January 31 in History

Pope Sylvester I (also Silvester, before 284 – 31 December 335) was the bishop of Rome from 31 January 314 until his death on 31 December 335. He filled the See of Rome at an important era in the history of the Western Church, though very little is known of his life. During his pontificate, he notably convened the Council of Arles in 314, which condemned the separatist Donatist sect, and the First Council of Nicaea in 325, which aimed to resolve the Arian controversy. Sylvester I's pontificate coincided with the construction of churches including Old St. Peter's Basilica, the Basilica of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem (Santa Croce in Gerusalemme), as well as the Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran. His feast is celebrated as Saint Sylvester's Day, on 31 December in Western Christianity, and on 2 January in Eastern Christianity.

The Battle of Lena occurred on 31 January 1208 and probably took place near Kungslena, in the Tidaholm Municipality in Västergötland, Sweden. It was an important battle between the Danish-backed King Sverker II of Sweden and Prince Eric. Eric's forces won a crushing victory; however, in July 1210, Sverker returned with a second army and was killed in the Battle of Gestilren.

The Mudéjar were Muslims who remained in Iberia in the late medieval period following the Christian reconquest. It is also a term for Mudéjar art, which was greatly influenced by Islamic art, but produced typically by Christian craftsmen for Christian patrons. Mudéjar was used in contrast to both Muslims in Muslim-ruled areas and Moriscos, who were often forcibly converted and may or may not have continued to secretly practice Islam. The corresponding term for Christians living under Muslim rule in medieval Iberia is Mozarabs.

The Italian Wars of 1499–1504 are divided into two connected, but distinct, phases: the Second Italian War (1499–1501), sometimes known as Louis XII's Italian War, and the Third Italian War (1502–1504) or War over Naples. The first phase was fought for control of the Duchy of Milan by an alliance of Louis XII of France and the Republic of Venice against Ludovico Sforza, the second between Louis and Ferdinand II of Aragon for possession of the Kingdom of Naples. In the aftermath of the Italian War of 1494–1498, Louis was determined to pursue French claims to Milan and Naples and in October 1499 he captured Milan, which remained in French hands for the next thirteen years. His invasion of Naples in 1501 eventually led to war with Ferdinand of Aragon, who expelled the French in 1504.

The Eighty Years' War or Dutch Revolt (c. 1566/1568–1648) was an armed conflict in the Habsburg Netherlands between disparate groups of rebels and the Spanish government. The causes of the war included the Reformation, centralisation, excessive taxation, and the rights and privileges of the Dutch nobility and cities. After the initial stages, Philip II of Spain, the sovereign of the Netherlands, deployed his armies and regained control over most of the rebel-held territories. However, widespread mutinies in the Spanish army caused a general uprising. Under the leadership of the exiled William the Silent, the Catholic and Protestant-dominated provinces sought to establish religious peace while jointly opposing the king's regime with the Pacification of Ghent, but the general rebellion failed to sustain itself. Despite steady military and diplomatic successes by the Governor of Spanish Netherlands and General for Spain, the Duke of Parma, the Union of Utrecht continued their resistance, proclaiming their independence through the 1581 Act of Abjuration and establishing the Calvinist-dominated Dutch Republic in 1588. In the Ten Years thereafter, the Republic (whose heartland was no longer threatened) made conquests in the north and east and received diplomatic recognition from France and England in 1596. The Dutch colonial empire emerged, which began with Dutch attacks on Portugal's overseas territories. Facing a stalemate, the two sides agreed to a Twelve Years' Truce in 1609; when it expired in 1621, fighting resumed as part of the broader Thirty Years' War. An end was reached in 1648 with the Peace of Münster when Spain retained the Southern Netherlands and recognised the Dutch Republic as an independent country.

The Gunpowder Plot of 1605, in earlier centuries often called the Gunpowder Treason Plot or the Jesuit Treason, was an unsuccessful attempted regicide against King James VI of Scotland and I of England by a group of English Catholics, led by Robert Catesby.

