Epic Idiot's what happened
On This Day

January 31

1990
McDonald's: The fast food giant opens its first Russian restaurant in Moscow.

1989
Mrs. Maria Olivera gives birth to her 32nd child.

1974
The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman starring Cicely Tyson airs on TV. It won nine Emmy awards.

1971
Apollo program: Apollo 14 lifts off for a manned mission to the moon.

1970
"Pistol" Pete Maravich: The LSU basketball legend breaks Oscar Robertson's record 2,973 NCAA career points. He went on to score 3,667 points in his college career.

1961
First U.S. animal in space: Ham the chimpanzee is launched in a Mercury test flight.

1958
First U.S. satellite: Explorer I is launched. It discovered the Van Allen radiation belt and remained in orbit until 1970.

1950
H-bomb: Pres. Truman orders its development.

1930
3M markets Scotch Tape.

1929
Leon Trotsky: The Marxist pioneer is exiled by the Soviet Union.

1918
Gregorian calendar is adopted by Russia: The following day became February 14th.

1917
World War I: Germany announces it will begin unrestricted submarine warfare.

1876
The United States orders all Native Americans to move into reservations.

1867
Elective Franchise Act: Provided the right to vote regardless of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

1774
Campus: Earliest known use of the word - Latin for "field" - in a letter from Charles C. Beatty on this date discussing Princeton: "Last week to show our patriotism, we gathered all the steward's winter store of tea, and having made a fire in the Campus, we there burnt near a dozen pounds, tolled the bell and made many spirited resolves.''

1747
The first venereal diseases clinic opens at London Dock Hospital.

1606
Gunpowder Plot: Guy Fawkes and his fellow conspirators are executed for attempting to blow up King James I and the English Parliament. They had been caught setting up 20 barrels of gunpowder at the Parliament building.

1951
Phil Collins, British drummer, singer, with Genesis. Music: In The Air Tonight (1981) and Sussudio (1985, #1).

1938
James G. Watt, U.S. Secretary of the Interior under Ronald Reagan (1981-83).  In 1983, he banned The Beach Boys from performing their annual Fourth of July concert on the National Mall on the grounds that rock concerts drew "an undesirable element."   Later that year he resigned as a result of a controversy from an ethnic joke he told.

1937
Suzanne Pleshette, American actress. TV: The Bob Newhart Show (Bob's wife Emily).

1929
Jean Simmons, Emmy-winning actress. TV: The Thorn Birds (Emmy).

1923
Norman Mailer, American author, co-winner of a Pulitzer Prize for American History (1969). Writings: Harlot's Ghost (National Book Award winner).

1921     d. 2002
John Agar, American actor, first husband of Shirley Temple. Film: Sands of Iwo Jima, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon.  B Movies: The Mole People and The Brain from Planet Arous.

1919     d. 1972
Jackie Robinson (Jack Roosevelt Robinson), American baseball player, 1949 MVP. He was the first black to play major-league baseball (1947, Brooklyn Dodgers) and was the first black inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame (1962).

1915     d. 1993
Garry Moore (Thomas Garrison Morfit), American entertainer. TV: The Garry Moore Show, I've Got A Secret (host), and To Tell the Truth (host).

1903     d. 1968
Tallulah Bankhead, American actress. Stage: The Little Foxes (1939, Regina) and The Skin of Our Teeth (1943, Sabrina). Film: Lifeboat (1944).

1892     d. 1964
Eddie Cantor (Edward Israel Iskowitz), American comedian. He starred in the Ziegfeld Follies from 1917 to 1919.

1875     d. 1939
Zane Grey, American western novelist.

1868     d. 1928
Theodore William Richards, American Nobel-winning Chemist, known for his research in atomic weights.

1830     d. 1893
James Gillespie Blaine, American statesman, author, known as the Plumed Knight.

1797     d. 1828
Franz Peter Schubert, Austrian composer.

1995     b. 1887
George Abbott, American Pulitzer and Tony-winning directory, screenwriter. Stage: Damn Yankees and The Pajama Game.

1989     b. 1908
Jack Douglas, comedy writer.

1989     b. 1908
Bob Dunn, American cartoonist, author and artist for They'll Do It Every Time (1963-89).

1974     b. 1882
Samuel Goldwyn (Samuel Goldfish), Polish-born film maker, once said "An oral agreement isn't worth the paper it's written on."

1956     b. 1882
A.A. Milne (Allan Alexander Milne), English author. Writings: Winnie-the-Pooh (1926).

1954     b. 1890
Edwin Howard Armstong, American electrical engineer, invented the superheterodyne receiver (1918) and FM radio (c1935).

1945     b. 1920
Eddie Donald Slovik, American Army private, the only U.S. soldier executed for desertion during World War II, and the first since the Civil War.

1936     b. 1877
Grace Gebbie Wiedersheim Drayton, cartoonist, famous for her drawings of The Campbell Kids (1905).

1933     b. 1867
John Galsworthy, British Nobel-winning novelist. Writings: The Forsyte Saga (1922).

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