratislava), enforcing its incorporation into the new republic of Czechoslovakia. HMY Iolaire sinks off the coast of the Hebrides; 201 people, mostly servicemen returning home to Lewis and Harris, are killed. January 2–22 – Russian Civil War: The Red Army's Caspian-Caucasian Front begins the Northern Caucasus Operation against the White Army, but fails to make progress.
1956January 1956 January 1 – The Anglo-Egyptian Condominium ends in Sudan. January 8 – Operation Auca: Five U.S. evangelical Christian missionaries, Nate Saint, Roger Youderian, Ed McCully, Jim Elliot and Pete Fleming, are killed for trespassing by the Huaorani people of Ecuador, shortly after making contact with them. January 16 – Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser vows to reconquer Palestine. January 25–26 – Finnish troops reoccupy Porkkala, after Soviet troops vacate its military base. Civilians can return February 4.
1924January 1924 January 12 – Gopinath Saha shoots Ernest Day, whom he has mistaken for Sir Charles Tegart, the police commissioner of Calcutta, and is arrested soon after. January 20–30 – Kuomintang in China holds its first National Congress, initiating a policy of alliance with the Soviet Union and the Chinese Communist Party. January 21 – The Earl of Athlone is appointed Governor-General of the Union of South Africa, and High Commissioner for Southern Africa. January 22 – Ramsay MacDonald becomes the first Labour Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
1937January 1937 January 1 – Anastasio Somoza García becomes President of Nicaragua. January 5 – Water levels begin to rise in the Ohio River in the United States, leading to the Ohio River flood of 1937, which continues into February, leaving 1 million people homeless and 385 people dead. January 15 – Spanish Civil War: Second Battle of the Corunna Road ends inconclusively. January 20 – Second inauguration of Franklin D. Roosevelt: Franklin D. Roosevelt is sworn in for a second term as President of the United States.
1883January 4 – Life magazine is founded in Los Angeles, California, United States. January 10 – A fire at the Newhall Hotel in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States, kills 73 people. January 16 – The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act, establishing the United States civil service, is passed. January 19 – The first electric lighting system employing overhead wires begins service in Roselle, New Jersey, United States, installed by Thomas Edison. February – The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi is first published complete in book form, in Italy.
