Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/January 2
- 366 – The Alamanni, an alliance of west Germanic tribes, crossed the frozen Rhine in large numbers to invade the Roman Empire.
- 533 – Mercurius became Pope John II, the first pope to adopt a regnal name upon elevation to the papacy.
- 1492 – The Reconquista: The Catholic Monarchs, Queen Isabella I of Castile and King Ferdinand II of Aragon, expelled Abu 'abd-Allah Muhammad XII of Granada, the last of the Moorish rulers, from the Iberian Peninsula.
- 1905 – Russo-Japanese War: The Siege of Port Arthur ended when the Russian fleet surrendered to Japanese forces at Port Arthur, a deep-water port and Russian naval base in present-day Lüshunkou, China.
- 1959 – The Soviet spacecraft Luna 1 (pictured), the first spacecraft to reach the vicinity of the Moon, was launched by the Vostok rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome near Tyuratam, Kazakh SSR.