What Happened This Day In History - January 31

January 31

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 abolishingslavery.
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 Lusitaniareparations.
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.
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.
1981		Lech Walesa announces an accord in Poland, giving Saturdays off to laborers.
Born on January 31
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.

What Happened This Day In History - January 30

January 30

1649		Charles I of England is beheaded at Whitehall by the executioner Richard Brandon.
1844		Richard Theodore Greener becomes the first African American to graduate from Harvard University.
1862		The USS Monitor is launched at Greenpoint, Long Island.
1901		Women Prohibitionists smash 12 saloons in Kansas.
1912		The British House of Lords opposes the House of Commons by rejecting home rule for Ireland.
1931		The United States awards civil government to the Virgin Islands.
1933		Adolf Hitler is named Chancellor by President Paul Hindenburg.
1936		Governor Harold Hoffman orders a new inquiry into the Lindbergh kidnapping.
1943		Field Marshal Friedrich von Paulus surrenders himself and his staff to Red Army troops in Stalingrad.
1945		The Allies launch a drive on the Siegfried line in Germany.
1949		In India, 100,000 people pray at the site of Gandhi’s assassination on the first anniversary of his death.
1953		President Dwight Eisenhower announces that he will pull the Seventh Fleet out of Formosa to permit the Nationalists to attack Communist China.
1964		The Ranger spacecraft, equipped with six TV cameras, is launched to the moon from Cape Canaveral.
1972		British troops shoot dead 14 Irish civilians in Derry, Ireland. The day is forever remembered in Ireland as ‘Bloody Sunday.’
1976		The U.S. Supreme Court bans spending limits in campaigns, equating funds with freedom of speech.
1980		The first-ever Chinese Olympic team arrives in New York for the Winter Games at Lake Placid.
Born on January 30
1882		Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States.
1885		John Henry Towers, American naval aviation pioneer.
1912		Barbara Tuchman, U.S. historian (The Guns of August).

What Happened This Day In History - January 29

January 29

1813		Jane Austin publishes Pride and Prejudice.
1861		Kansas is admitted into the Union as the 34th state.
1865		William Quantrill and his Confederate raiders attack Danville, Kentucky.
1918		The Supreme Allied Council meets at Versailles.
1926		Violette Neatley Anderson becomes the first African-American woman admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court.
1929		The Seeing Eye, America’s first school for training dogs to guide the blind, founded in Nashville, Tennessee.
1931		Winston Churchill resigns as Stanley Baldwin’s aide.
1942		German and Italian troops take Benghazi in North Africa.
1944		The world’s greatest warship, Missouri, is launched.
1950		Riots break out in Johannesburg, South Africa, over the policy of Apartheid.
1967		Thirty-seven civilians are killed by a U.S. helicopter attack in Vietnam.
1979		President Jimmy Carter commutes the sentence of Patty Hearst.
1984		President Ronald Reagan announces that he will run for a second term.
1984		The Soviets issue a formal complaint against alleged U.S. arms treaty violations.
1991		Iraqi forces attack into Saudi Arabian town of Kafji, but are turned back by Coalition forces.
Born on January 29
1737		Thomas Paine, political essayist (The Rights of Man, The Age of Reason).
1843		William McKinley, 25th President of the United States.
1880		W.C. Fields, comedian and actor (David Copperfield, My Little Chickadee).

