/year

January 31 in history

183 sourced entries recorded on January 31, from 36 BCE to 2024 CE. Every line is quoted from the revision it came from.

Events

  • 314Pope Sylvester I succeeds Pope Miltiades as the 33rd pope.source
  • 366Athanasius of Alexandria returns from his fifth exile. He has spent four months in his ancestral tomb outside Alexandria.source
  • 1126Jurchen forces lay siege to Kaifeng. Qin Zong negotiates the terms of surrender, agreeing an annual indemnity. He orders Song forces to defend the prefectures of the Northern Song.source
  • 1206Battle of Rusion: The Bulgarian forces (some 7,000 men), under Tsar Kaloyan, defeat the remnants of the Latin army, near the fortress of Rusion in Thrace. Around 120 knights, supported by soldiers and cavalry, are killed in battle or captured.source
  • 1208Battle of Lena: Swedish forces under Erik Knutsson defeat the invading Danish army (some 12,000 men). King Sverker the Younger is deposed as king of Sweden and is succeeded by Erik.source
  • 1304Cardinal Nicolò Albertini de Prato is dispatched by Pope Benedict XI as the papal legate to oversee negotiation of peace between Tuscany, Romagna and the Marca Trevigiana.source
  • 1410Thomas Beaufort, Duke of Exeter becomes the new Lord Chancellor of England.source
  • 1468Abu Al-Nasr Sayf ad-Din Al-Ashraf Qaitbay (generally referred to as "Qaitbay") is installed by Mamluk Egyptian nobles as the new Sultan of Egypt and Syria, the day after the Sultan Timurbugha had been removed after less than two months on the throne.source
  • 1504Treaty of Lyon: France cedes Naples to Ferdinand II of Aragon, who becomes King of Naples as Ferdinand III.source
  • 1504with the Treaty of Lyon, King Louis XII cedes Naples to king Ferdinand II of Aragon.source
  • 1510Catherine of Aragon gives birth to her first child, and the first known child of King Henry VIII, a stillborn daughter.source
  • 1538General Johann Katzianer of the Holy Roman Empire, on trial in Vienna for the disastrous Imperial campaign against the Ottoman Empire and for desertion during the Battle of Gorjani, escapes and flees to Kostajnica Fortress in Ottoman-controlled Croatia. After 14 months, Nikola IV Zrinski has Katzianer murdered.source
  • 1561The Ordinance of Orléans suspends the persecution of the Protestant Huguenots in Kingdom of France.source
  • 1578Battle of Gembloux: Spanish forces under Don John of Austria and Alexander Farnese defeat the Dutch; Farnese begins to recover control of the French-speaking Southern Netherlands.source
  • 1609The Bank of Amsterdam is established.source
  • 1632The dissection of a body for the benefit of medical students is carried out by Dr. Nicolaes Tulp, the anatomist for the city of Amsterdam, and will be immortalized in Rembrandt's painting The Anatomy Lesson.source
  • 1659Central England temperature record begins monthly recording, retrospectively.source
  • 1659Giovanna De Grandis is arrested in Rome and charged with trafficking the lethal Aqua Tofana poison. On February 2, she implicates the mastermind of the poisoners, Gironima Spana, starting the case of the Spana Prosecution that eventually leads to the arrest and trial of 40 people.source
  • 1660The Rump Parliament confirms the promotion of Colonel George Monck to the rank of General and he receives the commission of rank while at St Albans.source
  • 1676Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala, the oldest institution of higher education in Central America, is founded.source
  • 1686In the wake of the success of France's campaign against Protestantism, Victor Amadeus II, the Duke of Savoy, issues an edict against the Valdesi, the Duchy's Protestant minority, setting a 15-day deadline for members of the Valdesi to publicly renounce their beliefs as erroneous, or face banishment or death. The February 15 deadline is ignored.source
  • 1696In the Netherlands, undertakers revolt after funeral reforms in Amsterdam.source
  • 1705The Hester, a British 28-gun sailing ship with a crew of 70, is lost in Persia.source
  • 1747The first venereal diseases clinic opens at London Lock Hospital.source
