On this day, Jan. 31

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 states for ratification. (The amendment was adopted in December 1865.)

1919 Baseball Hall of Famer Jackie Robinson was born in Cairo, Ga.

1948 Boggs & Buhl, the 79-year-old North Side department store, was purchased for $2.5 million by a group of Pittsburghers and New Yorkers and thus saved from liquidation; plans were announced for a $1 million rejuvenation.

1961 NASA launched Ham the Chimp aboard a Mercury-Redstone rocket from Cape Canaveral, Fla.; Ham was recovered safely from the Atlantic Ocean following his 16½-minute suborbital flight.

1986 An earthquake shook Pittsburgh for the first time in 23 years.

2002 Lenox closed its Mount Pleasant, Westmoreland County, hand-blown glass factory built in 1970. It was the first glass factory in the United States devoted to hand-blown crystal glass.

Some items are from Stefan Lorant’s “Pittsburgh: The Story of an American City” (digital.library.pitt.edu/chronology).

— Compiled by Rick Nowlin

Today’s birthdays: Composer Philip Glass, 84. Former Interior Secretary James Watt, 83. Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands, the former queen regent, 83. Actor Stuart Margolin, 81. Actor Jessica Walter, 80. Former U.S. Rep. Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., 80. Blues singer-musician Charlie Musselwhite, 77. Actor Glynn Turman, 74. Baseball Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan, 74. Actor Jonathan Banks, 74. Singer-musician Harry Wayne Casey (KC and the Sunshine Band), 70. Rock singer Johnny Rotten, 65. Actor Kelly Lynch, 62. Actor Anthony LaPaglia, 62. Singer-musician Lloyd Cole, 60. Actor Paulette Braxton, 56. Rock musician Al Jaworski (Jesus Jones), 55. Actor Minnie Driver, 51. Actor Portia de Rossi, 48. Actor-comedian Bobby Moynihan, 44. Actor Kerry Washington, 44. Bluegrass singer-musician Becky Buller, 42. Singer Justin Timberlake, 40. Actor Tyler Ritter, 36. Country singer Tyler Hubbard (Florida Georgia Line), 34. Folk-rock singer-musician Marcus Mumford (Mumford and Sons), 34. Actor Joel Courtney, 25.

Thought for today: “Mystics always hope that science will some day overtake them.”

— Booth Tarkington, American author-dramatist (1869-1946)