1969 - January

• January 2
  • Australian media baron Rupert Murdoch purchases the largest-selling British Sunday newspaper, The News of the World.
  • People's Democracy begins a march from Belfast to Derry City, Northern Ireland to gain publicity and to promote its cause.
  • Ohio State defeats USC in the Rose Bowl to win the national title for the 1968 season.
• January 4 – The Government of Spain hands over Ifni to Morocco.
• January 5 – The Soviet Union launches Venera 5 toward Venus.
• January 6 – The final passenger train traverses the Waverley Line, which subsequently closes to passengers.
• January 10 – The Soviet Union launches Venera 6 toward Venus.
• January 12
  • Led Zeppelin, the first Led Zeppelin album, is released in the United States.
  • Martial law is declared in Madrid, as the University is closed and over 300 students are arrested.
  • American football: The New York Jets upset the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III, 16-7. Joe Namath is the MVP of the game.
• January 14
  • An explosion aboard the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise near Hawaii kills 27 and injures 314.
  • The Soviet Union launches Soyuz 4.
• January 15 – The Soviet Union launches Soyuz 5, which docks with Soyuz 4 for a transfer of crew.
• January 16 – Student Jan Palach sets himself on fire in Prague's Wenceslas Square to protest the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia; 3 days later he dies.
• January 18 – In Washington, D.C., the Smithsonian Institution displays the art of Winslow Homer for 6 weeks.
• January 20 – Richard Nixon is sworn in as the 37th President of the United States.
• January 22 – An assassination attempt is carried out on Leonid Brezhnev by deserter Viktor Ilyin. One person is killed, several are injured. Brezhnev escaped unharmed.
• January 26 – Elvis Presley steps into American Studios in Memphis, Tennessee, recording "Long Black Limousine", thus beginning the recording of what becomes his landmark comeback sessions for the albums From Elvis in Memphis and Back in Memphis. The sessions yield the popular and critically acclaimed singles "Suspicious Minds", "In the Ghetto", and "Kentucky Rain".
• January 27
  • Fourteen men, 9 of them Jews, are executed in Baghdad for spying for Israel.
  • Reverend Ian Paisley, Northern Irish Unionist leader and founder of the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster is jailed for three months for illegal assembly.
  • The modern-day powerhouse of the Hetch Hetchy Project at Moccasin, California, rated at 100,000 kVA, is completed and placed in operation. On February 7, the original is removed from service.
• January 28 – 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill: A blowout on Union Oil's Platform A spills 80,000 to 100,000 barrels of crude oil into a channel and onto the beaches of Santa Barbara County in Southern California; on February 5 the oil spill closes Santa Barbara's harbor. The incident inspires Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson to organize the first Earth Day in 1970.
• January 30 – The Beatles give their last public performance, of several tracks on the roof of Apple Records, London (featured in Let It Be (1970 film)

1968- January

• January 4 – Mattel's Hot Wheels toy cars are introduced.
• January 5 – Prague Spring: Alexander Dubček is chosen as the leader of the Communist Party in Czechoslovakia.^[1]
• January 8 – British Prime Minister Harold Wilson endorses the I'm Backing Britain campaign for working an additional half-hour each day without pay.^[2]
• January 10 – John Gorton is sworn in as the 19th Prime Minister of Australia, taking over from John McEwen after being electedleader of the Liberal Party following the disappearance of Harold Holt.
• January 14 – The Green Bay Packers defeat the Oakland Raiders by the score of 33-14 in Super Bowl II at the Miami Orange Bowl.
• January 15 – An earthquake in Sicily kills 380 and injures around 1,000.^[3][4]
• January 17 – Lyndon B. Johnson calls for the non-conversion of the U.S. dollar, from gold-backed, to not gold-backed.
• January 21
  • Vietnam War – Battle of Khe Sanh: One of the most publicized and controversial battles of the war begins, ending on April 8.
  • A U.S. B-52 Stratofortress crashes in Greenland, discharging 4 nuclear bombs.
• January 22 – Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In debuts on NBC.
• January 23 – North Korea seizes the USS Pueblo, claiming the ship violated its territorial waters while spying.
• January 25 – The Israeli submarine INS Dakar sinks in the Mediterranean Sea, killing 69.

• 
  

  January 23 USS Pueblo

• January 28 – The French submarine Minerve sinks in the Mediterranean Sea, killing 52.
• January 30 – Vietnam War: The Tet Offensive begins, as Viet Cong forces launch a series of surprise attacks across South Vietnam.
• January 31
  • Việt Cộng soldiers attack the US Embassy, Saigon.
  • Nauru president Hammer DeRoburt declares independence from Australia.

1967- January

• January 1 – Canada begins a year-long celebration of the 100th anniversary of the British North America Act, 1867, featuring the Expo 67 World's Fair.
• January 2 – Ronald Reagan, past movie actor and future President of the United States, is inaugurated the new governor of California.
• January 4 – The Doors release their début album The Doors. The album contains their later number one hit, "Light My Fire".
• January 5
  • Spain and Romania sign an agreement in Paris establishing full consular and commercial relations (not diplomatic ones).
  • Charlie Chaplin launches his last film, A Countess from Hong Kong, in the UK.
• January 6 – Vietnam War: USMC and ARVN troops launch Operation Deckhouse Five in the Mekong Delta.
• January 8 – Vietnam War: Operation Cedar Falls starts.
• January 10 – Segregationist Lester Maddox is sworn in as Governor of Georgia.
• January 12 – Dr. James Bedford becomes the first person to be cryonically preserved with the intent of future resuscitation.
• January 13 – A military coup occurs in Togo under the leadership of Étienne Eyadema.
• January 14
  • The New York Times reports that the U.S. Army is conducting secret germ warfare experiments.
  • The Human Be-In takes place in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco; the event sets the stage for the Summer of Love.
• January 15
  • Louis Leakey announces the discovery of pre-human fossils in Kenya; he names the species Kenyapithecus africanus.
  • The United Kingdom enters the first round of negotiations for European Economic Community membership in Rome.
  • American football: The Green Bay Packers defeat the Kansas City Chiefs 35-10 in the First AFL-NFL World Championship Game at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
• January 18
  • Albert DeSalvo is convicted of numerous crimes and sentenced to life in prison.
  • Jeremy Thorpe becomes leader of the UK's Liberal Party.
  • A Fistful of Dollars, the first significant "spaghetti Western" film, is released in the United States.
• January 23
  • In Munich, the trial begins of Wilhelm Harster, accused of the murder of 82,856 Jews (including Anne Frank) when he led German security police during the German occupation of the Netherlands. He is eventually sentenced to 15 years in prison.
  • Milton Keynes (England) is founded as a new town by Order in Council, with a planning brief to become a city of 250,000 people. Its initial designated area enclosed three existing towns and twenty one villages. The area to be developed was largely farmland, with evidence of permanent settlement dating back to the Bronze Age.
• January 26
  • The Parliament of the United Kingdom decides to nationalise 90% of the British steel industry.
  • Chicago's largest-ever blizzard begins.
• January 27
  • Apollo 1: U.S. astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee are killed when fire breaks out in their Apollo spacecraft during a launch pad test.
  • The United States, Soviet Union and United Kingdom sign the Outer Space Treaty (ratified by USSR May 19; comes into force October 10), prohibiting weapons of mass destruction from space.
• January 31 – West Germany and Romania establish diplomatic relations.