What Happened This Day In History - January 28

Jose Marti

January 28

28		The Roman Emperor Nerva names Trajan, an army general, as his successor.
1547		Henry VIII of England dies and is succeeded by his nine-year-old son Edward VI.
1757		Ahmed Shah, the first King of Afghanistan, occupies Delhi and annexes the Punjab.
1792		Rebellious slaves in Santo Domingo launch an attack on the city of Cap.
1871		Surrounded by Prussian troops and suffering from famine, the French army in Paris surrenders. During the siege, balloons were used to keep contact with the outside world.
1915		The U.S. Coast Guard is founded to fight contraband trade and aid distressed vessels at sea.
1915		The German navy attacks the U.S. freighter William P. Frye, loaded with wheat for Britain.
1921		Albert Einstein startles Berlin by suggesting the possibility of measuring the universe.
1932		The Japanese attack Shanghai, China, and declare martial law.
1936		A fellow prison inmate slashes infamous kidnapper, Richard Loeb, to death.
1941		French General Charles DeGaulle‘s Free French forces sack south Libya oasis.
1945		Chiang Kai-shek renames the Ledo-Burma Road the Stilwell Road, in honor of General Joseph Stilwell.
1955		The U.S. Congress passes a bill allowing mobilization of troops if China should attack Taiwan.
1964		The Soviets down a U.S. jet over East Germany killing three.
1970		Israeli fighter jets attack the suburbs of Cairo.
1986		The space shuttle Challenger explodes just after liftoff.
Born on January 28
1693		Anna “Ivanovna”, Tsarina of Russia.
1706		John Baskerville, inventor of the “hot-pressing” method of printing.
1853		Jose Marti, Cuban poet and journalist, known as the “Apostle of the Cuban Revolution.”
1912		Jackson Pollock, influential abstract expressionist painter.

What Happened This Day In History - January 27

January 27

1695		Mustafa II becomes the Ottoman sultan in Istanbul on the death of Amhed II.
1825		Congress approves Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma), clearing the way for forced relocation of the Eastern Indians on the “Trail of Tears.”
1862		President Abraham Lincoln issues General War Order No. 1, setting in motion the Union armies.
1900		Foreign diplomats in Peking fear revolt and demand that the Imperial Government discipline the Boxer Rebels.
1905		Russian General Kuropatkin takes the offensive in Manchuria. The Japanese under General Oyama suffer heavy casualties.
1916		President Woodrow Wilson opens preparedness program.
1918		Communists attempt to seize power in Finland.
1924		Lenin’s body is laid in a marble tomb on Red Square near the Kremlin.
1935		A League of Nations majority favors depriving Japan of mandates.
1939		President Franklin D. Roosevelt approves the sale of U.S. war planes to France.
1941		The United States and Great Britain begin high-level military talks in Washington.
1943		The first U.S. raids on the Reich blast Wilhelmshaven base and Emden.
1959		NASA selects 110 candidates for the first U.S. space flight.
1965		Military leaders oust the civilian government of Tran Van Huong in Saigon.
1967		Three astronauts are killed in a flash fire that engulfed their Apollo 1 spacecraft.
1973		A cease fire in Vietnam is called as the Paris peace accords are signed by the United States and North Vietnam.
1978		The State Supreme Court rules that Nazis can display the Swastika in a march in Skokie, Illinois.
1985		Pope John Paul says mass to one million in Venezuela.
Born on January 27
1756		Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Austrian musical genius and composer whose works included The Marriage of Figaro and The Magic Flute.
1850		Samuel Gompers, first President of American Federation of Labor.
1859		Kaiser Wilhelm II, emperor who ruled Germany during World War I but was forced to abdicate in 1918.
1900		Hyman Rickover, American admiral who is considered the “Father of the Atomic Submarine.”

What Happened This Day In History- January 26

Condoleezza Rice

January 26

1699		The Treaty of Karlowitz ends the war between Austria and the Turks.
1720		Guilio Alberoni is ordered out of Spain after his abortive attempt to restore his country’s empire.
1788		A fleet of ships carrying convicts from England lands at Sydney Cove in Australia. The day is since known as Australia’s national day.
1861		Louisiana secedes from the Union.
1863		President Lincoln names General Joseph Hooker to replace Burnside as commander of the Army of the Potomac.
1875		Pinkerton agents, hunting Jesse James, kill his 18-year-old half-brother and seriously injure his mother with a bomb.
1885		General “Chinese” Gordon is killed on the palace steps in Khartoum by Sudanese Mahdists in Africa.
1924		Petrograd is renamed Leningrad.
1934		Germany signs a 10-year non-aggression pact with Poland, breaking the French alliance system.
1942		American Expeditionary Force lands in Northern Ireland.
1943		The first OSS (Office of Strategic Services) agent parachutes behind Japanese lines in Burma.
1964		Eighty-four people are arrested in a segregation protest in Atlanta.
1969		California is declared a disaster area after two days of flooding and mud slides.
2005		Condoleezza Rice is appointed to the post of secretary of state. The post makes her the highest ranking African-American woman ever to serve in an U.S. presidential cabinet.
Born on January 26
1715		Claude Helvétius, French philosopher.
1826		Julia Dent Grant, wife of Ulysses S. Grant.
1880		Douglas MacArthur, U.S. general in World War I, World War II and Korea.
1893		Bessie Coleman, pioneer aviator.
1944		Angela Davis, American activist.