  • 1747the first venereal diseases clinic opens at London Lock Hospital.source
  • 1774The Royal Danish Theatre reopens on Kongens Nytorv in Copenhagen..source
  • 1788Henry Benedict Stuart becomes the new Stuart claimant to the throne of Great Britain, as King Henry IX and the figurehead of Jacobitism.source
  • 1788Henry Benedict Stuart becomes the new Stuart claimant to the throne of Great Britain as King Henry IX and the figurehead of Jacobitism.source
  • 1788Henry Benedict Stuart, Cardinal-Bishop of Frascati, becomes the new titular Stuart claimant to the throne of Great Britain as King Henry IX and the figurehead of Jacobitism.source
  • 1801John Marshall is appointed Chief Justice of the United States.source
  • 1813The Assembly of the Year XIII is inaugurated in Buenos Aires.source
  • 1814Gervasio Antonio de Posadas becomes Supreme Director of Argentina.source
  • 1814The Royal Expedition arrives to Chile.source
  • 1814The "holey dollar" and "dump" go into circulation.source
  • 1838Lord Glenelg, Secretary of State for War and the Colonies sent Governor Gipps the report of the Select committee of the House of Commons on Aborigines (British Settlements). The report recommended that Protectors of Aborigines should be engaged. They would be required to learn the Aboriginal language and their duties would be to watch over the rights of Aborigines, guard against encroachment on their property and to protect them from acts of cruelty, oppression and injustice. The Port Phillip Aboriginal Protectorate was established with George Augustus Robinson as chief protector and four full-time protectors.source
  • 1848John C. Frémont is court-martialed on grounds of mutiny and disobeying orders. The verdict is set aside by U.S. President James K. Polk, but Frémont retires to California Territory.source
  • 1848Construction of the Washington Monument begins in Washington, D.C.source
  • 1850The University of Rochester is founded in Rochester, New York.source
  • 1850The University of Rochester is chartered in Rochester, New York; it admits its first students in Novembersource
  • 1858I. K. Brunel's SS Great Eastern, the largest ship built to date, is launched on the River Thames.source
  • 1861Kukis raid the Chhagalnaiya plains in eastern Bengal, murdering and kidnapping hundreds of people, particularly women.source
  • 1862Alvan Graham Clark makes the first observation of Sirius B, a white dwarf star, through an eighteen-inch telescope at Northwestern University in Illinois.source
  • 1863Jules Verne's first adventure novel, Five Weeks in a Balloon (Cinq semaines en ballon), is published in Paris.source
  • 1865The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (conditional prohibition of slavery and involuntary servitude) passes narrowly, in the House of Representatives.source
  • 1866Paraguayan War: The Battle of Pehuajó takes place when about 1500 Paraguayan troops, commanded by General Francisco Isidoro Resquín and Lieutenant Celestino Prieto, engage in a surprise attack Argentinian and Uruguayan battalions with around 2000 men, led by General Emilio Conesa; the Paraguayans are successful and the joint Argentine-Uruguayan force suffers heavy casualties.source
  • 1867Maronite nationalist leader Youssef Bey Karam leaves Lebanon aboard a French ship for Algeria.source
  • 1868January 27–31 – Battle of Toba–Fushimi: forces of the Tokugawa shogunate and the allied pro-Imperial forces of the Chōshū, Satsuma and Tosa Domains clash near Fushimi, Kyoto, ending in a decisive victory for the Imperial forces (although in the January 28 naval Battle of Awa, the Shogunate is victorious against Satsuma).source
  • 1874British defeat the Ashanti at the Battle of Amoaful.source
  • 1878Turkey agrees to an armistice at Adrianople.source
  • 1880training frigate HMS Atalanta leaves Bermuda bound for Falmouth but is lost in the Atlantic with all 281 on board.source
  • 1891The administration of Prime Minister Francesco Crispi resigns after a fierce disagreement with the Historical Right about the budget.source
  • 1891The Portuguese republican revolution breaks out, in the northern city of Porto.source
  • 1892The Holmenkollen ski jump opens.source
