In Thy name they rejoice all the day, And by Thy righteousness they are exalted.



Psalm 86:16 

0543: Death of St. Scholastica

1162: Death of Baldwin III, King of Jerusalem

1221: Death of Muhammad Ala-ed-Din, Shah of Khwarizm

1258: Mongols sack Baghdad

1306: Murder of the Red Comyn

1354: "The Great Slaughter," A riot, in Oxford, England

1471: Death of Fredrick II, the "Iron" of Brandenburg

1480: The Emperor Go-Tsuchimikado occupies his Palace in Kyoto

1494: Founding of Aberdeen University

1495: Sir William Stanley, English lord chamberlain, executed

1519: Cortez sails from Cuba for Mexico

1543: Death of Johann Mayer, known as "Johann Eck"

1604: King James I orders that "a translation be made of the whole Bible"

1623: Prince Charles of England, soon to be King Charles I, and George Villers, soon to be the Duke of Buckingham, set off in disguise for Madrid

1635: Letters Patent granted to a new French Academy, to write a French dictionary

1763: France ceded Canada to England under the Treaty of Paris, which ended the French and Indian War.

1814: Napoleon personally directs lightning strikes against enemy columns advancing toward Paris, beginning with a victory over the Russians at Champaubert.

1840: Britain's Queen Victoria married Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Victoria was in love with him and decided that as queen it was her right to propose to Albert.

1846: Mmembers of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Mormons, began an exodus to the west from Illinois.

1846: British General Sir Hugh Gough decisively routs Tej Singh’s Sikhs in the Battle of Sobraon.

1863: Showman P.T. Barnum staged the wedding of General Tom Thumb and Mercy Lavinia Warren -- both of them midgets -- in New York City.

1863: The fire extinguisher was patented by Alanson Crane.

1881: Jacques Offenbach's "Tales of Hoffman" premiered, four months after the composer's death.

1890: Russian poet and novelist Boris Leonidovich Paternak was born in Moscow. His best-known work is "Doctor Zhivago.""

1915: President Wilson blasts the British for using the U.S. flag on merchant ships to deceive the Germans. He also warns the Kaiser that he will hold Germany "to a strict accountability" for U.S. lives and property endangered

1923: Ink paste was manufactured for the first time by the Standard Ink Company.

1925: The first waterless gas storage tank was placed in service in Michigan City, Indiana.

1927: "Johnny Strikes Up the Band" premiered. Krenek's opera was one of the pioneering efforts to fuse classical music with jazz. Never before had any operatic character danced the Charleston.

1933: The first singing telegram was introduced by the Postal Telegram Company in New York.

1934: The first imperforated, ungummed sheets of postage stamps were issued by the U.S. Postal Service in New York City. The stamps had to be cut out of a sheet and then you had to apply glue to get them to stick.

1935: The Pennsylvania Railroad began passenger service with its new "streamlined" electric locomotive. The engine was 79.5-feet long and weighed 230 tons.

1939: Japanese occupy island of Hainan in French Indochina.

1941: London severs diplomatic relations with Romania.

1941: Iceland is attacked by German planes.

1942: The war halts civilian car production at Ford.

1942: The former French liner "Normandie" capsized in New York Harbor a day after it caught fire while being refitted for the US Navy.

1942: The first World War II Medal of Honor was awarded posthumously to 2nd Lt. Alexander Ramsey for his heroism at the Battle of Bataan.

1942: RCA Victor presented Glenn Miller and his Orchestra with a "gold record" for their recording of "Chattanooga Choo Choo," which had sold more than a million copies. This was the first-ever "gold record."

1945: B-29s hit the Tokyo area.

1949: Arthur Miller's play "Death of a Salesman" opened at Broadway's Morosco Theater with Lee J. Cobb in the role of Willy Loman and Mildred Dunnock as Loman's wife, Linda.

1955: Bell Aircraft displays a fixed-wing vertical takeoff plane.

1956: Elvis Presley made his first recording in Nashville. "Heartbreak Hotel" was on the A-side and "I Was The One" was on the B-side.

1960: Adolph Coors, the beer brewer, is kidnapped in Golden, Colorado.

1961: The Los Angeles franchise in the American Football League was transferred to San Diego. The team was known as the Los Angeles "Dodgers."

1962: U-2 spy plane pilot Francis Gary Powers was returned to the United States in exchange for Soviet spy Rudolf Abel.

1964: 82 Australian sailors died when an aircraft carrier and a destroyer collided off New South Wales, Australia.

1966: Protester David Miller is convicted of burning his draft card.

1967: The 25th Amendment to the Constitution, dealing with presidential disability and succession, went into effect.

1968: Peggy Fleming of the United States won the gold medal in women's figure skating at the Winter Olympic Games in Grenoble, France.

1979: The Metropolitan Museum announces the first major theft in 110-year history, $150,000 Greek marble head.

