1503 – Christopher Columbus discovered the Cayman Islands.

1676 – Bacon’s Rebellion, which pits frontiersmen against the government, began.

1768 – The imprisonment of the journalist John Wilkes as an outlaw provoked violence in London. Wilkes was returned to parliament as a member for Middlesex.

1773 – The English Parliament passed the Tea Act, which taxed all tea in the U.S. colonies.

1774 – Louis XVI ascended the throne of France.

1775 – Ethan Allen and Colonel Benedict Arnold led an attack on the British Fort Ticonderoga and captured it from the British.

1796 – Napoleon Bonaparte won a brilliant victory against the Austrians at Lodi bridge in Italy.

1840 – Mormon leader Joseph Smith moved his band of followers to Illinois to escape the hostilities they had experienced in Missouri.

1857 – The Seepoys of India revolted against the British Army.

1865 – Confederate President Jefferson Davis was captured by Union troops near Irvinville, GA.

1869 – Central Pacific and Union Pacific Rail Roads meet in Promontory, UT. A golden spike was driven in at the celebration of the first transcontinental railroad in the U.S.

1872 – Victoria Woodhull became the first woman nominated for the U.S. presidency.

1876 – Richard Wagner’s “Centennial Inaugural March” was heard for the first time at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, PA.

1898 – A vending machine law was enacted in Omaha, NE. It cost $5,000 for a permit.

1908 – The first Mother’s Day observance took place during a church service in Grafton, West Virginia.

1924 – J. Edgar Hoover was appointed head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

1927 – The Hotel Statler in Boston, MA. became the first hotel to install radio headsets in each of its 1,300 rooms.

1928 – WGY-TV in Schenectady, NY, began regular television programming.

1930 – The Adler Planetarium opened to the public in Chicago, IL.

1933 – The Nazis staged massive public book burnings in Germany.

1940 – Germany invaded Belgium, France, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg.

1941 – England’s House of Commons was destroyed by a German air raid.

1941 – Rudolf Hess, Adolf Hitler’s deputy, parachuted into Scotland on what he claimed was a peace mission.

1942 – U.S. forces in the Philippines began to surrender to the Japanese.

1943 – U.S. troops invaded Attu in the Aleutian Islands to expel the Japanese.

1960 – The U.S.S. Triton completed the first circumnavigation of the globe under water. The trip started on February 16.

1962 – Marvel Comics published the first issue of “The Incredible Hulk.”

1968 – Preliminary Vietnam peace talks began in Paris.

1969 – The National and American Football Leagues announced their plans to merge for the 1970-71 season.

1978 – Britain’s Princess Margaret and the Earl of Snowdon announced they were divorcing after 18 years of marriage.

1982 – Elliott Gould made his dramatic television debut after 30 movies in 17 years. He starred in “The Rules of Marriage” on CBS-TV.

1986 – Navy Lt. Commander Donnie Cochran became the first black pilot to fly with the Blue Angels team.

1994 – Nelson Mandela was sworn in as South Africa’s first black president.

1997 – An earthquake in northeastern Iran killed at least 2,400 people.

1999 – China broke off talks on human rights with the U.S. in response to NATO’s accidental bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia.

1999 – The Cezanne painting “Still Life With Curtain, Pitcher and Bowl of Fruit” sold for 60.5 million.

2000 – 11,000 residents were evacuated in Los Alamos, NM, due to a fire that was blown into a canyon. The fire had been deliberately set to clear brush.

2001 – Boeing Co. announced that it would be moving its headquarters to Chicago, IL.

2001 – In Ghana, 121 people were killed in a stampede at a soccer game.

2002 – Robert Hanssen was sentenced to life in prison with no chance for parole. Hanssen, an FBI agent, had sold U.S. secrets to Moscow for $1.4 million in cash and diamonds.

2002 – Taiwan test fired a locally made Sky Bow II surface-to-air missile for the first time. They also fired three U.S.-made Hawk missiles.

2002 – Dr. Pepper announced that it would be introducing a new flavor, Red Fusion, for the first time in 117 years.

2011 – It was announced that Microsoft had closed a deal to purchase the internet phone service Skype for $8.5 billion.

2013 – In New York, NY, crane operators hoisted the final pieces of the spire atop One World Trade Center (formerly called the Freedom Tower).

Last Updated: January 31, 2025

On May 8, 1792, Congress passed the second portion of the Militia Act, requiring that every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective States, resident therein, who is or shall be of age eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years, be enrolled in the militia.

Six days before, Congress had established the president’s right to call out the militia. The outbreak of Shay’s Rebellion, a protest against taxation and debt prosecution in western Massachusetts in 1786-87, had first convinced many Americans that the federal government should be given the power to put down rebellions within the states. The inability of the Continental Congress under the Articles of Confederation to respond to the crisis was a major motivation for the peaceful overthrow of the government and the drafting of a new federal Constitution.

The Militia Act was tested shortly after its passage, when farmers in western Pennsylvania, angered by a federal excise tax on whiskey, attacked the home of a tax collector and then, with their ranks swollen to 6,000 camped outside Pittsburgh, threatened to march on the town. In response, President Washington, under the auspices of the Militia Act, assembled 15,000 men

Source: history.com

On the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, some 200 Sioux Native Americans, led by members of the American Indian Movement (AIM), occupy Wounded Knee, the site of the infamous 1890 massacre of 300 Sioux by the U.S. Seventh Cavalry. The AIM members, some of them armed, took 11 residents of the historic Oglala Sioux settlement hostage as local authorities and federal agents descended on the reservation.