The Bank of Amsterdam or Wisselbank (Dutch: Amsterdamsche Wisselbank, lit. 'Exchange Bank of Amsterdam') was an early bank, vouched for by the city of Amsterdam, and established in 1609. It was the first public bank to offer accounts not directly convertible to coin. As such, it has been described by some as the first true central bank, even though that view is not uniformly shared. The Amsterdam Wisselbank was also active in the production of coins. For decades the assay master of the Bank sent out stocks of gold and silver to the various Mints in the United Netherlands to receive new coins in return. Unlike the Bank of England, established almost a century later, it neither managed the national currency nor acted as a lending institution (except to the government in emergencies); it was intended to defend coinage standard. The role of the Wisselbank was to correctly estimate the value of coins and thus make debasement less profitable. It occupied a central position in the financial world of its day, providing an effective, efficient and trusted system for national and international payments, and the Dutch guilder was a de facto reserve currency in Europe in the 17th and 18th century. David Hume praised the Bank of Amsterdam for its policy of 100 percent specie-backed deposit reserves. The bank's full-reserve policy relaxed over time as it lent money to finance overseas trade and to support the Dutch economy, but it remained liquid by requiring good collateral on its loans. This changed with the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War, when the Dutch East India Company defaulted on large unsecured advances from the bank. Despite several attempts to recapitalize, confidence in the bank never recovered. During the last decade of the Republic of the United Provinces, in 1790, the premium on the bank's money disappeared, and by the end of the year, it had declared itself insolvent. The City of Amsterdam assumed control of the bank in 1791. The Nederlandsche Bank was established in 1814, and took over money issue duties for the new Kingdom of the Netherlands, while the Wisselbank entered liquidation in 1819.

The revenge of the forty-seven rōnin (四十七士, Shijūshichishi), also known as the Akō incident (赤穂事件, Akō jiken) or Akō vendetta, was a historical event in Japan in which a band of rōnin (lordless samurai) avenged the death of their former master on 31 January 1703. The incident has since become legendary. It is among the three major vengeance (adauchi 仇討ち) incidents in Japan, along with the Revenge of the Soga Brothers and the Igagoe vendetta. The story tells of a group of samurai after their daimyō (feudal lord) Asano Naganori was compelled to perform seppuku (ritual suicide) for assaulting a powerful court official (kōke) named Kira Yoshinaka, after the court official insulted him. After waiting and planning for two years, the rōnin avenged their master's honor by killing Kira. Anticipating the authorities' intolerance of the vendetta's completion, they were prepared to face execution as a consequence. However, due to considerable public support in their favor, the authorities compromised by ordering forty-six of the rōnin to commit seppuku as an honorable death for the crime of murder, while the youngest, Terasaka Kichiemon, was pardoned. This true story was popular in Japanese culture as emblematic of loyalty, sacrifice, persistence, and honor (qualities samurai followed called bushidō) that people should display in their daily lives. The popularity of the tale grew during the Meiji era, during which Japan underwent rapid modernization, and the legend became entrenched within discourses of national heritage and identity. Fictionalized accounts of the tale of the forty-seven rōnin are known as Chūshingura. The story was popularized in numerous plays, including in the genres of bunraku and kabuki. Because of the censorship laws of the shogunate in the Genroku era, which forbade the portrayal of current events, the names were changed. The first Chūshingura was written some 50 years after the event, and numerous historical records about the actual event that predate the Chūshingura survive. The bakufu's censorship laws had relaxed somewhat 75 years after the event in the late 18th century when Japanologist Isaac Titsingh first recorded the story of the forty-seven rōnin as one of the significant events of the Genroku era. The story remains popular in Japan. While the attack was carried out on 31 January, the event is commemorated annually on 14 December. Sengakuji Temple, where Asano Naganori and the rōnin are buried, holds a festival commemorating the event.

A sexually transmitted infection (STI), also known as a sexually transmitted disease (STD) or venereal disease (VD), is an infection that is spread by sexual activity, especially vaginal intercourse, anal sex, oral sex, or sometimes manual sex. STIs often do not initially cause symptoms, which results in a risk of transmitting them to others. The term sexually transmitted infection is generally preferred over sexually transmitted disease or venereal disease, as it includes cases with no symptomatic disease. Symptoms and signs of STIs may include vaginal discharge, penile discharge, ulcers on or around the genitals, and pelvic pain. Some STIs can cause infertility.

