Portal:United States/Anniversaries/January/January 31
On this day for the United States
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Events
- 1846 – After the Milwaukee Bridge War, Juneautown and Kilbourntown unified as the City of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
- 1848 – John C. Fremont is court-martialed on grounds of mutiny and disobeying orders.
- 1862 – Alvan Graham Clark discovers the white dwarf star Sirius B, a companion of Sirius, through an 18.5-inch telescope now located at Northwestern University.
- 1865 – American Civil War: The United States Congress passes the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, abolishing slavery, submitting it to the states for ratification.
- 1865 – American Civil War: Confederate General Robert E. Lee becomes general-in-chief.
- 1876 – The United States orders all Native Americans to move into reservations.
- 1930 – 3M begins marketing Scotch Tape.
- 1944 – World War II: American forces land on Kwajalein Atoll and other islands in the Japanese-held Marshall Islands.
- 1944 – World War II: During Anzio campaign 1st Ranger Battalion (Darby's Rangers) is destroyed behind enemy lines in a heavily outnumbered encounter at Battle of Cisterna, Italy.
- 1945 – US Army private Eddie Slovik is executed for desertion, the first such execution of an American soldier since the Civil War.
- 1950 – President Harry S. Truman announces a program to develop the hydrogen bomb.
- 1957 – Eight people 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.
- 1958 – Explorer program: Explorer 1 – The first successful launch of an American satellite into orbit.
- 1958 – James Van Allen discovers the Van Allen radiation belt.
- 1961 – Project Mercury: Mercury-Redstone 2 – Ham, a chimpanzee, becomes the first great ape to travel into outer space.
- 1968 – Viet Cong attack the United States embassy in Saigon, and other attacks, in the early morning hours, later grouped together as the Tet Offensive.
- 1971 – Apollo program: Apollo 14 Mission – 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.
- 1971 – The Winter Soldier Investigation, organized by the Vietnam Veterans Against the War to publicize war crimes and atrocities by Americans and allies in Vietnam, begin in Detroit, Michigan.
- 1990 – The first McDonald's in the Soviet Union opens in Moscow.
- 1995 – President Bill Clinton authorizes a $20 billion loan to Mexico to stabilize its economy.
- 2000 – Alaska Airlines flight 261 MD-83, experiencing horizontal stabilizer problems, crashes in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Point Mugu, California, killing all 88 persons aboard.