31 January History


Month:                           Date:     

  • 1606    -    Guy Fawkes is hanged, drawn and quartered for his part in the Gunpowder Plot, an attempt to blow up Parliament.
  • 1620    -    Virginia colony leaders write to the Virginia Company in England, asking for more orphaned apprentices for employment.
  • 1788    -    The Young Pretender, Charles Edward Stuart dies.
  • 1835    -    A man with two pistols misfires at President Andrew Jackson at the White House.
  • 1865    -    House of Representatives approves a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery.
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  • 1911    -    The German Reichstag exempts royal families from tax obligations.
  • 1915    -    Germans use poison gas on the Russians at Bolimov.
  • 1915    -    German U-boats sink two British steamers in the English Channel.
  • 1916    -    President Woodrow Wilson refuses the compromise on Lusitania reparations.
  • 1917    -    Germany resumes unlimited sub warfare, warning that all neutral ships that are in the war zone will be attacked.
  • 1935    -    The Soviet premier tells Japan to get out of Manchuria.
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  • 1943    -    The Battle of Stalingrad ends as small groups of German soldiers of the Sixth Army surrender to the victorious Red Army forces.
  • 1944    -    U.S. troops under Vice Adm. Spruance land on Kwajalien atoll in the Marshall Islands.
  • 1950    -    Paris protests the Soviet recognition of Ho Chi Minh's Democratic Republic of Vietnam.
  • 1966    -    U.S. planes resume bombing of North Vietnam after a 37-day pause.
  • 1968    -    In Vietnam, the Tet Offensive begins as Viet Cong and North Vietnamese soldiers attack strategic and civilian locations throughout South Vietnam.
  • 1976    -    Ernesto Miranda, famous from the Supreme Court ruling on Miranda vs. Arizona is stabbed to death.
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  • 1981    -    Lech Walesa announces an accord in Poland, giving Saturdays off to laborers.

  • 31 January Birthdays

  • 1734    -    Robert Morris, signatory of the Declaration of Independence.
  • 1797    -    Franz Schubert, Austrian composer (C Major Symphony, The Unfinished Symphony).
  • 1919    -    Jackie Robinson, first African-American baseball player in the modern major leagues.
  • 1925    -    Benjamin Hooks, civil rights leader.