Gervasio Antonio de Posadas y Dávila (18 June 1757 – 2 July 1833) was an Argentine lawyer and statesman who served as the first Supreme Director of the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata from 31 January 1814 to 9 January 1815, after having been a member of the Second Triumvirate in 1813–1814.

The Milwaukee Bridge War, sometimes simply the Bridge War, was an 1845 conflict between people from different regions of what is now the city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, over the construction of a bridge crossing the Milwaukee River.

Major-General John Charles Frémont was a United States Army officer, explorer, and politician. He was a United States senator from California and was the first Republican nominee for president of the U.S. and founder of the California Republican Party upon being nominated. Frémont lost the 1856 United States presidential election to Democrat James Buchanan.

Alvan Graham Clark (July 10, 1832 – June 9, 1897) was an American astronomer and telescope-maker.

The Confederate States of America (CSA), also known as the Confederate States or the Confederacy, was a republic in the Southern United States from 1861 to 1865, unrecognized as a sovereign nation by either foreign governments or the United States. The Confederacy was formed on February 8, 1861, by seven states that had seceded from the Union. The original seven were South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas; the additional four were Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina. These states fought against the United States during the American Civil War in the wake of the 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln as president, with the principal aim of safeguarding slavery amid fears of northern abolitionist influence and federal interference in slave property. The South also feared that Lincoln's insistence that slavery not be permitted to expand into the Western territories would result in the admission of additional free states and the eventual demise of slavery.

The Kingdom of Portugal under the House of Braganza was a constitutional monarchy from the end of the Liberal Civil War in 1834 to the Republican Revolution of 1910. The initial turmoil of coups d'état perpetrated by the victorious generals of the Civil War was followed by an unstable parliamentary system of governmental "rotation" marked by the growth of the Portuguese Republican Party. This was caused mainly by the inefficiency of the Portuguese monarchy as well as their lack of interest in governing the country and acceptance of the 1890 British Ultimatum, which forced the abandonment of the colonialist Pink Map attempt to unite the colonies of Angola and Mozambique.

The Mat Salleh Rebellion was a series of major armed disturbances against the British North Borneo Chartered Company administration in North Borneo, now the Malaysian state of Sabah. It was instigated by Datu Muhammad Salleh (also known as Mat Salleh), a local chief from the Lingkabo district and Sugut River. He led the rebellion between 1894 until his death in Tambunan in 1900. The rebellion then continued on for another five years until 1905. His revolts were widely supported by the local communities and affected a large geographical area from Sandakan, across Gaya Island, including the interior, especially Tambunan. His most notable uprising occurred at midnight on 9 July 1897, when he led his followers to successfully attack a major colonial settlement on Gaya Island.

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian playwright, short story writer, and physician. Widely considered one of the greatest writers of all time, his career as a playwright produced four classics, and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics. Along with Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg, Chekhov is often referred to as one of the three seminal figures in the birth of early modernism in the theatre. Chekhov was a physician by profession. "Medicine is my lawful wife," he once said, "and literature is my mistress."

World War I, or the First World War, also known as the Great War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Central Powers. One of the deadliest conflicts in history, World War I caused 15 to 22 million deaths, including those resulting from war crimes and genocides. The war also contributed to the spread of the Spanish flu pandemic. The conflict saw important developments in weaponry, including machine guns, artillery, aircraft, chemical weapons, and tanks.

Wilhelm II was the last German Emperor from 1888 until his abdication in 1918. His fall from power marked the end of the German Empire as well as the Hohenzollern dynasty's 400-year rule over Prussia.

The Battle of May Island is the name given to the series of accidents that occurred during Operation E.C.1 in 1918. Named after the Isle of May, a nearby island in the Firth of Forth, the "battle" consisted of a disastrous series of accidents amongst Royal Navy vessels on their way from Rosyth, Scotland, to fleet exercises in the North Sea. On the misty night of 31 January–1 February 1918, five collisions occurred between eight vessels. Two K-class submarines were lost and four other submarines and a scout cruiser were damaged. 105 British sailors in total died in the accidents.