  • 1893Historical American Exposition closes in Madridsource
  • 1895The sinking of the German ocean liner SS Elbe kills 334 people on board, 20 minutes after the ship had collided with the British steamer SS Crathie in the North Sea. Only two lifeboats are able to evacuate before the Elbe goes down, and the first lifeboat capsizes when too many passengers attempt to get onboard. A second lifeboat, with 15 members of the crew, four men and a woman, carries the only survivors.source
  • 1897The Czechoslovak Trade Union Association is founded in Prague.source
  • 1899The French Senate passes the trade agreement with Italy by a vote of 248 to 40.source
  • 1900Datu Muhammad Salleh, leader of the Mat Salleh Rebellion in North Borneo, is shot dead in Tambunan.source
  • 1901A new emigration law (Law 23 of 31 January 1901) creates the Commissariat of Emigration, a technical organ under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to unify migration services hitherto dispersed among various ministries. The law of 1901 and subsequent legislation empowered the Commissariat to grant licenses to carriers, enforcing fixed ticket costs, keeping order at ports of embarkation, providing health inspection for those leaving, setting up hostels and care facilities and arranging agreements with receiving countries to help care for those arriving. The Commissariat tried to take care of emigrants before they left and after they arrived. The law was ratified with decree 375 of 10 July 1901. Seasonal migration had developed across the Atlantic: peasants from southern Italy went to work in the Argentina or the United States in November and returned in the spring for agricultural jobs in Italy. Most emigrants came back, but over 1.5 million Italians must have left their native country for good between 1901 and 1911.source
  • 1901Anton Chekhov's play Three Sisters (Три сeстры, Tri sestry) is premiered at the Moscow Art Theatre.source
  • 19051904–1905 Welsh Revival: Rev Peter Price writes to the Western Mail, criticising the "so-called" revival led by Evan Roberts.source
  • 1905"The greatest ball of the Gilded Age" is held by James Hazen Hyde, the heir to the fortune of the founder of the Equitable Life Assurance Association, at New York City's Sherry Hotel, spending $200,000 for a "Louis XV costume ball."source
  • 1906The Ecuador–Colombia earthquake (8.8 on the Moment magnitude scale), and associated tsunami, cause at least 500 deaths.source
  • 1910foundation of the All-Russian National Union, a moderate conservative party.source
  • 1910American-born medical practitioner Hawley Harvey Crippen poisons his wife, Cora, and buries her body in the cellar of their London home (probable date).source
  • 1910A coal mine explosion at the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company in Primero, Colorado, kills 75 miners.source
  • 1915WWI: Battle of Bolimów – Germany's first large-scale use of poison gas as a weapon occurs, when 18,000 artillery shells containing liquid xylyl bromide tear gas are fired on the Imperial Russian Army, on the Rawka River west of Warsaw; however, freezing temperatures prevent it being effective.source
  • 1924Treaty of Lausanne was approved by the Italian parliamentsource
  • 1925January 27–February 1 – The 1925 serum run to Nome (the "Great Race of Mercy") relays diphtheria antitoxin by dog sled across the U.S. Territory of Alaska to combat an epidemic.source
  • 1926British and Belgian troops leave Cologne.source
  • 1932Japanese warships arrive in Nanking.source
  • 193331 January–7 April - A strike disrupts rail transport in Northern Ireland. The Castlederg and Victoria Bridge Tramway ceases operation permanently.source
  • 1933Shimon Levinson, Israeli intelligence officer who spied for the KGB.source
  • 1937January 31 – February 2: The 25th Congress of the Polish Socialist Party takes place in Radom. Four people die in a rail crash near Mikołów,source
  • 1946The last session of the Permanent Court of International Justice occurs.source
  • 1946Yugoslavia's new constitution, modeled on the Soviet Union, establishes 6 constituent republics (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia).source
