TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS MONDAY, JAN. 31, the 31st day of 2022. There are 334 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History: On this date in 1958, the United States entered the Space Age with its first successful launch of a satellite, Explorer 1, from Cape Canaveral.
In 1797, composer Franz Schubert was born in Vienna. In 1863, during the Civil War, the First South Carolina Volunteers, an allBlack Union regiment composed of many escaped slaves, was mustered into federal service at Beaufort, South Carolina.
In 1865, the U.S. House of Representatives joined the Senate in passing the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution abolishing slavery, sending it to states for ratification. (The amendment was adopted in December 1865.)
In 1919, baseball Hall-of-Famer Jackie Robinson was born in Cairo, Georgia.
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 1961, NASA launched Ham the Chimp aboard a Mercury-Redstone 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 2000, an Alaska Airlines MD-83 jet crashed into the Pacific Ocean off Port Hueneme, California, killing all 88 people aboard. In 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 released after eight years on compassionate grounds by Scotland’s government. He died in 2012.)
In 2016, Novak Djokovic maintained his perfect streak in six Australian Open finals with a 6-1, 7-5, 7-6 (3) victory over Andy Murray.
In 2020, the U.S. declared a public health emergency over the new coronavirus and President Donald Trump signed an order to temporarily bar entry to foreign nationals, other than immediate family of U.S. citizens, who had traveled in China within the preceding 14 days. The Senate narrowly rejected Democratic demands to summon witnesses for President Donald Trump’s first impeachment trial.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Composer Philip Glass is 85. Former Interior Secretary James Watt and Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands, the former queen regent, are 84.. Actor Glynn Turman, Baseball Hall-of-Famer Nolan Ryan and actor Jonathan Banks are 75. Singermusician Harry Wayne Casey (KC and the Sunshine Band) is 71. Rock singer Johnny Rotten is 66. Actors Kelly Lynch and Anthony LaPaglia are 63. Singermusician Lloyd Cole is 61. Rock musician Al Jaworski (Jesus Jones) is 56. Actor Minnie Driver is 52. Actor Portia de Rossi is 49. Actor-comedian Bobby Moynihan and actor Kerry Washington are 45. Bluegrass singer-musician Becky Buller is 43. Singer Justin Timberlake is 41. Actor Tyler Ritter is 37. Country singer Tyler Hubbard (Florida Georgia Line) and folk-rock singermusician Marcus Mumford (Mumford and Sons) are 35. Actor Joel Courtney is 26.