January 2

Asher Ginsberg, the essayist known by his pen name Ahad Ha'am and a founding voice of cultural Zionism, died in Tel Aviv.

Thérèse Martin, the Carmelite writer later known as the 'Little Flower' and named a Doctor of the Church, was born in Alençon, France.

Daisaku Ikeda, later president of the Nichiren-based Sōka Gakkai lay movement and a prolific author on Buddhist humanism, was born in Tokyo.

Physicist Rudolf Clausius, who formulated the second law of thermodynamics and introduced the concept of entropy, was born in Köslin in Prussia.