  • 194731 January–2 February – The 1947 European Figure Skating Championships take place in Davos.source
  • 1949The United States grants de jure recognition to the State of Israel.source
  • 1949Forces from the Chinese Communist Party enter Beijing.source
  • 1950United States President Harry S. Truman orders the development of the hydrogen bomb, in response to the detonation of the Soviet Union's first atomic bomb in 1949.source
  • 1950President Harry S. Truman orders the development of the hydrogen bomb, in response to the detonation of the Soviet Union's first atomic bomb in 1949.source
  • 1953The car ferry MV Princess Victoria sailing from Stranraer, Scotland to Larne, Northern Ireland, sinks in the Irish Sea killing 133 people on board. The dead include Northern Ireland Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Major Maynard Sinclair and Sir Walter Smiles, the Ulster Unionist MP for North Down.source
  • 1953January 31–February 1 – The North Sea flood of 1953 kills 1,836 people in the southwestern Netherlands (especially Zeeland), 307 in the United Kingdom, and several hundred at sea, including 133 on the ferry MV Princess Victoria in the Irish Sea.source
  • 195331 January to 1 February – North Sea flood damages Belgian coastal defences, killing 28source
  • 1955An earthquake with a 6.2 magnitude hits Porto dos Gaúchos, Mato Grosso; becoming the biggest earthquake in Brazil.source
  • 1959Sandu Tudor begins a 40-year sentence at Jilava Prison for "conspiracy against the social order" and "intense activity against the working class".source
  • 1960Operation Tawfiq (פעולת תאופיק): The first Israeli retribution operation initiated after the Suez Crisis. The operation is carried out by Golani forces on the Syrian village of Tawfiq, in response to attacks on Israelis in Tel Katzir. Tawfiq was designated by the IDF as the center of many Syrian attacks and as a result it was decided that the destruction of the village was vital. During the operation, the village is conquered and destroyed while being attacked by Syrian artillery. Six Syrian and three Israeli soldiers are killed during the operation and seven Israeli soldiers are wounded.source
  • 196131 January-6 June - Battle of Ban Pa Dongsource
  • 1961Ham, a 37-pound (17-kg) male chimpanzee, is rocketed into space aboard Mercury-Redstone 2, in a test of the Project Mercury spacecraft, designed to carry United States astronauts into space.source
  • 1964January 29 – February 9 – The 1964 Winter Olympics are held in Innsbruck, Austria.source
  • 1966Clashes between gendarmes and demonstrators from the closing Zwartberg mine leave two colliers dead.source
  • 1968Nauru president Hammer DeRoburt declares independence from Australia, Britain and New Zealand.source
  • 1971Apollo program: Apollo 14 (carrying astronauts Alan Shepard, Stuart Roosa, and Edgar Mitchell) lifts off on the third successful lunar landing mission.source
  • 1972King Birendra succeeds his father as King of Nepal.source
  • 1974The South Vietnamese government and the Viet Cong announced that they would resume prisoner of war exchanges on February 8, after a suspension of seven months.source
  • 1974The People's Republic of China released Gerald Emil Kosh, a U.S. civilian captured during the Battle of the Paracel Islands.source
  • 1974Two members of the Japanese Red Army (JRA) and two members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) made a failed attempt to blow up oil tanks at the Shell oil refinery complex on Pulau Bukom at Singapore. The terrorists then hijacked the ferry Laju and took its five crew members hostage.source
  • 1974Laju incident: Japanese Red Army bombs petroleum tanks at Pulau Bukom and hijacks a ferry boat.source
  • 1980Burning of the Spanish Embassy in Guatemala: The Spanish Embassy in Guatemala is invaded and set on fire, killing 36 people. In the United States, it is dubbed "Spain's own Tehran".source
  • 1985Menachem Bader (born 1895), Austro-Hungarian (Galicia)-born Haganah member and Israeli politician.source
