Today is Tuesday, Jan. 31, the 31st day of 2017. There are 334 days left in the year.
Today’s highlight:
On Jan. 31, 1917, during World War I, Germany served notice that it was beginning a policy of unrestricted submarine warfare.
On this date:
In 1865, the U.S. House of Representatives joined the Senate in passing the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution abolishing slavery, sending it to states for ratification. (The amendment was adopted in Dec. 1865.)
In 1945, Pvt. Eddie Slovik, 24, became the first U.S. soldier since the Civil War to be executed for desertion as he was shot by an American firing squad in France.
In 1958, the United States entered the Space Age with its first successful launch of a satellite into orbit, Explorer I.
In 1961, NASA launched Ham the chimp aboard a Mercury-Redstone rocket from Cape Canaveral; Ham was recovered safely from the Atlantic Ocean following his 16½-minute suborbital flight.
In 1971, astronauts Alan Shepard, Edgar Mitchell and Stuart Roosa blasted off aboard Apollo 14 on a mission to the moon.
In 1980, Queen Juliana of the Netherlands announced she would abdicate on her birthday the following April, to be succeeded by her daughter, Princess Beatrix.
In 1990, McDonald’s Corp. opened its first fast-food restaurant in Moscow.
In 2000, an Alaska Airlines MD-83 jet crashed into the Pacific Ocean off Port Hueneme, California, killing all 88 people aboard.
Ten years ago: Some three dozen blinking electronic devices planted around Boston threw a scare into the city in what turned out to be a marketing campaign for the Cartoon Network TV show “Aqua Teen Hunger Force.”
Five years ago: The breast-cancer charity Susan G. Komen for the Cure set off a furor by deciding to halt its partnerships with Planned Parenthood affiliates (Komen reversed itself three days later).
Associated Press
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