The Finnish Civil War was fought in 1918 for the leadership and control of recently independent Finland (formerly part of Russia) between White Finland and the Finnish Socialist Workers' Republic (Red Finland). The clashes took place in the context of the national, political, and social turmoil caused by World War I (Eastern Front) in Europe. The belligerents were the paramilitary Red Guards, led by a section of the Social Democratic Party with backup of the Russian bolsheviks, and the paramilitary White Guards of the senate. General C. G. E. Mannerheim led the White Guards with major assistance by both the Finnish Jäger Battalion trained in Germany and from March-April 1918 by the German Imperial Army, along the German goal to control Fennoscandia and Petrograd of Russia. The Reds, composed of industrial and agrarian working class people, controlled the cities and industrial centres of southern Finland. The Whites, composed of land owners and the middle and upper class, controlled the rural central and northern Finland. In the years before the civil war, Finland had experienced rapid population growth, industrialisation, gradually increasing urbanisation and the rise of a comprehensive labour movement. The country's political and governmental systems were in an unstable phase of democratisation and modernisation. The socio-economic condition and education of the population had gradually improved, and national awareness and culture had progressed. World War I led to the collapse of the Russian Empire, causing a power vacuum in Finland, and the subsequent struggle for dominance led to militarisation and an escalating crisis between the left-leaning labour movement and the conservatives. The Reds carried out an unsuccessful general offensive in February 1918, supplied with weapons by Soviet Russia. A counteroffensive by the Whites began in March, reinforced by the German Empire's military detachments in April. The decisive engagements were the Battles of Tampere and Viipuri, won by the Whites, and the Battles of Helsinki and Lahti, won by German troops, leading to overall victory for the Whites and the German forces. Political violence became a part of this warfare with around 12,000 casualties - most of them were Reds. Moreover, about 12,500 Red prisoners died of malnutrition and disease in camps. In total around 38,000 people died in the conflict, where around one million Finns of the total population of three million had been more or less involved with. In the immediate aftermath, Finland passed from the sphere of influence of Soviet Russia to the German power sphere with a plan to establish a German-led Finnish monarchy. The scheme ended with Germany's defeat in World War I, and Finland instead emerged as a sovereign, democratic, constitutional state with proper civil society. The civil war divided the nation for decades. The Finnish society was gradually reunited through social compromises based on a long-term culture of moderate politics, religion and a post-war economic recovery.

The Battle of George Square was a violent confrontation in Glasgow, Scotland between City of Glasgow Police and striking workers, centred around George Square. The "battle", also known as "Bloody Friday" or "Black Friday", took place on Friday 31 January 1919, shortly after the end of the First World War. During the riot, the Sheriff of Lanarkshire called for military aid, and government troops, supported by six tanks, were moved to key points in the city, though troops never clashed with the rioters. The strike leaders were arrested for inciting the riot. Although it is often stated that there were no fatalities, one police constable died several months later from injuries received during the rioting.