  • 1990Globalization – The first McDonald's in Moscow, Russian SFSR opens 8 months after construction began on May 3, 1989. 8 months later the first McDonald's in Mainland China is opened in Shenzhen.source
  • 1995Mexican peso crisis: U.S. President Bill Clinton invokes emergency powers to extend a $20 billion loan to help Mexico avert financial collapse.source
  • 1996Colombo Central Bank bombing: an explosives-filled truck rams into the gates of the Central Bank in Colombo, Sri Lanka, killing at least 86 people and injuring 1,400.source
  • 1996An amateur astronomer from southern Japan discovers Comet Hyakutake; it will pass very close to the Earth in March.source
  • 2000Alaska Airlines Flight 261 crashes off the California coast into the Pacific Ocean, killing all 88 passengers and crew.source
  • 20012001 Japan Airlines mid-air incident: Japan Airlines Flight 907 and Flight 958 almost collided with each other in Yaizu, Shizuoka, Japan. Flight 907 safely landed at Narita Airport and Flight 958 continued to Naha Airport. 100 people were injured.source
  • 2003Waterfall rail accident: An Intercity Tangara G set train derails near Waterfall, killing 7 and injuring 40 others. The cause was of a faulty deadman's brake.source
  • 2007Boston, Massachusetts, United States faces a hoax bomb scare, as a result of LED placards of Ignignokt and Err from Aqua Teen Hunger Force being mistaken as an improvised explosive device.source
  • 2009Tiféret Israel Synagogue attack, profanation of the oldest synagogue in Caracas, Venezuela.source
  • 2011Presidential and parliamentary elections are held in Niger following one year of military rule.source
  • 2011Oman says it has uncovered a spy network from the United Arab Emirates operating in the country.source
  • 2013Armenian politician Paruyr Hayrikyan is shot in his right clavicle and taken to a hospital in Yerevan, during his bid for the presidency.source
  • 201331 January –– A new law prohibiting hunting for sport was signed by President Laura Chinchilla. The law set fines of up to ₡1.5 million for sport hunting and up to ₡900,000 for wildlife trafficking.source
  • 2014Hundreds of endangered species from Madagascar are found in a South African airport.source
  • 2016The body of former managing director of the Liberia Petroleum Refining Company Harry Greaves is found on the beach near the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Monrovia without an apparent cause of death. By August, American investigators would conclude that Greaves' death was caused by accidental drowning.source
  • 2018A total lunar eclipse takes place, the 49th eclipse of Lunar Saros 124. This was referred to by the media as a 'super blue blood moon' as it was close to a supermoon, with perigee being on January 30, and a blue moon eclipse, the first since 1982.source
  • 2019Seven men are found dead in an apartment block in Tbilisi, apparently as a result of carbon monoxide poisoning, leading to further concerns regarding the shortcomings in policy and management of the city's gas infrastructure.source
  • 2020The Royal Solomon Islands Police Force stop searching for nine people who disappeared at sea on 15 January when their boat capsized. Five men, two women and two children are now presumed dead.source
  • 2024Sultan of Johor Ibrahim Iskandar ascends the throne as the 17th Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia.source

Births

  • 36 BCEAntonia Minor, daughter of Mark Antony and Octavia Minor, mother of the emperor Claudiussource
  • 877Wang Kon, founder of Goryeo (died 943)source
  • 1088Ja'far ibn Abdallah al-Muqtadi, son of caliph al-Muqtadi and Mah-i Mulk.source
  • 1272William Ferrers, English nobleman (died 1235)source
  • 1498Tiberio Crispo, Italian clergyman (died 1566)source
  • 1512Henry, King of Portugal and Cardinal (died 1580)source
  • 1517Gioseffo Zarlino, Italian composer (died 1590)source
  • 1530Ōtomo Sōrin, Japanese Christian Daimyō (died 1587)source
  • 1543Tokugawa Ieyasu, Japanese shōgun (died 1616)source
  • 1543Tokugawa Ieyasu (died 1616), shōgunsource
  • 1583Peter Bulkley, English and later American Puritan (died 1659)source
  • 1597John Francis Regis, French Jesuit priest (died 1640)source
