history at a glance

TODAY is Sunday January 31 the 31st day of the year. There are 334 days left in the year.

Highlights in history on this date:

1942 – World War II: Allied forces are defeated by the Japanese at the Battle of Malaya and retreat to the

island of Singapore.

1943 – World War II: German Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus surrenders to the Soviets at Stalingrad, followed 2 days later by the remainder of his Sixth Army, ending one of the war’s fiercest battles. 1953 – A North Sea flood causes over 1,800 deaths in the Netherlands and over 300 in the United Kingdom 1966 – The Soviet Union launches the unmanned Luna 9 spacecraft as part of the Luna program.

1968 – Vietnam War: Viet Cong attack the United States embassy in Saigon, and other attacks, in the early

morning hours, later grouped together as the Tet Offensive.

1971 – Apollo program: Apollo 14: Astronauts Alan Shepard, Stuart Roosa, and Edgar Mitchell, aboard a

Saturn V, lift off for a mission to the Fra Mauro Highlands on the Moon.

1990 – The first McDonald’s in the Soviet Union opens in Moscow.

1996 – Suicide truck bombers attacked Sri Lanka’s central bank in the heart of the capital, Colombo. At

least 80 people were killed.

2001 – In the Netherlands, a Scottish court convicts Libyan Abdelbaset al-Megrahi and acquits another

Libyan citizen for their part in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988. 2009 – In Kenya, at least 113 people are killed and over 200 injured following an oil spillage ignition in

Molo, days after a massive fire at a Nakumatt supermarket in Nairobi killed at least 25 people. 2010 – Avatar becomes the first film to gross over $2 billion worldwide.

2011 – A winter storm hits North America for the second time in the same month, causing $1.8 billion in

damage across the United States and Canada and killing 24 people.

2013 – An explosion at the Pemex Executive Tower in Mexico City kills at least 33 people and injures more

than 100.