TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS TUESDAY, JAN. 31,
the 31st day of 2017. There are 334 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY:
On this date in 1917, during World War I, Germany served notice that it was beginning a policy of unrestricted submarine warfare.
In 1606,
Guy Fawkes, convicted of treason for his part in the “Gunpowder Plot” against the English Parliament and King James I, was executed.
In 1797,
composer Franz Schubert was born in Vienna.
In 1865,
the U.S. House of Representatives joined the Senate in passing the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution abolishing slavery, sending it to the states for ratification.
In 1929,
revolutionary Leon Trotsky and his family were expelled from the Soviet Union.
In 1945,
Pvt. Eddie Slovik, 24, became the first U.S. soldier since the Civil War to be executed for desertion as he was shot by an American firing squad in France.
In 1958,
the United States entered the Space Age with its first successful launch of a satellite into orbit, Explorer I.
In 1961,
NASA launched Ham the Chimp aboard a rocket from Cape Canaveral; Ham was recovered safely from the Atlantic Ocean following his 16½-minute suborbital flight.
In 1971,
astronauts Alan Shepard, Edgar Mitchell and Stuart Roosa blasted off aboard Apollo 14 on a mission to the moon.
In 1990,
McDonald’s Corp. opened its first fast-food restaurant in Moscow.
In 2000,
an Alaska Airlines MD-83 jet crashed into the Pacific Ocean off Port Hueneme, Calif., killing all 88 people aboard.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS:
Actress Carol Channing is 96. Composer Philip Glass is 80. Former Interior Secretary James Watt is 79. Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands, the former queen regent, is 79. Actor Stuart Margolin is 77. Actress Jessica Walter is 76. Former U.S. Rep. Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., is 76. Blues singer-musician Charlie Musselwhite is 73. Baseball Hall-of-Famer Nolan Ryan is 70. Actor Jonathan Banks is 70. Rock singer Johnny Rotten is 61. Actress Kelly Lynch is 58. Actor Anthony LaPaglia is 58. Actress Minnie Driver is 47. Actress Portia de Rossi is 44. Actor-comedian Bobby Moynihan is 40. Actress Kerry Washington is 40. Singer Justin Timberlake is 36. Folkrock singer-musician Marcus Mumford (Mumford and Sons) is 30.