January 31
314  Pope Sylvester I succeeds Pope Miltiades.  It is not known how Pope Tweety Bird fits into the chronology.  You'd have to ask Pope Granny.
1606  
Gunpowder Plot: Guy Fawkes is executed for plotting against 
Parliament and 
King James.
1747  The first 
VD clinic opens at 
London Lock Hospital.  And there was much rejoicing.
1801  
John Marshall is appointed 
Chief Justice of the United States.
1846  After the 
Milwaukee Bridge War(<--Interesting read.), Juneautown and Kilbourntown unify as the 
City of Milwaukee.
1848  
John C. Frιmont is court-martialed for mutiny and disobeying orders.
1849  
Corn Laws are abolished in the United Kingdom pursuant to legislation in 1846.
1865  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.
1865  American Civil War: Confederate General 
Robert E. Lee becomes general-in-chief.
1915  World War I: Germany is the first to make large-scale 
use of poison gas in warfare in the 
Battle of Bolimσw against Russia.
1917  World War I: Germany announces that its U-boats will 
resume unrestricted submarine warfare after a two-year hiatus.
1918  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.
1929  The Soviet Union exiles 
Leon Trotsky.
1930  
3M begins marketing 
Scotch Tape.
1944  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 the 
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  United States President 
Harry S. Truman announces a program to develop the 
hydrogen bomb.
1958  The 
first successful American satellite detects the 
Van Allen radiation belt.
2001  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.
2007  Suspects are arrested in Birmingham in the UK, accused of plotting the kidnap, holding and 
eventual beheading of a serving Muslim British soldier in Iraq.
2009  In Kenya, at least 113 people are killed and over 200 injured following an 
oil spillage ignition in Molo.
2010  
Avatar becomes the first film to 
gross over $2 billion worldwide.
2011  A winter storm hits North America for the 
second time in the same month, causing $1.8 billion in damage across the United States and Canada and killing 24 people.
 Births
Births 
1673  Louis de Montfort; 1797  Franz Schubert

; 1872  Zane Grey; 1892  Eddie Cantor; 1902  Tallulah Bankhead; 1914  Jersey Joe Walcott; 1915  Alan Lomax; 1919  Jackie Robinson; 1920  Stewart Udall; 1921  Carol Channing; 1921  Mario Lanza; 1922  Joanne Dru; 1923  Norman Mailer; 1929  Jean Simmons; 1931  Ernie Banks; 1934  James Franciscus; 1937  Suzanne Pleshette; 1938  Beatrix of the Netherlands; 1941  Dick Gephardt; 1944  Charlie Musselwhite; 1947  Nolan Ryan; 1951  Harry Wayne Casey; 1956  John Lydon; 1959  Anthony LaPaglia; 1959  Kelly Lynch; 1970  Minnie Driver; 1973  Portia de Rossi; 1977  Kerry Washington; 1981  Justin Timberlake
 Deaths
Deaths 
1606  Guy Fawkes; 1956  A. A. Milne; 1974  Samuel Goldwyn; 2016  Terry Wogan