Exact date unknown - 1617
Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, one of the most important painters of the Spanish Baroque period, was borne. 400 years
Exact date unknown - 1887
A massive portfolio, with 781 plates comprising 20,000 of the photographs, in a groundbreaking collection titled Animal Locomotion by Eadweard Muybridge, was published. 130 years
1st January 1867
Jeanne-Marie Lanvin, the a French haute couture fashion designer, was born. 150 years
1st January 1892
Ellis Island opens to begin processing immigrants into the United States. 125 years.
1st January 1927
Birth of Maurice Béjart, dancer, choreographer and opera director who ran the Béjart Ballet. 90 years
2nd January 1557
Jacopo Carucci, known as Jacopo da Pontormo or simply Pontormo, Italian Mannerist painter and portraitist from the Florentine School, died. 460 years.
3rd January 1892
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien is born in Bloemfontein, Orange Free State (South Africa). 125 years
3rd January 1967
Jack Ruby, killer of Lee Harvery Oswald, the assassin of John F. Kennedy, died. 50 years.
4th January 1642
King Charles I of England sends soldiers to arrest members of Parliament, commencing England's slide into civil war. 375 years.
4th January 1847
Samuel Colt sells his first revolver pistol to the United States government. 170 years
5th January 1972
President Richard Nixon and NASA Administrator James C. Fletcher announced the start of Space Shuttle program. 45 years
5th January 1757
Louis XV of France survives an assassination attempt by Robert-François Damiens, then executed by drawing and quartering: the traditional capital punishment used for regicides. 260 years.
10th January 1917
William Frederick "Buffalo Bill" Cody, US frontiersman, died in Denver, Colorado. 100 years
10th January 1952
SS Flying Enterprise, a 6,711 ton Type C1-B ship, was built in 1944 as SS Cape Kumukaki for the US Maritime Commission for use in World War II, sank. 65 years.
16th January 1957
Arturo Toscanini, Italian conductor and one of the most acclaimed musicians of the late 19th and of the 20th century, died. 60 years