AIM was founded in 1968 by Russell Means, Dennis Banks, and other Native leaders as a militant political and civil rights organization. From November 1969 to June 1971, AIM members occupied Alcatraz Island off San Francisco, saying they had the right to it under a treaty provision granting them unused federal land. In November 1972, AIM members briefly occupied the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington, D.C., to protest programs controlling reservation development. Then, in early 1973, AIM prepared for its dramatic occupation of Wounded Knee. In addition to its historical significance, Wounded Knee was one of the poorest communities in the United States and shared with the other Pine Ridge settlements some of the country’s lowest rates of life expectancy.

Source: history.com

0558 – The dome of the church of St. Sophia in Constantinople collapsed. It was immediately rebuilt as ordered by Justinian.

1274 – The Second Council of Lyons opened in France to regulate the election of the pope.

1429 – The English siege of Orleans was broken by Joan of Arc.

1525 – The German peasants’ revolt was crushed by the ruling class and church.

1663 – The first Theatre Royal was opened in London.

1763 – Indian chief Pontiac began all out war on the British in New York.

1789 – The first U.S. Presidential Inaugural Ball was held in New York City.

1800 – The U.S. Congress divided the Northwest Territory into two parts. The western part became the Indiana Territory and the eastern section remained the Northwest Territory.

1847 – The AMA (American Medical Association) was organized in Philadelphia, PA.

1898 – The first Intercollegiate Trapshooting Association meet was held in New Haven, CT.

1912 – Columbia University approved final plans for awarding the Pulitzer Prize in several categories.

1912 – The first airplane equipped with a machine gun flew over College Park, MD.

1915 – The Lusitania, a civilian ship, was sunk by a German submarine. 1,201 people were killed.

1926 – A U.S. report showed that one-third of the nation’s exports were motors.

1937 – The German Condor Legion arrived in Spain to assist Franco’s forces.

1939 – Germany and Italy announced a military and political alliance known as the Rome-Berlin Axis.

1940 – Winston Churchill became British Prime Minister.

1942 – In the Battle of the Coral Sea, Japanese and American navies attacked each other with carrier planes. It was the first time in the history of naval warfare where two enemy fleets fought without seeing each other.

1943 – The last major German strongholds in North Africa, Tunis and Bizerte, fell to Allied forces.

1945 – Baseball owner Branch Rickey announced the organization of the United States Negro Baseball League. There were 6 teams.

1945 – Germany signed unconditional surrender ending World War II. It would take effect the next day.

1946 – Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corp. was founded. The company was later renamed Sony.

1951 – Russia was admitted to participate in the 1952 Olympic Games by the International Olympic Committee.

1954 – French Colonial Forces surrendered to the Vietminh at Dien Bien Phu after 55 days of fighting.

1954 – The United States and the United Kingdom rejected the Soviet Union’s bid to join NATO.

1958 – Howard Johnson set an aircraft altitude record in F-104.

1960 – Leonid Brezhnev became president of the Soviet Union.

1975 – U.S. President Ford declared an end to the Vietnam War.

1977 – Rookie Janet Guthrie set the fastest time on opening day of practice for the Indianapolis 500. Her time was 185.607.

1984 – A $180 million out-of-court settlement was announced in the Agent Orange class-action suit brought by Vietnam veterans who claimed they had suffered injury from exposure to the defoliant while serving in the armed forces.

1992 – A 203-year-old proposed constitutional amendment barring the U.S. Congress from giving itself a midterm pay raise was ratified as the 27th Amendment.

1994 – The Edvard Munch painting “The Scream” was recovered after being stolen 3 months earlier from an Oslo Museum. This version of “The Scream”, one of four different versions, was painted on paper.

1996 – The trial of Serbian police officer Dusan Tadic opened in the Netherlands. He was later convicted on murder-torture charges and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

1997 – A report released by the U.S. government said that Switzerland provided Nazi Germany with equipment and credit during World War II. Germany exchanged for gold what had been plundered or stolen. Switzerland did not comply with postwar agreements to return the gold.

1998 – Daimler-Benz bought Chrysler Corp. for close to $40 billion. It was the largest industrial merger on record.

1998 – Residents of London voted to elect their own mayor for the first time in history. The vote would take place in May 2000.

1999 – A jury ruled that “The Jenny Jones Show” and Warner Bros. were liable in the shooting death of Scott Amedure. He was killed by another guest on the show. The jury’s award was $25 million.

1999 – Jerry Moss received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

1999 – In Belgrade, Yugoslavia, three Chinese citizens were killed and 20 were wounded when a NATO plane mistakenly bombed the Chinese embassy.

1999 – In Guinea-Bissau, the government of President João Bernardo Vieira was ousted in a military coup.

2000 – Russian President Vladimir V. Putin named First Deputy Premier Mikhail Kasyanov as premier.

2003 – In Washington, DC, General Motors Corp. delivered six fuel cell vehicles to Capitol Hill for lawmakers and others to test drive during the next two years.

2003 – Roger Moore collapsed during a matinee performance of the Broadway comedy “The Play What I Wrote.” He finished the show after a 10-minute break. He was fitted with a pacemaker the following day.

2013 – The Dow Jones industrial average closed at 15,056.20. It was the first time it had closed over 15,000.