January 31

On This Day In History
	1606: Guy Fawkes executed in London On this day in 1606, British provocateur Guy Fawkes-one of the Gunpowder Plot conspirators, who sought to blow up Parliament and to assassinate King James I for his repression of Roman Catholics-was executed in London.
Guy Fawkes, a conspirator in the Gunpowder Plot
Biography Of The Day
	Jackie Robinson Jackie Robinson-the first African American baseball player in the U.S. major leagues in the 20th century and the league's Rookie of the Year in 1947 and Most Valuable Player in 1949-was born this day in 1919.
Jackie Robinson showing his 1949 Most Valuable Player award
More Events On This Day In History
1977	1977 The Pompidou Centre, a French national cultural centre named for former president Georges Pompidou, opened in Paris.
	1966 The Soviets launched Luna 9, the first spacecraft to make a soft landing on the Moon.
1958	1958 Explorer 1 was the first artificial space satellite orbited by the United States, marking the country's entry into the space race.
1943	1943 German Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus surrendered to the Soviet Red Army at Stalingrad (now Volgograd), his troops surrendering two days later.
1797	1797 Austrian composer Franz Schubert was born near Vienna.

January 30

On This Day In History
	1649: King Charles I of England executed Charles I, king of Great Britain and Ireland (1625-49), was viewed as an authoritarian ruler by members of Parliament-whose quarrels with him led to the English Civil Wars-and was executed in London this day in 1649.
Portrait of Charles I Hunting, oil painting by Sir Anthony Van Dyck
Biography Of The Day
	Franklin D. Roosevelt Born this day in 1882, Franklin D. Roosevelt, the only person to win four terms as U.S. president, introduced the New Deal to address the crisis brought on by the Great Depression and led his country during World War II.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1937.
More Events On This Day In History
1995	1995 Flooding forced the evacuation of more than 100,000 people from low-lying areas of The Netherlands.
	1948 Indian nationalist Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated by an orthodox Hindu Brahman.
	1933 President Paul von Hindenburg named Adolf Hitler chancellor of Germany.
1933	1933 The fictional character the Lone Ranger was introduced on radio station WXYZ in Detroit, Michigan.
	1912 Barbara Tuchman, one of the foremost popular historians in the United States in the second half of the 20th century and a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, was born.
1667	1667 The Truce of Andrusovo ended the Thirteen Years' War between Russia and Poland.
	9 The Roman emperor Augustus dedicated the shrine Ara Pacis ("Altar of Peace").

January 29

On This Day In History
	2002: Iraq, Iran, and North Korea called an "axis of evil" On this day in 2002, U.S. Pres. George W. Bush, delivering a State of the Union address, described Iraq, Iran, and North Korea as an "axis of evil" for their attempts to develop nuclear, chemical, or biological weaponry.
U.S. Pres. George W. Bush delivering the 2002 State of the Union address, in which he described
Biography Of The Day
	Oprah Winfrey Oprah Winfrey, born this day in 1954, became one of the wealthiest and most influential women in the United States largely as a result of the tremendous popularity of her Emmy Award-winning television talk show.
Bill Cosby and Oprah Winfrey hosting the Essence Awards show in New York City, April 14, 2000.
More Events On This Day In History
	1924 The first machine for rolling ice cream cones was patented by Carl Rutherford Taylor of Cleveland, Ohio.
1919	1919 The Prohibition (Eighteenth) Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified and went into effect the following year.
1900	1900 The American League of Professional Baseball Clubs was organized in Philadelphia.
	1886 German mechanical engineer Karl Benz patented the first practical automobile powered by an internal-combustion engine.
	1880 American actor and comedian W.C. Fields was born in Philadelphia.
	1819 British East India Company administrator Sir Stamford Raffles established the port of Singapore.

