WHAT HAPPENED ON 31. JANUARY
Want to find out what all happened on 31. January

3M begins marketing Scotch Tape. (31. January 1930)

World War II: Allied forces are defeated by the Japanese at the Battle of Malaya and retreat to the island of Singapore. (31. January 1942)

World War II: German Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus surrenders to the Soviets at Stalingrad, followed 2 days later by the remainder of his Sixth Army, ending one of the war's fiercest battles. (31. January 1943)

World War II: American forces land on Kwajalein Atoll and other islands in the Japanese-held Marshall Islands. (31. January 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 Battle of Cisterna, Italy. (31. January 1944)

US Army private Eddie Slovik is executed for desertion, the first such execution of an American soldier since the Civil War. (31. January 1945)

World War II: About 3,000 inmates from the Stutthof concentration camp are forcibly marched into the Baltic Sea at Palmnicken (now Yantarny, Russia) and executed. (31. January 1945)

Yugoslavia's new constitution, modeling that of the Soviet Union, establishes six constituent republics (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia). (31. January 1946)

These Are My Children, the first television daytime soap opera is broadcast by the NBC station in Chicago. (31. January 1949)

President Harry S. Truman announces a program to develop the hydrogen bomb. (31. January 1950)

A North Sea flood causes over 1,800 deaths in the Netherlands and over 300 in the United Kingdom (31. January 1953)

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. (31. January 1957)

Explorer program: Explorer 1 – The first successful launch of an American satellite into orbit. (31. January 1958)

James Van Allen discovers the Van Allen radiation belt. (31. January 1958)

Project Mercury: Mercury-Redstone 2 – Ham the Chimp travels into outer space. (31. January 1961)

The Soviet Union launches the unmanned Luna 9 spacecraft as part of the Luna program. (31. January 1966)

Viet Cong attack the United States embassy in Saigon, and other attacks, in the early morning hours, later grouped together as the Tet Offensive. (31. January 1968)

Nauru gains independence from Australia. (31. January 1968)

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. (31. January 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, Michigan. (31. January 1971)