Lev Davidovich Trotsky (né Bronstein; 7 November [O.S. 26 October] 1879 – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky, was a Russian revolutionary, Soviet politician, and political theorist. He was a key figure in the 1905 Revolution, the October Revolution of 1917, the Russian Civil War, and the establishment of the Soviet Union, from which he was exiled in 1929 before his assassination in 1940. Trotsky and Vladimir Lenin were widely considered the two most prominent figures in the Soviet state from 1917 until Lenin's death in 1924. Ideologically a Marxist and a Leninist, Trotsky's ideas and beliefs inspired a school of Marxism known as Trotskyism. Trotsky joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1898, being arrested and exiled to Siberia for his activities. In 1902 he escaped to London, where he met Lenin. Trotsky initially sided with the Mensheviks against Lenin's Bolsheviks in the party's 1903 schism, but declared himself non-factional in 1904. During the 1905 Revolution, Trotsky was elected chairman of the Saint Petersburg Soviet. He was again exiled to Siberia, but escaped in 1907 and lived abroad. After the February Revolution of 1917, Trotsky joined the Bolsheviks and was elected chairman of the Petrograd Soviet. He helped to lead the October Revolution, and as the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs negotiated the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, by which Russia withdrew from World War I. He served as People's Commissar for Military Affairs from 1918 to 1925, during which he built the Red Army and led it to victory in the civil war. In 1922 Lenin formed a bloc with Trotsky against the growing Soviet bureaucracy and proposed that he should become a deputy premier, but Trotsky declined. Beginning in 1923, Trotsky led the party's Left Opposition faction, which supported greater levels of industrialisation, voluntary collectivisation and party democratisation in a shared framework with the New Economic Policy. After Lenin's death in 1924, Trotsky emerged as a prominent critic of Joseph Stalin, who soon politically outmanoeuvred him. Trotsky was expelled from the Politburo in 1926 and from the party in 1927, exiled to Alma Ata in 1928 and deported in 1929. He lived in Turkey, France, and Norway before settling in Mexico in 1937. In exile, Trotsky wrote polemics against Stalinism, advocating proletarian internationalism against Stalin's theory of socialism in one country. Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution held that the revolution could survive only if it spread to more advanced capitalist countries. In The Revolution Betrayed (1936), he argued that the Soviet Union had become a "degenerated workers' state", and in 1938 founded the Fourth International as an alternative to the Comintern. After being sentenced to death in absentia at the Moscow show trials in 1936, Trotsky was assassinated in 1940 in Mexico City by Ramón Mercader, a Stalinist agent. Written out of official history under Stalin, Trotsky was one of the few of his rivals who were never politically rehabilitated by later Soviet leaders. In the Western world, Trotsky emerged as a hero of the anti-Stalinist left for his defence of a more democratic, internationalist form of socialism against Stalinist totalitarianism, and for his intellectual contributions to Marxism. While some of his wartime actions are controversial, such as his ideological defence of the Red Terror and violent suppression of the Kronstadt rebellion, scholarship ranks Trotsky's leadership of the Red Army highly among historical figures, and he is credited for his major involvement with the military, economic, cultural and political development of the Soviet Union.

World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated, with many engaging in total war on an unprecedented scale. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the deaths of 60 to 75 million people, a majority of whom were civilians. Millions died as a result of massacres, starvation, disease, and genocides, including the Holocaust. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes in the Nuremberg trials and the International Military Tribunal for the Far East respectively.

Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst Paulus (23 September 1890 – 1 February 1957) was a German Generalfeldmarschall (Field Marshal) during World War II who is best known for being the commander of the German 6th Army during the Battle of Stalingrad (July 1942 to February 1943). The battle ended in disaster for the Wehrmacht when Soviet forces encircled the Germans within the city, leading to the ultimate death or capture of most of the 265,000-strong 6th Army, their Axis allies, and collaborators. Paulus fought in World War I and saw action in France and the Balkans. He was considered a promising officer; by the time World War II broke out, he had been promoted to major general. Paulus took part in the invasions of Poland and the Low Countries, after which he was named deputy chief of the German Army General Staff. In that capacity, Paulus helped plan the invasion of the Soviet Union. In 1942, Paulus was given command of the 6th Army. He led the drive to Stalingrad but was cut off and surrounded in the subsequent Soviet counter-offensive. Adolf Hitler prohibited attempts to break out or capitulate, and the German defense was gradually worn down. Paulus surrendered in Stalingrad on 31 January 1943, the day after he was informed of his promotion to field marshal by Hitler. Hitler expected Paulus to take his own life, repeating to his staff that there was no precedent of a German field marshal being captured alive. While in Soviet captivity during the war, Paulus became a vocal critic of the Nazi regime and joined the Soviet-sponsored National Committee for a Free Germany. In 1953, Paulus moved to East Germany, where he worked in military history research. He lived out the rest of his life in Dresden.