What Happened This Day In History- January 25

January 25

1533		Henry VIII marries Anne Boleyn.
1787		Small farmers in Springfield, Massachusetts led by Daniel Shays, revolt against tax laws. Federal troops break up the protesters of what becomes known as Shay’s Rebellion.
1846		The dreaded Corn Laws, which taxed imported oats, wheat and barley, are repealed by the British Parliament.
1904		Two-hundred coal miners are trapped in their Pennsylvania mine after an explosion.
1915		Alexander Graham Bell in New York and Thomas Watson in San Francisco make a record telephone transmission.
1918		Austria and Germany reject U.S. peace proposals.
1919		The League of Nations plan is adopted by the Allies.
1929		Members of the New York Stock Exchange ask for an additional 275 seats.
1930		New York police rout a Communist rally at the Town Hall.
1943		The last German airfield in Stalingrad is captured by the Red Army.
1949		Axis Sally, who broadcasted Nazi propaganda to U.S. troops in Europe, stands trial in the United States for war crimes.
1951		The U.S. Eighth Army in Korea launches Operation Thunderbolt, a counter attack to push the Chinese Army north of the Han River.
1955		Columbia University scientists develop an atomic clock that is accurate to within one second in 300 years.
1956		Khrushchev says that he believes that Eisenhower is sincere in his efforts to abolish war.
1959		American Airlines begins its first coast-to-coast flight service on a Boeing 707.
1972		Shirley Chisholm, the first African American woman elected to U.S. Congress, announces candidacy for president.
1972		Nixon airs the eight-point peace plan for Vietnam, asking for POW release in return for withdrawal.
1984		President Reagan endorses the development of the first U.S. permanently-manned space station.
Born on January 25
1759		Robert Burns, Scottish poet (“Auld Lang Syne,” “Comin’ Thru the Rye.”)
1882		Virginia Woolf, English author (Mrs. Dalloway and Orlando).
1933		Corazon Aquino, president of the Philippines.

What Happened This Day In History - January 24

January 24

41		Shortly after declaring himself a god, Caligula is assassinated by two Praetorian tribunes.
1458		Matthias Corvinus, the son of John Hunyadi, is elected king of Hungary.
1639		Representatives from three Connecticut towns band together to write the Fundamental Orders, the first constitution in the New World.
1722		Czar Peter the Great caps his reforms in Russia with the “Table of Rank” which decrees a commoner can climb on merit to the highest positions.
1848		Gold is discovered by James Wilson Marshall at his partner Johann August Sutter’s sawmill on the South Fork of the American River, near Coloma, California.
1903		U.S. Secretary of State John Hay and British Ambassador Herbert create a joint commission to establish the Alaskan border.
1911		U.S. Cavalry is sent to preserve the neutrality of the Rio Grande during the Mexican Civil War.
1915		The German cruiser Blücher is sunk by a British squadron in the Battle of Dogger Bank.
1927		British expeditionary force of 12,000 is sent to China to protect concessions at Shanghai.
1931		The League of Nations rebukes Poland for the mistreatment of a German minority in Upper Silesia.
1945		A German attempt to relieve the besieged city of Budapest is finally halted by the Soviets.
1946		The UN establishes the International Atomic Energy Commission.
1951		Indian leader Nehru demands that the UN name Peking as an aggressor in Korea.
1965		Winston Churchill dies from a cerebral thrombosis at the age of 90.
1980		In a rebuff to the Soviets, the U.S. announces intentions to sell arms to China.
1982		A draft of Air Force history reports that the U.S. secretly sprayed herbicides on Laos during the Vietnam War.
Born on January 24
1712		Frederick II (the Great), King of Prussia, noted for his social reforms and leading Prussia in military victories.
1732		Pierre de Beaumarchais, French dramatist (The Barber of Seville, The Marriage of Figaro).
1862		Edith Wharton, U.S. novelist who wrote Ethan Frome and The Age of Innocence.

