On This Day:
Tuesday January 31, 2012
This is the 31st day of the year, with 335 days remaining
in 2012.
Fact of the Day: growth plates
Mammals have the ability of skeletal growth because of
flexible epiphyses [pronounced: a pith a seas] (growth caps)
found at the ends of the long bone shafts. The epiphyseal
cartilages [growth plates] separate the epiphyses while
bones are forming. The advent of puberty is signaled by an
increase of sex hormones and at this point the growth plates
begin to close. Once they are eliminated, the growth process
totally stops.
Holidays
Feast day of Saints Cyrus and John of Alexandria, St.
Francis Xavier Bianchi, St. Adamnan of Coldingham, St. Aidan
or Maedoc of Ferns, St. Eusebius of St. Gall, St. Marcella
of Rome, St. John Bosco, and St. Ulphia.
Nauru:
Independence Day.
Events
1848
- Major John
C. Fremont, popular for his mapmaking expeditions to
the West, was court-martialed on grounds of mutiny and
disobeying orders. Stephen
Kearny brought charges against Fremont when a dispute
arose over who held governing authority in California.
1865
- General Robert
E. Lee was named general-in-chief of all the
Confederate armies.
1865
- The U.S. House
of Representatives passed a constitutional amendment
to abolish slavery.
1917
- Germany
announced the renewal of unlimited submarine warfare in the
Atlantic,
and German torpedo-armed submarines prepare to attack any
and all ships sighted in war-zone waters.
1940
- The first Social
Security check was issued, to Ida May Fuller of Vermont.
1945
- Private Eddie
Slovik became the only U.S. soldier since the Civil
War to be executed for desertion.
1949
- The TV daytime soap opera, "These
Are My Children," was broadcast on NBC;
it was the first to be aired on a major American network.
1950
- President Harry
Truman announced he had ordered development of the hydrogen
bomb.
1958
- The United
States entered the Space
Age with its first successful launch of a satellite
into orbit, Explorer
I.
1971
- Apollo
14, piloted by astronauts Alan
B. Shepard Jr., Edgar
D. Mitchell, and Stuart
A. Roosa, was successfully launched from Cape
Canaveral, Florida,
on a manned mission to the moon.
1990
- McDonald's
Corporation opened its first fast-food restaurant in Moscow.
2001
- A court in the Netherlands
convicted one Libyan and acquitted a second in the 1988
bombing of Pan
Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie,
Scotland.
2005
- The Michael
Jackson child molestation trial begins in Santa
Maria, California.
Births
1797
- Franz
Schubert, Austrian composer.
1872
- Zane
Grey, American western writer.
1882
- Anna
Pavlova, Russian ballerina.
1915
- Thomas
Merton, American Catholic monk/poet.
1919
- Jackie
Robinson, first African-American baseball player in
modern major leagues.
1923
- Norman
Mailer, American Pulitzer
Prize-winning novelist.
1925
- Benjamin
Hooks, American jurist, minister, civil rights leader,
and public official.
1970
- Minnie
Driver (born Amelia Driver), English actress, and
singer-songwriter.
1981
- Justin
Timberlake, American pop singer, and actor.
Deaths
1606
- Guy
Fawkes, convicted for his part in the "Gunpowder
Plot" against the English Parliament and King
James the First, hanged, drawn, and quartered.
1956
- A.
A. Milne (born Alan Alexander Milne), English writer.
1974
- Samuel
Goldwyn, Polish-born American film producer and studio
executive.
2000
- Gil
Kane (born Eli Katz), Latvian-born
comic book artist.
2001
- Gordon
R. Dickson, Canadian science fiction author.
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