TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Tuesday, Jan. 31, the 31st day of 2023. There are 334 days left in the year.
ON THIS DATE IN HISTORY
On Jan. 31, 1958, the United States entered the Space Age with its first successful launch of a satellite, Explorer 1, from Cape Canaveral.
1863 — During the Civil War, the First South Carolina Volunteers, an all-Black Union regiment composed of many escaped slaves, was mustered into federal service at Beaufort, SC.
1865 — The US House of Representatives joined the Senate in passing the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution abolishing slavery, sending it to states for ratification.
1919 — Baseball Hall-of-Famer Jackie Robinson was born in Cairo, Ga.
1945 — Pvt. Eddie Slovik, 24, became the first US soldier since the Civil War to be executed for desertion as he was shot by an American firing squad in France.
1961 — NASA launched Ham the Chimp aboard a Mercury-Redstone rocket from Cape Canaveral; Ham was recovered safely from the Atlantic Ocean following his 16-anda-half-minute suborbital flight.
1971 — Astronauts Alan Shepard, Edgar Mitchell and Stuart Roosa blasted off aboard Apollo 14 on a mission to the moon.
2001 — A Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands convicted one Libyan and acquitted a second, in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi was given a life sentence, but was released after eight years on compassionate grounds by Scotland’s government. He died in 2012.)
Five years ago — Republican congressman Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, who became known for leading a House panel’s investigation into the 2012 attacks against Americans in Benghazi, Libya, announced that he would be retiring from Congress after his term expired. Much of the world was treated to a rare triple lunar treat — a total lunar eclipse combined with a particularly close full moon that was also the second full moon of the month.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS
Composer Philip Glass is 86. Former Interior Secretary James Watt is 85. Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands, the former queen regent, is 85. Actor Stuart Margolin is 83. Former US Rep. Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., is 82. Blues singer-musician Charlie Musselwhite is 79. Actor Glynn Turman is 76. Baseball Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan is 76. Actor Jonathan Banks is 76. Singer-musician Harry Wayne Casey (KC and the Sunshine Band) is 71. Rock singer Johnny Rotten is 66. Actor Kelly Lynch is 64. Actor Anthony LaPaglia is 64. Singer-musician Lloyd Cole is 62. Actor Minnie Driver is 53. Actor Portia de Rossi is 50. Actor-comedian Bobby Moynihan is 46. Actor Kerry Washington is 46. Bluegrass singer-musician Becky Buller is 44. Singer Justin Timberlake is 42. Actor Tyler Ritter is 38. Country singer Tyler Hubbard (Florida Georgia Line) is 36. Folkrock singer-musician Marcus Mumford (Mumford and Sons) is 36. Actor Joel Courtney is 27.