January 28

On This Day In History
	1986: Explosion of the space shuttle Challenger On this day in 1986, the U.S. space shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after its liftoff from Florida, killing all seven aboard, including a schoolteacher who was the first private citizen to fly on a shuttle.
The U.S. space shuttle Challenger exploding shortly after liftoff, killing all ?
Biography Of The Day
	Mikhail Baryshnikov Mikhail Baryshnikov, whose elegance, great physical prowess, and unsurpassed leaping ability made him the preeminent male ballet dancer of the 1970s and '80s, was born in Riga, Latvia, this day in 1948.
Mikhail Baryshnikov and the dancers of the Bolshoi Ballet performing Swan ?
More Events On This Day In History
1915	1915 Congress created the U.S. Coast Guard by combining the Revenue Cutter Service with the U.S. Lifesaving Service.
1912	1912 American painter Jackson Pollock, a leading exponent of Abstract Expressionism who received widespread publicity and serious recognition for the radical poured, or "drip," technique he used to create his major works, was born.
1881	1881 Russian novelist and short-story writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky died in St. Petersburg.
	1873 French writer Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette was born in Saint-Sauveur-en-Puisaye.
1871	1871 The French capital, Paris, fell following a four-month siege during the Franco-German War.
	1457 King Henry VII of England, who succeeded in ending the Wars of the Roses, was born in Pembrokeshire, Wales.
	814 Charlemagne, ruler of the Holy Roman Empire, died at Aachen (Germany).

January 27

On This Day In History
	1973: Vietnam War ended The Paris accord ending the Vietnam War, America's longest war, was signed this day in 1973, providing for an exchange of prisoners and for the unilateral withdrawal of U.S. forces from South Vietnam.
South Vietnamese soldiers with Viet Cong prisoners in the Mekong delta, 1962.
Biography Of The Day
	Amadeus Mozart Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who is widely recognized as one of the greatest composers in the history of Western music and who excelled at all the musical genres of his era, was born this day in 1756.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, portrait by Fra Felice Cignaroli; in the Mozarts Geburtshaus in Salzburg, ?
More Events On This Day In History
1996	1996 Colonel Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara led a successful military coup in Niger against the democratically elected government of President Mahamane Ousmane.
	1967 U.S. astronauts Virgil I. Grissom, Edward H. White, and Roger B. Chaffee perished in a fire aboard Apollo 1.
	1945 The Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz, Poland, was liberated by Soviet troops.
1944	1944 The Soviet Red Army ousted German and Finnish forces from Leningrad (St. Petersburg), concluding an 872-day siege.
	1880 American inventor Thomas Edison patented the incandescent lamp.
1832	1832 Mathematician and novelist Lewis Carroll was born in Daresbury, Cheshire, England.

January 26

On This Day In History
	1788: First European settlement in Australia On this day in 1788, Arthur Phillip, who had sailed into what is now Sydney Cove with a shipload of convicts, hoisted the British flag and established the first permanent European settlement on the continent of Australia.
Australia
Biography Of The Day
	Wayne Gretzky Canadian ice-hockey player Wayne Gretzky, who holds the NHL record for points (2,857), goals (894), and assists (1,963) and is considered by many the game's greatest player of all time, was born this day in 1961.
Wayne Gretzky after the Edmonton Oilers won the Stanley Cup, May 19, 1984.
More Events On This Day In History
	1950 India became a republic, achieving full independence from Britain.
1942	1942 The first U.S. expeditionary force to land in Europe during World War II reached Ireland.
1885	1885 British General Charles Gordon and other defenders of Khartoum were killed by Sudanese rebels.
	1880 Douglas MacArthur, the U.S. general who commanded the Southwest Pacific Theatre in World War II, administered postwar Japan during the Allied occupation that followed, and led United Nations forces during the first nine months of the Korean War, was born.
	1837 Michigan became the 26th U.S. state admitted to the Union.

January 25

On This Day In History
	41: Claudius affirmed as Roman emperor On this day in AD 41, Claudius I, who extended Roman rule in North Africa and made Britain a province of Rome, was affirmed as emperor, ascending to the post one day after the murder of his nephew, Gaius Caesar (Caligula).
Claudius I, detail of a bust found near Priverno; in the Vatican Museums.
Biography Of The Day
	Corazon Aquino Three years after her husband's assassination, Corazon Aquino, born this day in 1933, was elected president of the Philippines in February 1986, restoring democracy after the long dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos.
Corazon Aquino
More Events On This Day In History
	1882 British writer Virginia Woolf, who made an original contribution to the form of the novel and was one of the most distinguished critics of her time, was born in London.
	1874 English author W. Somerset Maugham, best known for the novels Of Human Bondage (1915), The Moon and Sixpence (1919), Cakes and Ale (1930), and The Razor's Edge (1944), was born.
	1759 Robert Burns, national poet of Scotland, was born in Alloway in Ayrshire.
	1554 Jesuit missionaries founded the city of São Paulo (now in Brazil) on the anniversary of the conversion of St. Paul.
	1533 Henry VIII, king of England, married his second wife, Anne Boleyn, in a secret ceremony.
844	844 A Roman archdeacon named John was elected antipope against the nobility's candidate, Pope Sergius II.

