- Jan 1 28th Rose Bowl: #12 Oregon State beats #2 Duke, 20-16 (played in North Carolina due to Japanese threat)
- Jan 1 8th Orange Bowl: #14 Georgia beats TCU, 40-26
- Jan 1 8th Sugar Bowl: #6 Fordham beats #7 Missouri, 2-0
- Jan 1 US & 25 other countries sign a united declaration against the Axis
- Jan 2 German troops in Bardia, Libya surrender
- Jan 2 Japanese troops occupy Manila, Philippines
- Jan 2 World War II: The 28 nations at war with the Axis powers pledge to make no separate peace deals
- Jan 3 American-British-Dutch-Australian (ABDA) Command forms
- Jan 4 4th NFL All Star Game, Polo Grounds, NYC: Chicago Bears beat NFL All-Stars, 35-24
Rogers Hornsby
Jan 4 7 x NL batting champion Rogers Hornsby is 14th player selected to the Baseball Hall of Fame
Churchill and Marshall to Florida
Jan 4 British Prime Minister Winston Churchill & US Army Chief of Staff General Marshall fly to Florida
- Jan 5 55 German tanks reach North-Africa
Bob Feller Enters Navy
Jan 6 MLB pitcher Bob Feller reports for duty in Norfolk, Virginia, after enlisting in the US Navy
- Jan 6 Pan American Airlines becomes the first commercial airline to complete a flight around the world; the plane "California Clipper" was re-christened "Pacific Clipper" after the feat
- Jan 7 WWII siege of Bataan in the Philippines starts (Americans and Filippino forces surrender in April)
- Jan 8 British Air Marshal Richard Peirse replaced as Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief Bomber Command
- Jan 9 US Joint Chiefs of Staff created
- Jan 10 Japan invades North Celebes, Dutch East Indies
- Jan 11 -23°F (-31°C), Kingston, Rhode Island (state record)
- Jan 11 Japan conquers Kuala Lumpur, Malaya
- Jan 12 British troops reconquer Sollum, Egypt
- Jan 12 Dutch troops on Tarakan island off North Borneo surrender the island's oil fields to the Japanese
- Jan 12 US National War Labor Board created to mediate labor disputes
- Jan 13 Allied Conference on war trials at St. James's Palace, London
Ford's Plastic Patent
Jan 13 Henry Ford patents a method of constructing plastic auto bodies
- Jan 13 Operation Drumbeat (Paukenschlag): German U-boats begin harassing shipping on North American Atlantic coast (198 ships sunk by April)
- Jan 13 World War II: First use of aircraft ejection seat by a German test pilot in a Heinkel He 280 jet fighter
- Jan 14 Japanese troops land at oil center Balikpapan in Borneo
- Jan 15 Chicago Cubs drop plans to install lights at Wrigley Field because of military's need for materials; takes 35 years before lights finally installed at the venerable ballpark
The "Green Light Letter"
Jan 15 US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt sends his famed "Green Light Letter" to MLB Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis, encouraging baseball to continue playing during World War II
- Jan 16 William Knudsen becomes 1st civilian appointed a general in US army
- Jan 18 Nazis arrests Dutch journalist Frans Goedhart who later escapes, and Wiardi Beckman, who dies at Dachau concentration camp
- Jan 19 Dutch Catholic priest and outspoken anti-Nazi Titus Brandsma arrested by German occupiers - later dies at Dachau concentration camp; posthumously canonized by Pope Francis, in 2022
- Jan 19 Japanese forces invade Burma
- Jan 20 Japanese invade Burma
Wannsee Conference
Jan 20 Nazi officials hold the notorious Wannsee Conference in Berlin to organize the "final solution", the extermination of Europe's Jews
- Jan 21 Bronx magistrate rules all pinball machines illegal
"One O'Clock Jump"
Jan 21 Count Basie records the music single and Jazz standard "One O'Clock Jump"
Chetniks Occupy Foca
Jan 21 Serbian Chetniks forces occupy Foca - will massacre thousands of the Muslim population
- Jan 22 Sietze de Groot wins 8th Dutch 11 city skate (8:44:06)
- Jan 23 Battle of Rabaul: Japanese attack Australian air base in Rabaul, New Britain
- Jan 23 Tank battle at Adzjedabia, Africa Korp vs British 8th army
- Jan 24 Mike Todd's musical revue "Star & Garter" featuring Gypsy Rose Lee opens at the Music Box Theatre, NYC
- Jan 26 1st US force in Europe during WWII go ashore in Northern Ireland
- Jan 26 Italian supreme command demands dismissal of German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel
- Jan 27 -19°F (-27.4°C) is the coldest day in the Netherlands since 1850
- Jan 28 Revival of George Gershwin's "Porgy & Bess" opens on The Majestic Theatre, NYC, with Anne Brown & Todd Duncan
- Jan 28 Soviet troops under General Semyon Timoshenko's troops move into Ukraine
- Jan 28 WW II Navy flier Don Mason sends message "Sighted sub sank same"
- Jan 29 1st broadcast of Roy Plomley's "Desert Island Discs" on BBC radio
- Jan 29 German & Italian troops occupy Benghazi, Libya
- Jan 29 Peru and Ecuador sign Protocol of Rio (boundary determination)
- Jan 30 Japanese troops land on the island Ambon, part of the Dutch East Indies (Allied forces surrender 3rd Feb)
Authors
Dictators
Explorers
Outlaws
Queens
Spies