Kwajalein Atoll (; Marshallese: Kuwajleen [kʷuwɑzʲ(ɛ)lʲɛːnʲ]) is part of the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI). The southernmost and largest island in the atoll is named Kwajalein Island, which its majority English-speaking residents (about 1,000 mostly U.S. civilian personnel) often shorten to Kwaj . The total land area of the atoll is just over 6 square miles (16 km2). It lies in the Ralik Chain, 2,100 nautical miles (3,900 km; 2,400 mi) southwest of Honolulu, Hawaii. Kwajalein Island has hosted a U.S. Army base since World War II. It was the final resting place of the German cruiser Prinz Eugen after it survived the Operation Crossroads nuclear test in 1946. In the late 1950s, the U.S. Army took over the base as part of their Nike Zeus anti-ballistic missile efforts, and since then the atoll has been widely used for missile tests of all sorts. Today it is part of the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site, with various radars, tracking cameras, missile launchers, and many support systems spread across many islands. One of the five ground stations used in controlling the operation of the Global Positioning System (GPS) navigation system is located on Kwajalein. The Marshall Islands are a dependent nation through the Free Compact of Association with the United States, after their independence established in the 1980s from a U.N. Protectorate. The defense of the Kwajalein, and the Marshall Islands is the responsibility of the United States. The important missile test range has been a mutually agreed task, and many Marshalese work at the military bases. The atoll is also used as a base for orbital rocket launches with the Pegasus-XL rocket, and previously had a base for SpaceX for their Falcon 1 rocket.

The Battle of Anzio was a battle of the Italian Campaign of World War II that commenced 22 January 1944. The battle began with the Allied amphibious landing known as Operation Shingle, and ended on 4 June 1944, with the liberation of Rome. The operation was opposed by German and by Italian Repubblica Sociale Italiana (RSI) forces in the area of Anzio and Nettuno. Allied landings on the Italian mainland began in September 1943, and after slow gains against German resistance, the progress was stopped in December 1943 at the German defensive Gustav Line, south of Rome. The operation was initially commanded by Major General John P. Lucas, of the U.S. Army, commanding U.S. VI Corps with the intent to outflank German forces at the Winter Line and enable an attack on Rome. The success of an amphibious landing at that location, in a basin consisting substantially of reclaimed marshland and surrounded by mountains, depended on the element of surprise and the swiftness with which the invaders could build up strength and move inland relative to the reaction time and strength of the defenders. Any delay could result in the occupation of the mountains by the defenders and the consequent entrapment of the invaders. The initial landing achieved complete surprise with no opposition and a jeep patrol even made it as far as the outskirts of Rome. However, Lucas, who had little confidence in the operation as planned, failed to capitalize on the element of surprise and delayed his advance until he judged his position was sufficiently consolidated and he had sufficient strength. While Lucas consolidated, Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, the German commander in the Italian theatre, moved every unit he could spare into a defensive ring around the beachhead. His artillery units had a clear view of every Allied position. The Germans also stopped the drainage pumps and flooded the reclaimed marsh with salt water, planning to entrap the Allies and destroy them by epidemic. For weeks a rain of shells fell on the beach, the marsh, the harbour, and on anything else observable from the hills, with little distinction between forward and rear positions. After a month of heavy but inconclusive fighting, Lucas was relieved and sent home. His replacement was Major General Lucian Truscott, who had commanded the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division. The Allies broke out in May. But, instead of striking inland to cut lines of communication of the German Tenth Army's units fighting at Monte Cassino, Truscott, on Clark's orders, turned his forces north-west towards Rome, which was captured on 4 June 1944. As a result, the forces of the German Tenth Army fighting at Cassino were able to withdraw and rejoin the rest of Kesselring's forces north of Rome, regroup, and make a fighting withdrawal to his next major prepared defensive position on the Gothic Line. The battle was costly, with 24,000 U.S. and 10,000 British casualties.

Edward Donald Slovik (February 18, 1920 – January 31, 1945) was an American soldier who was court-martialed and executed for desertion during World War II. He was the only US serviceman to have met such a fate since the American Civil War, though in 1902, during the American-Philippine War, two American soldiers (Edmund DuBose and Lewis Russell) of the 9th Cavalry Regiment were executed for "desertion to the enemy". Although over 21,000 American servicemen were given varying sentences for desertion during World War II, including 49 death sentences, Slovik's death sentence was the only one that was carried out. The case was brought to public attention by the 1954 book The Execution of Private Slovik by William Bradford Huie, later made into an NBC 1974 television movie.