January 24

On This Day In History
	2004: Opportunity's Mars landing Launched in mid-2003, the six-wheeled robotic rover Opportunity landed on Mars this day in 2004 and?like its twin rover, Spirit, which had landed on January 3?analyzed rocks and soils and relayed pictures back to Earth.
The U.S. robotic rover Opportunity traversing the Martian surface, as depicted in an artist's ?
Biography Of The Day
	Winston Churchill British statesman, orator, and author Winston Churchill, who as prime minister (1940-45, 1951-55) rallied the British people during World War II and led his country from the brink of defeat to victory, died this day in 1965.
Winston Churchill, photographed by Yousuf Karsh, 1941.
More Events On This Day In History
	1908 The first Boy Scout troop was organized by Lieutenant General Robert Baden-Powell in England.
	1849 Carpenter James Wilson Marshall found nuggets of gold in California's American River near the site of a sawmill he was building for John Sutter, ushering in a gold rush.
1556	1556 An earthquake in Shensi (Shaanxi) province, China, killed 830,000 people.
41	41 The Roman emperor Caligula was murdered at the Palatine Games by Cassius Chaerea (a tribune of the Praetorian Guard), Cornelius Sabinus, and others.

January 23

On This Day In History
	1997: Madeleine Albright sworn in as U.S. secretary of state On this day in 1997, Madeleine Albright, who had earlier served as U.S. ambassador to the UN, assumed under President Bill Clinton the office of secretary of state, becoming the first woman to hold that cabinet post.
Madeleine Albright.
Biography Of The Day
	Édouard Manet French painter Édouard Manet, born this day in 1832, defied traditional techniques of representation and chose modern, urban subjects, antagonizing the critics but paving the way for Impressionism and Post-Impressionism.
Self-portrait by Édouard Manet, oil on canvas, 1879; in a private collection.
More Events On This Day In History
2002	2002 American journalist Daniel Pearl was kidnapped in Karachi, Pakistan, and later executed.
	1997 The Age of Aquarius dawned, some astrologers believe, because for the first time since 1475 a number of planets, the Sun, and the Moon were aligned in a perfect six-pointed star in the first degrees of Aquarius.
	1898 Sergey Mikhaylovich Eisenstein, a Russian film director and theorist known for such classics as Potemkin (1925), Alexander Nevsky (1938), and Ivan the Terrible (released in two parts, 1944 and 1958), was born.
	1849 Born in England, Elizabeth Blackwell received her M.D. degree from Geneva Medical College in New York, becoming the first American-trained woman physician.
1789	1789 Georgetown College (now Georgetown University) was established in Washington, D.C.

January 22

On This Day In History
	1973: Roe v. Wade ruling On this day in 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court issued one of its most momentous decisions, ruling in Roe v. Wade that a Texas statute criminalizing abortion in most instances violated a woman's constitutional right of privacy.
U.S. Supreme Court Building, Washington, D.C., designed by Cass Gilbert and completed in 1935.
Biography Of The Day
	Lord Byron Born this day in 1788, British Romantic poet and satirist Lord Byron captured the imagination of Europe with his personality and work, notably Don Juan and the renowned autobiographical poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.
George Gordon, Lord Byron, circa 1820.
More Events On This Day In History
	1998 One of the most notorious domestic terrorists in U.S. history, Theodore Kaczynski, the so-called Unabomber, who killed three people and injured 22 in 16 attacks between 1979 and 1995, was sentenced to four terms of life in prison without parole.
1943	1943 All Japanese resistance in Papua, on the island of New Guinea, site of an important Allied base at Port Moresby in World War II, ceased.
1905	1905 On what was later known as Bloody Sunday, Russian workers marching on St. Petersburg were fired on by Russian troops.
	1904 Influential ballet choreographer George Balanchine was born in St. Petersburg.
	1821 Russian explorer Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen discovered Peter I Island, the first sighting of land within the Antarctic Circle.