How January Got Its Name — And the History You Didn’t Know Happened On New Year's Day

Did you know...

The month January is named after Janus, the two-faced god of beginnings, endings, and transitions.

On this day, January 1

404BC (Before Christ) Saint Telemachus tries to stop a gladiatorial fight in a Roman Amphitheatre, and is stoned to death by the crowd. His bravely so greatly impresses the Christian Emperor Honorius that he  gladiatorial fights.

AD 630 (Anno Domini, 'in the year of the Lord') The Prophet Muhammad sets out with his army towards Mecca, capturing it bloodlessly.

1700 Russia begins using the Anno Domini era and no longer uses the Anno Mundi (year after creation) era of the Byzantine Empire.

1739 Bouvet Island, the world’s most remote land mass, is discovered by French explorer Jean-Baptiste Charles Bouvet de Lozier.

1773 The hymn Amazing Grace, then titled 1 Chronicles 17:16–17, is first used to accompany a sermon led by John Newton in Olney, Buckinghamshire, England.

1788 First edition of The Times of London, previously The Daily Universal Register.

1804 Haiti becomes the world's first Black-majority republic after the first truly successful slave revolt – a moment that reshaped global ideas of freedom and power.

1880 Building of the Panama Canal begins, but it will be another 34 years before it is ready for opening, in 1914, begins. The 82km waterway connects the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, making commerce and trade far more profitable.

1906 A despised poll tax of £1 per head on all adult male inhabitants of Natal, except indentured Indians and married Blacks, becomes payable.

1934 San Francisco’s Alcatraz Island becomes a notorious US federal prison

1945 In retaliation for the Malmedy massacre, when 84 American prisoners of war are massacred, US troops do the same to 60 German POWs.

1978 Air India Flight 855 crashes into the sea, due to instrument failure, spatial disorientation, and pilot error, off the coast of Bombay, India, killing all 213 people on board.

1983 The ARPANET officially changes to using the Internet Protocol, creating the Internet.

1986 SA closes its borders with Lesotho, cutting off food and fuel supplies, after Lesotho refuses to sign a non-aggression pact.

1995 The Draupner wave in the North Sea confirms the existence of freak waves.

2009 Sixty-six people die in a Bangkok nightclub fire.

2009 Politician and rights activist Helen Suzman, 91, dies in Johannesburg.

2011 A bomb kills 23 people as Coptic Christians in Alexandria leave a church service.

2017 An Istanbul nightclub attack kills 39 people.

2017 Portuguese politician and diplomat António Guterres becomes the current UN Secretary General, replacing South Korean Ban Ki-moon.

2019 Qatar introduces a 100% tax on alcohol and other ‘health-damaging goods’, doubling the price of alcohol, tobacco, energy drinks and pork.

2021 The African Continental Free Trade Area, signed by 54 countries, comes into effect largely symbolically, with complete implementation expected to take years.

2022 State funeral is held in Cape Town for outspoken anti-apartheid leader Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who died on December 21.

2023 Avenger's actor Jeremy Renner is accidentally run over by a snowplow, breaking more than 30 bones in his body near Reno, Nevada.

2024 Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the UAE become BRICS members, boosting the blocks' size to 10 nations. There are also 11 partner countries, while 23 countries have formally expressed interest, with many more informally signaling interest as the Global South's geopolitical influence gains traction.

2025 Fire destroys most of Ghana's Kantamanto Market in Accra, one of the world's largest second-hand clothing markets.

DAILY NEWS