| 691 | January 2 | Event | 1974 – United States President Richard Nixon signs a bill lowering the maximum U.S. speed limit to 55 MPH in order to conserve gasoline during an OPEC embargo. |
| 692 | January 2 | Event | 1975 – A bomb blast at Samastipur, Bihar, India, fatally wounds Minister of Railways Lalit Narayan Mishra. |
| 693 | January 2 | Event | 1975 – Bangladeshi Marxist leader Siraj Sikder is arrested and dies while in police custody. |
| 694 | January 2 | Event | 1976 – The Gale of January 1976 begins, which results in coastal flooding around the southern North Sea coasts, resulting in at least 82 deaths and US$1.3 billion in damage. |
| 695 | January 2 | Event | 1981 – One of the largest investigations by a British police force ends when serial killer Peter Sutcliffe, the "Yorkshire Ripper", is arrested in Sheffield, South Yorkshire. |
| 696 | January 2 | Event | 1992 – Leaders of armed opposition declare the President Zviad Gamsakhurdia deposed during a military coup in Georgia. |
| 697 | January 2 | Event | 1993 – Sri Lankan Civil War: The Sri Lanka Navy kill 35-100 civilians on the Jaffna Lagoon. |
| 698 | January 2 | Event | 1999 – A brutal snowstorm smashes into the Midwestern United States, causing 14 inches (359 mm) of snow in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and 19 inches (487 mm) in Chicago, where temperatures plunge to -13 °F (-25 °C) 68 deaths are reported. |
| 699 | January 2 | Event | 2004 – Stardust successfully flies past Comet Wild 2, collecting samples that are returned to Earth. |
| 700 | January 2 | Event | 2006 – An explosion in a coal mine in Sago, West Virginia traps and kills 12 miners, while leaving one miner in critical condition. |
| 701 | January 2 | Event | 2011 – January 2011 Baghdad shootings take place. |
| 702 | January 2 | Event | 2013 – Barack Obama signs the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012. |
| 703 | January 2 | Birth | 1462 – Piero di Cosimo, Italian painter (d. 1522) |
| 704 | January 2 | Birth | 1642 – Mehmed IV, Ottoman sultan (d. 1693) |
| 705 | January 2 | Birth | 1647 – Nathaniel Bacon, English-American rebel leader (d. 1676) |
| 706 | January 2 | Birth | 1699 – Osman III, Ottoman sultan (d. 1757) |
| 707 | January 2 | Birth | 1713 – Marie Dumesnil, French actress (d. 1803) |
| 708 | January 2 | Birth | 1719 – Jacques-Alexandre Laffon de Ladebat, French shipbuilder and merchant (d. 1797) |
| 709 | January 2 | Birth | 1727 – James Wolfe, English general (d. 1759) |
| 710 | January 2 | Birth | 1732 – František Brixi, Czech organist and composer (d. 1771) |
| 711 | January 2 | Birth | 1777 – Christian Daniel Rauch, German sculptor and educator (d. 1857) |
| 712 | January 2 | Birth | 1822 – Rudolf Clausius, Polish-German physicist and mathematician (d. 1888) |
| 713 | January 2 | Birth | 1827 – Pyotr Semyonov-Tyan-Shansky, Russian geographer and statistician (d. 1914) |
| 714 | January 2 | Birth | 1833 – Frederick A. Johnson, American banker and politician (d. 1893) |
| 715 | January 2 | Birth | 1836 – Queen Emma of Hawaii (d. 1885) |
| 716 | January 2 | Birth | 1836 – Mendele Mocher Sforim, Russian author (d. 1917) |
| 717 | January 2 | Birth | 1837 – Mily Balakirev, Russian pianist and composer (d. 1910) |
| 718 | January 2 | Birth | 1857 – M. Carey Thomas, American educator and activist (d. 1935) |
| 719 | January 2 | Birth | 1860 – William Corless Mills, American historian and curator (d. 1928) |
| 720 | January 2 | Birth | 1860 – Dugald Campbell Patterson, Canadian engineer (d. 1931) |