On Jan. 31, 1606, Guy Fawkes, convicted for his part in the “Gunpowder Plot” against the English Parliament and King James I, was executed.
In 1797 composer Franz Schubert was born in Vienna.
In 1865 the House passed a constitutional amendment to abolish slavery. Also, Gen. Robert E. Lee was named general in chief of all the Confederate armies.
In 1875 Western novelist Zane Grey was born in Zanesville, Ohio.
In 1917 Germany announced it would begin unrestricted submarine warfare.
In 1919 Jackie Robinson, the first black baseball player in the major leagues (1947), was born Jack Roosevelt Robinson in Cairo, Ga.
In 1923 novelist Norman Mailer was born in Long Branch, N.J.
In 1931 “Mr. Cub” Ernie Banks, the infielder and power hitter, was born in Dallas.
In 1944 U.S. forces began invading Kwajalein Atoll and other parts of the Japanese-held Marshall Islands.
In 1945 Pvt. Eddie Slovik was shot by a firing squad in France–the only U.S. soldier since the Civil War to be executed for desertion.
In 1950 President Harry Truman announced he had ordered development of the hydrogen bomb.
In 1956 “Winnie-the-Pooh” creator A.A. Milne, 74, died in Hartfield, England.
In 1958 the United States entered the Space Age, launching its first satellite into orbit, Explorer 1.
In 1971 astronauts Alan Shepard Jr., Edgar Mitchell and Stuart Roosa blasted off aboard Apollo 14 on a mission to the moon.
In 1990 McDonald’s Corp. opened its first fast-food restaurant in Moscow.
In 1995 Broadway producer-director George Abbott died in Miami Beach, Fla.; he was 107.
In 2000 Atlanta Braves pitcher John Rocker was suspended by baseball Commissioner Bud Selig for disparaging foreigners, homosexuals and minorities in a Sports Illustrated interview. Also, Pro Bowl linebacker Ray Lewis was charged with murder in the deaths of two people outside an Atlanta nightclub after the Super Bowl. (Lewis pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice.)
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.
In 2005 SBC Communications Inc. announced it was acquiring AT&T Corp.