  • 1597John Francis Regis, French saint (died 1640)source
  • 1607James Stanley, 7th Earl of Derby (died 1651)source
  • 1673St. Louis Maria Grignion de Montfort, French missionary priest (died 1716)source
  • 1686Hans Egede, Norwegian Lutheran missionary who launched mission efforts to Greenland (died 1758)source
  • 1686Hans Egede, Lutheran missionary (d.1758)source
  • 1687Cornelis Schrijver, Dutch States Navy officer and diplomat (died 1768)source
  • 1715John Wayles, American lawyer and planter (died 1773)source
  • 1752Gouverneur Morris, American diplomat, politician (died 1815)source
  • 1797Franz Schubert, Austrian pianist, composer (died 1828)source
  • 1808Jacobus Nicolaas Boshoff, the 2nd president of the Orange Free State from 1855 to 1859, is born in Kogmanskloof, Montagu.source
  • 1830James G. Blaine, 28th and 31st United States Secretary of State (died 1893)source
  • 1872Zane Grey, American writer (died 1939)source
  • 1902Tallulah Bankhead, American actress (died 1968)source
  • 1919Jackie Robinson, African-American baseball player (died 1972)source
  • 1923Norman Mailer, American novelist, journalist and dramatist (died 2007)source
  • 1954Imtiaz Dharker, poet and artist.source
  • 1971Lee Young-ae, actresssource
  • 1985Kalomira, Greek-American singer, in West Hempstead, New York, United Statessource
  • 1998Bradie Tennell, American figure skatersource

Deaths

  • 632Máedóc, bishop of Fernssource
  • 876Hemma of Altdorf, Frankish queensource
  • 985Ryōgen, Japanese monk and abbot (born 912)source
  • 1030William V (the Great), duke of Aquitaine (born 969)source
  • 1156Herman van Horne, bishop of Utrechtsource
  • 1216Theodore II, patriarch of Constantinoplesource
  • 1228Guy de Montfort, French nobleman and knightsource
  • 1398Former Emperor Sukō of Japan (born 1334)source
  • 1418Mircea I, Prince of Wallachia (now part of southern Romania), dies after a reign of 21 years and is succeeded by his son, Mihail I.source
  • 1418Mircea I of Wallachia, ruler of Wallachia (born 1355)source
  • 1435Xuande Emperor of China (born 1399)source
  • 1435China's Emperor Xuanzong dies after a nine-year reign, leaving a question of whether his younger brother Zhu Zhanshan, or his 7-year-old son, Crown Prince Zhu Qizhen, should be the successor.source
  • 1561Menno Simons, Anabaptist religious leader and Mennonite founder (born 1496)source
  • 1561Bairam Khan, Turkoman noble and poet (assassinated)source
  • 1561Mughal Empire General Bairam Khan is assassinated by an Afghan warrior, Mubarak Khan Lohani, while traveling through Gujarat in India.source
  • 1580King Henry of Portugal (born 1512)source
  • 1580Portuguese succession crisis of 1580: The death of Henry, King of Portugal, with no direct heirs, leads to conflict between his potential successors, including King Philip II of Spain and Infanta Catherine, Duchess of Braganza.source
  • 1587Juraj Drašković, Croatian Roman Catholic cardinal (born 1525)source
  • 1606Thomas Wintour, English conspirator (executed) (born 1571)source
  • 1606Ambrose Rokewood, English conspirator (executed)source
  • 1606Guy Fawkes, English conspirator (executed) (born 1570)source
  • 1644Georg II of Fleckenstein-Dagstuhl, German nobleman (born 1588)source
  • 1645Hans Ulrik Gyldenløve, diplomat, illegitimate son of Christian IVsource
  • 165531 January (bur.) – Anthony Stapley, politician and regicide (born 1590)source
  • 1736Filippo Juvarra, Italian architect (born 1678)source
  • 1773Sebastian Zouberbuhler, merchant and politician in Nova Scotiasource
  • 1788Charles Edward Stuart, claimant to the British throne (born 1720)source
  • 1888John Bosco, Italian priest, youth worker, educator and founder of the Salesian Society (born 1815)source
  • 1892Charles Spurgeon, English preacher (born 1834)source
  • 1933John Galsworthy, British writer, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1867)source
  • 1956A. A. Milne, English author (Winnie The Pooh) (born 1882)source
  • 1966Arthur E. Percival, known for surrendering to the Japanese on 15 February 1942 during World War II (born 1887).source
  • 1972King Mahendra of Nepal (born 1920)source