What Happened This Day In History - January 23

January 23

1901		A great fire ravages Montreal, resulting in $2.5 million in property lost.
1913		The “Young Turks” revolt because they are angered by the concessions made at the London peace talks.
1932		Franklin D. Roosevelt enters the presidential race.
1948		The Soviets refuse UN entry into North Korea to administer elections.
1949		The Communist Chinese forces begin their advance on Nanking.
1950		Jerusalem becomes the official capital of Israel.
1951		President Truman creates the Commission on Internal Security and Individual Rights, to monitor the anti-Communist campaign.
1969		NASA unveils moon-landing craft.
1973		President Richard Nixon claims that Vietnam peace has been reached in Paris and that the POWs would be home in 60 days.
1977		Alex Haley’s Roots begins a record-breaking eight-night broadcast on ABC.
1981		Under international pressure, opposition leader Kim Dae Jung’s death sentence is commuted to life imprisonment in Seoul.
1986		U.S. begins maneuvers off the Libyan coast.
Born on January 23
1832		Édouard Manet, French impressionist painter best known for Luncheon in the Grass.
1899		Humphrey Bogart, U.S. film actor (The African Queen, Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon).
1919		Ernie Kovacs, U.S. comedian and television personality.
1957		Princess Caroline of Monaco.

What Happened This Day In History - January 22

January 22

1689		England’s “Bloodless Revolution” reaches its climax when parliament invites William and Mary to become joint sovereigns.
1807		President Thomas Jefferson exposes a plot by Aaron Burr to form a new republic in the Southwest.
1813		During the War of 1812, British forces under Henry Proctor defeat a U.S. contingent planning an attack on Fort Detroit.
1824		A British force is wiped out by an Asante army under Osei Bonsu on the African Gold Coast. This is the first defeat for a colonial power.
1863		In an attempt to out flank Robert E. Lee‘s Army of Northern Virginia, GeneralAmbrose Burnside leads his army on a march to north Fredericksburg, but foul weather bogs his army down in what will become known as the “Mud March.”
1879		Eighty-two British soldiers hold off attacks by 4,000 Zulu warriors at the Battle of Rorke’s Drift in South Africa.
1905		Russian troops fire on civilians beginning Bloody Sunday in St. Petersburg.
1912		Second Monte Carlo auto race begins.
1913		Turkey consents to the Balkan peace terms and gives up Adrianople.
1930		Admiral Richard Byrd charts a vast area of Antarctica.
1932		Government troops crush a Communist uprising in Northern Spain.
1939		A Nazi order erases the old officer caste, tying the army directly to the Party.
1943		Axis forces pull out of Tripoli for Tunisia, destroying bases as they leave.
1944		U.S. troops under Major General John P. Lucas make an amphibious landing behind German lines at Anzio, Italy, just south of Rome.
1971		Communist forces shell Phnom Penh, Cambodia, for the first time.
1979		Abu Hassan, the alleged planner of the 1972 Munich raid, is killed by a bomb in Beirut.
1982		President Ronald Reagan formally links progress in arms control to Soviet repression in Poland.
Born on January 22
1440		Ivan III (the Great), grand prince of Russia.
1561		Sir Francis Bacon, English philosopher, statesman, essayist (The Advancement of Learning).
1788		Lord George Byron, English romantic poet (“Lara,” “Don Juan.”)
1874		D.W. [David Wark] Griffith, influential U.S. film director (The Birth of A Nation,Intolerance).
1890		Fred Vinson, Thirteenth Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
1906		Willa Brown-Chappell, pioneer aviator.