History Events on January 31

Alaska Airlines Flight 261 crash: An MD-83, experiencing horizontal stabilizer problems, crashes in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Point Mugu, California, killing all 88 aboard.

#Alaska_Airlines_Flight_261

Gunpowder Plot: Four of the conspirators, including Guy Fawkes, are executed for treason by hanging, drawing and quartering, for plotting against Parliament and King James.

#Gunpowder_Plot

World War II: The end of fighting in the Battle of Hill 170 during the Burma Campaign, in which the British 3 Commando Brigade repulsed a Japanese counterattack on their positions and precipitated a general retirement from the Arakan Peninsula.

#Battle_of_Hill_170

American Civil War: Confederate General Robert E. Lee becomes general-in-chief.

#Confederate_States_of_America

Datu Muhammad Salleh is killed in Kampung Teboh, Tambunan, ending the Mat Salleh Rebellion.

#Mat_Salleh_Rebellion

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.

#Apollo_program

Eight people (5 total crew from 2 aircraft and 3 on the ground) in Pacoima, California are killed following the mid-air collision between a Douglas DC-7 airliner and a Northrop F-89 Scorpion fighter jet.

#Pacoima,_Los_Angeles

History of Portugal: The first attempt at a Portuguese republican revolution breaks out in the northern city of Porto.

#History_of_Portugal_(1834-1910)

World War I: Germany announces that its U-boats will resume unrestricted submarine warfare after a two-year hiatus.

#U-boat

Both a blue moon and a total lunar eclipse occur.

#Blue_moon

The Toyota Corolla is known as the best-selling car of all time. Selling over 37.5 million units.

#Toyota_Corolla

The Battle of Gembloux is a victory for Spanish forces led by Don John of Austria over a rebel army of Dutch, Flemish, English, Scottish, German, French and Walloons.

#Battle_of_Gembloux_(1578)

United Nations Security Council Resolution 90 relating to Korean War is adopted.

#United_Nations_Security_Council_Resolution_90

The Battle of George Square takes place in Glasgow, Scotland, during a campaign for shorter working hours.

#Battle_of_George_Square

John C. Frémont is court-martialed for mutiny and disobeying orders.

#John_C._Frémont

Cold War: Yugoslavia's new constitution, modeling that of the Soviet Union, establishes six constituent republics (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia).

#Cold_War

The Soviet Union exiles Leon Trotsky.

#Soviet_Union

The Treaty of Lyon ends the Italian War, confirming French domination of northern Italy, while Spain receives the Kingdom of Naples.

#Italian_War_of_1499-1504

The Soviet Union launches the unmanned Luna 9 spacecraft as part of the Luna program.

#Soviet_Union

Nauru gains independence from Australia.

#Nauru

A series of accidental collisions on a misty Scottish night leads to the loss of two Royal Navy submarines with over a hundred lives, and damage to another five British warships.

#Battle_of_May_Island

Battle of Lena takes place between King Sverker II of Sweden and his rival, Prince Eric, whose victory puts him on the throne as King Eric X of Sweden.

#Battle_of_Lena

American Civil War: The United States Congress passes the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, abolishing slavery and submits it to the states for ratification.

#American_Civil_War

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.

#Kenya

Cold War: U.S. President Harry S. Truman announces a program to develop the hydrogen bomb.

#Harry_S._Truman

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.

#Libya

Vietnam War: Viet Cong guerrillas attack the United States embassy in Saigon, and other attacks, in the early morning hours, later grouped together as the Tet Offensive.

#Vietnam_War

Project Mercury: Mercury-Redstone 2: Ham the Chimp travels into outer space.

#Project_Mercury

After the Milwaukee Bridge War, the United States towns of Juneautown and Kilbourntown unify to create the City of Milwaukee.

#Milwaukee_Bridge_War

Cold War: Space Race: The first successful American satellite detects the Van Allen radiation belt.

#Space_Race

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

#World_War_II

Alvan Graham Clark discovers the white dwarf star Sirius B, a companion of Sirius, through an 18.5-inch (47 cm) telescope now located at Northwestern University.

#Alvan_Graham_Clark

World War I: Germany is the first to make large-scale use of poison gas in warfare in the Battle of Bolimów against Russia.

#World_War_I

A North Sea flood causes over 1,800 deaths in the Netherlands and over 300 in the United Kingdom.

#North_Sea_flood_of_1953

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.

#Friedrich_Paulus

World War II: About 3,000 inmates from the Stutthof concentration camp are forcibly marched into the Baltic Sea at Palmnicken (now Yantarny, Russia) and executed.

#Stutthof_concentration_camp

Gervasio Antonio de Posadas becomes Supreme Director of the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata (present-day Argentina).

#Gervasio_Antonio_de_Posadas

World War II: During the Anzio campaign the 1st Ranger Battalion (Darby's Rangers) is destroyed behind enemy lines in a heavily outnumbered encounter at Battle of Cisterna, Italy.

#Battle_of_Anzio

3M begins marketing Scotch Tape.

#3M

World War II: American forces land on Kwajalein Atoll and other islands in the Japanese-held Marshall Islands.

#Kwajalein_Atoll

An explosives-filled truck rams into the gates of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka in Colombo, killing at least 86 people and injuring 1,400.

The Winter Soldier Investigation, organized by the Vietnam Veterans Against the War to publicize war crimes and atrocities by Americans and allies in Vietnam, begins in Detroit.

These Are My Children, the first television daytime soap opera, is broadcast by the NBC station in Chicago.

The Democratic Republic of Vietnam introduces the ??ng to replace the French Indochinese piastre at par.

#North_Vietnam

US Army private Eddie Slovik is executed for desertion, the first such execution of an American soldier since the Civil War.

Czechoslav Trade Union Association is founded in Prague.

The first venereal diseases clinic opens at London Lock Hospital.

Pope Sylvester I is consecrated, as successor to the late Pope Miltiades.