Stutthof was a Nazi concentration camp established by Nazi Germany in a secluded, marshy, and wooded area near the village of Stutthof (now Sztutowo, Pomeranian Voivodeship of northern Poland) 34 km (21 mi) east of the city of Danzig (Gdańsk) in the territory of the German-annexed Free City of Danzig. The camp was set up around existing structures after the invasion of Poland in World War II and initially used for the imprisonment of Polish leaders and intelligentsia. The actual barracks were built the following year by prisoners. Most of the infrastructure of the concentration camp was either destroyed or dismantled shortly after the war. In 1962, the former concentration camp with its remaining structures was turned into a memorial museum. Stutthof was the first German concentration camp set up outside German borders in World War II, in operation from 2 September 1939. It was also the last camp liberated by the Allies, on 9 May 1945. It is estimated that between 63,000 and 65,000 prisoners of Stutthof concentration camp and its subcamps died as a result of murder, starvation, epidemics, extreme labour conditions, brutal and forced evacuations, and a lack of medical attention. Some 28,000 of those who died were Jews. In total, as many as 110,000 people were deported to the camp in the course of its existence. About 24,600 were transferred from Stutthof to other locations.

The Battle of Hill 170 was a battle between the British 3rd Commando Brigade and the Japanese 54th Division during the Second World War. The battle was fought in January 1945, as part of the Burma Campaign. The 3rd Commando Brigade were given the task of assaulting the Arakan Peninsula at Myebon. Here they were to take and hold the dominant features of the southern Chin Hills. If they could achieve this, they would cut off the supply and escape routes of the Japanese to Rangoon and secure the bridgehead. The battle for Hill 170 was the climax of the Arakan operations, and its outcome broke the spirit of the Japanese 54th Division. Had the commandos' positions fallen, this would have endangered all the Allied units that had landed on the Myebon Peninsula. After the battle, the commander of the XV Indian Corps—Lieutenant General Sir Philip Christison—stated in a special order of the day to the 3rd Commando Brigade, "The Battle of Kangaw had been the decisive battle of the whole Arakan campaign and that it was won was very largely due to your magnificent defence of Hill 170."

The Cold War was a period of international geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc. It began in the aftermath of the Second World War and ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The term cold war is used because there was no direct fighting between the two superpowers, though each supported opposing sides in regional conflicts known as proxy wars. In addition to the struggle for ideological and economic influence and an arms race in both conventional and nuclear weapons, the Cold War was expressed through technological rivalries such as the Space Race, espionage, propaganda campaigns, embargoes, and sports diplomacy.

The Democratic Republic of Vietnam was a country in Southeast Asia from 1945 to 1976, with sovereignty recognized in July 1954, after which it became commonly known as North Vietnam. A member of the communist Eastern Bloc, it opposed the anti-communist, French-associated State of Vietnam and later its successor state the Western-allied Republic of Vietnam. North Vietnam launched a successful military offensive against South Vietnam in 1975 and was formally reunified with the South the following year to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

The United Nations Security Council Resolution 90 was adopted by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on 31 January 1951. It resolved to remove the item "Complaint of aggression upon the Republic of Korea" from the list of matters of which the Council is seized.

The North Sea flood of 1953, also known as the Big Flood or East Coast Flood or as the Flood Disaster, was a flood caused by a heavy storm surge in the North Sea that struck low-lying coastal areas of the Netherlands, Belgium, and the United Kingdom. More than 2,000 people were killed on land and hundreds more at sea. It was the worst natural disaster of the 20th century in the United Kingdom and the worst in the Netherlands since the Middle Ages.

Pacoima is a neighborhood in the northeast San Fernando Valley, within the city of Los Angeles, California. It is one of the oldest neighborhoods in the San Fernando Valley.

The Space Race was a 20th-century competition between the Cold War rivals, the United States and the Soviet Union, to achieve superior spaceflight capability. It had its origins in the ballistic missile-based nuclear arms race between the two nations that followed World War II and the onset of the Cold War. The technological advantage demonstrated by spaceflight achievement was seen as necessary for national security, particularly in regard to intercontinental ballistic missile and satellite reconnaissance capability, but also became part of the cultural symbolism and ideology of the time. The Space Race brought pioneering launches of artificial satellites, robotic landers to the Moon, Venus, and Mars, and human spaceflight in low Earth orbit and ultimately to the Moon.

