January 15

The Asiatic Society was founded in Calcutta in 1784, opening a period of systematic European study of Sanskrit texts and Indian antiquity.

A charred scroll carrying an allegorical commentary on an Orphic poem, Europe's oldest surviving manuscript, was recovered from a tomb near Thessaloniki.

Theoretical physicist Edward Teller, a central figure in early nuclear physics and the development of thermonuclear weapons, was born in Budapest.