Archive for January 31st, 2009
Today in History: January 31st (Year One, Day Twelve in The Golden Age of Obama)
1504 – France cedes Naples to Aragon
1606 – Guy Fawkes executed for plotting against Parliament and James I of England
1747 – First venereal disease clinic opens at London Lock Hospital
1846 – Gervasio Antonio de Posadas becomes Supreme Director of Argentina
1846 – Milwaukee Bridge War ends: Juneautown and Klbourntown unified as City of Milwaukee, Wisconsin
1848 – John C. Fremont court-martialed for mutiny and disobeying orders
1849 – Corn Laws abolished in United Kingdom
1862 – White dwarf star observed for first time (companion of Sirius)
1876 – United States orders all Native Americans onto reservations
1915 – Germany uses poison gas against Russians
1917 – Germany announces unrestricted submarine warfare
1929 – Soviet Union exiles Leon Trotsky
1930 – 3M corporation begins making Scotch tape
1944 – Americans land on Marshall Islands
1945 – US Army private Eddie Slovik executed for desertion (first such execution since Civil War)
1946 – Yugoslavian constitution establishes six Soviet-style constituent republics (Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia)
1950 – President Truman announces Hydrogen-bomb program
1956 – Guy Mollet becomes Prime Minister of France
1958 – Explorer 1 is the first successful American satellite in orbit
1958 – Van Allen radiaton belt discovered
1961 – Aboard Mercury-Redstone 2, Ham the Chimp travels into outer space
1966 – Soviets launch Luna 9 spacecraft
1968 – Viet Cong attack US embassy in Saigon
1968 – Nauru declares independence from Australia
1971 – Apollo 14 lifts off for mission to the Fra Mauro Highlands of the moon
1990 – First McDonald’s in Soviet Union opens in Moscow
1995 – President Clinton authorizes $20 billion loan to stabilize collapsing Mexican economy
2001 – Scottish court convicts one Libyan and acquits another for the Pan Am 103 bombing over Locerbie Scotland in 1988
