January 31 Historical Events

The following events took place on January 31. The list is arranged in chronological order.

Found 56 events. Showing 31 - 56.

• 1946
  Yugoslavia’s new constitution, modeling that of the Soviet Union, establishes six constituent republics (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia).
• 1946
  The Democratic Republic of Vietnam introduces the đồng to replace the French Indochinese piastre at par.
• 1949
  These Are My Children, the first television daytime soap opera is broadcast by the NBC station in Chicago.
• 1950
  United States President Harry S. Truman announces a program to develop the hydrogen bomb.
• 1953
  A North Sea flood causes over 1,800 deaths in the Netherlands and over 300 in the United Kingdom
• 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 the Chimp travels into outer space.
• 1966
  The Soviet Union launches the unmanned Luna 9 spacecraft as part of the Luna program.
• 1968
  Vietnam War: Viet Cong attack the United States embassy in Saigon, and other attacks, in the early morning hours, later grouped together as the Tet Offensive.
• 1968
  Nauru gains independence from Australia.
• 1971
  Apollo program: Apollo 14: 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, begins in Detroit.
• 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.
• 1996
  An explosives-filled truck rams into the gates of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka in Colombo, Sri Lanka killing at least 86 and injuring 1,400.
• 1996
  Comet Hyakutake is discovered by Japanese amateur astronomer Yuji Hyakutake.
• 2000
  Alaska Airlines Flight 261 crash: An MD-83, experiencing horizontal stabilizer problems, crashes in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Point Mugu, California, killing all 88 aboard.
• 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.
• 2003
  The Waterfall rail accident occurs near Waterfall, New South Wales, Australia.
• 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, days after a massive fire at a Nakumatt supermarket in Nairobi killed at least 25 people.
• 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.
• 2013
  An explosion at the Pemex Executive Tower in Mexico City kills at least 33 people and injures more than 100.