1981: 8 people were killed, 198 injured, when fire broke out at the Las Vegas Hilton hotel-casino.

1983: In an attack that stunned many Israelis, a hand grenade allegedly thrown by an Israeli exploded among peace protesters in Jerusalem, killing one man.

1983: Leaders of U.S. independent truckers called a halt to an eleven-day strike.

1984: Americans and other foreigners were evacuated from Beirut following the withdrawal of U.S. Marines from Lebanon.

1985: A group of American supporters of South Korean opposition leader Kim Dae-jung detailed the rough treatment they'd received from authorities in Seoul, and asked President Reagan to put off a U.S.-South Korean summit.

1986: The head of Haiti's new interim government, Lt. Gen. Henri Namphy, pledged free elections and a new constitution following the ouster of President-for-Life Jean-Claude Duvalier.

1987: Surgeon General C. Everett Koop told a House panel he favored network television advertisements for condoms because of the health threat posed by AIDS.

1986: The largest Mafia trial in history, with 474 defendants, opens in Palermo, Italy.

1988: A three-judge panel of the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco struck down the Army's ban on homosexuals, saying gays were entitled to the same protection against discrimination as racial minorities. (However, the ruling was later set aside by the full appeals court.)

1989: Ron Brown was elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee, becoming the first black to head a major U.S. political party.

1990: South African President F.W. de Klerk announced that black activist Nelson Mandela would be released the next day after 27 years in captivity.

1991: In a broadcast on Baghdad Radio, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein praised his countrymen for withstanding attacks by allied warplanes and rockets.

1991: Peru's Health Ministry reported at least 51 deaths from cholera, in the early stages of an epidemic that later spread across South America and into North America.

1992: Boxer Mike Tyson was convicted in Indianapolis of raping Desiree Washington, a Miss Black America contestant.

1992: Author Alex Haley died in Seattle at age 70.

1992: Bonnie Blair of the US won the women's 500-meter speedskating competition at the Albertville Olympics.

1993: The Clinton administration said U-S troops could be sent to enforce peace in former Yugoslavia provided warring factions there negotiated a settlement.

1994: The Senate approved $8.6 billion in relief for victims of the Los Angeles earthquake, the costliest disaster aid package in the nation's history. (The house approved the measure the next day, and President Clinton signed it the day after that.)

1995: The House passed a GOP crime bill boosting funding for state prisons but requiring states to get tougher on violent criminals before they could receive any money.

1996: World chess champion Garry Kasparov lost the first game of a match in Philadelphia against an IBM computer dubbed "Deep Blue." 

1996: President Clinton signed a $265 billion defense bill, but said he would battle for repeal of a section forcing the discharge of service members with the AIDS virus.

1996: A slab of mountain side crushed a highway tunnel on the Japanese island of Hokkaido, killing 20 people.

1997: A civil jury heaped 25 million dollars in punitive damages on O.J. Simpson for the slayings of his ex-wife and her friend, on top of $8.5 million in compensatory damages awarded earlier.

1997: The Army suspended its top-ranking enlisted soldier, Sergeant Major of the Army Gene McKinney, following sexual misconduct allegations.

1998: Dr. David Satcher was confirmed by the Senate to be surgeon general.

1998: Voters in Maine become the first to repeal a state gay rights law.

1998: Monica Lewinsky's mother, Marcia Lewis, testified before the grand jury investigating her daughter's alleged affair with President Clinton. Accompanied by her lawyer she spent two hours testifying behind closed doors to the 23-member panel.

1998: Speedskater Hiroyasu Shimizu won Japan's first gold medal of the Nasano Olympics, in the 500-meter event.

1998: The New York Times reported that Top Justice Department officials recommended Attorney General Janet Reno seek an independent prosecutor to investigate Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt's role in a decision to kill an Indian casino project in Wisconsin. It was officially announced the following day. (The counsel was later appointed.)

1999: A federal judge ordered American Airlines pilots to end a sickout that had grounded 2,500 flights, stranded 200,000 travelers and left businesses scrambling for cargo carriers.

1999: Justice is avoided and the guilty party is set free. Public opinion has greater weight than the facts. Resigned to losing their case, House prosecutors said public opinion polls had made a stronger impression on senators than any evidence that President Clinton committed high crimes and misdemeanors.

 2000: Actor Jim Varney, best known for his comic character Ernest P. Worrell, died in White House, Tennessee, at age 50. 

2000: The hijackers of an Afghan plane surrendered, ending a four-day standoff at Stansted airport outside London.

2000:  The Federal Aviation Administration ordered inspections of MD-80, MD-90, DC-9 and 717 series jetliners after two Alaska Airlines planes were found to have equipment damage similar to that on Alaska Airlines Flight 261, which crashed off the California coast January 31st, killing all 88 people on board.