Project Mercury was the first human spaceflight program of the United States, running from 1958 through 1963. An early highlight of the Space Race, its goal was to put a man into Earth orbit and return him safely, ideally before the Soviet Union. Taken over from the US Air Force by the newly created civilian space agency NASA, it conducted 20 uncrewed developmental flights, and six successful flights by astronauts. The program, which took its name from Roman mythology, cost $2.83 billion. The astronauts were collectively known as the "Mercury Seven", and each spacecraft was given a name ending with a "7" by its pilot.

The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from its formation in 1922 until its dissolution in 1991. It was the world's third-most populous country, the largest by area, and bordered twelve other countries. A diverse multinational state, it was organized as a federal union of national republics, with the largest and most populous being the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (SFSR). The world's flagship communist state, it was governed by the Communist Party under Marxism–Leninism, through soviet councils. The Soviet economy was also centrally planned. Its capital and largest city was Moscow.

The Vietnam War was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam and their allies. North Vietnam was supported by the Soviet Union and China, while South Vietnam was supported by the United States and other anti-communist nations. The conflict was the second of the Indochina wars and a proxy war of the Cold War. The Vietnam War was one of the postcolonial wars of national liberation, a theater in the Cold War, and a civil war, with civil warfare a defining feature from the outset. Direct US military involvement escalated from 1965 until US forces were withdrawn in 1973. The fighting spilled into the Laotian and Cambodian civil wars, which ended with all three countries becoming communist in 1975.

The Apollo program, also known as Project Apollo, was the United States human spaceflight program led by NASA, which landed the first humans on the Moon in 1969. The Apollo program was conceived in 1960 in the Dwight D. Eisenhower presidency during Project Mercury and executed after Project Gemini. The Apollo program was later dedicated to President John F. Kennedy's national goal, "before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth" in his address to the U.S. Congress on May 25, 1961.

The Holy Crown of Hungary, also known as the Crown of Saint Stephen, named in honour of Saint Stephen I of Hungary, was the coronation crown used by the Kingdom of Hungary for most of its existence; kings were crowned with it from the 12th century on. The Crown symbolized the King's authority over the Lands of the Hungarian Crown, and it was a key mark of legitimacy. Through the history of Hungary, more than 50 kings were crowned with it, with the last being Charles IV in 1916. The only kings not crowned were Wladyslaw I, John Sigismund Zápolya, and Joseph II. The earliest contemporary written source concerning the elevation of Stephen to kingship is the chronicle of Thietmar of Merseburg, which records the event within the political and imperial context of the reign of Emperor Otto III. According to Thietmar, Stephen's elevation took place at imperial initiative, and the coronation was carried out together with an ecclesiastical blessing:"Imperatoris autem praedicti gratia et hortatu … coronam et benedictionem accepit."

Douglas Lee Williams is an American professional football executive and former quarterback and coach who is a senior advisor for the Washington Commanders of the National Football League (NFL). Williams was the first black quarterback to both start and win a Super Bowl, doing so with Washington in Super Bowl XXII when they were known as the Redskins. He was named Super Bowl MVP after throwing four touchdowns in a single quarter.

The Central Bank bombing was one of the deadliest attacks carried out by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) during the separatist civil war in Sri Lanka between the government and the Tamil Tigers.

Alaska Airlines Flight 261 was a scheduled international passenger flight from Licenciado Gustavo Díaz Ordaz International Airport in Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, Mexico, to Seattle–Tacoma International Airport near Seattle, Washington, United States, with an intermediate stop at San Francisco International Airport in San Francisco, California. On January 31, 2000, the McDonnell Douglas MD-83 operating the flight crashed into the Pacific Ocean roughly 2.7 miles north of Anacapa Island, California, following a catastrophic loss of pitch control, while attempting to divert to Los Angeles International Airport. The accident killed all 88 on board – two pilots, three cabin crew members, and 83 passengers.

Libya, officially the State of Libya, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad to the south, Niger to the southwest, Algeria to the west, and Tunisia to the northwest. With an area of almost 1.8 million km2 (700,000 sq mi), Libya is the fourth-largest country in Africa and the Arab world, and the 16th-largest in the world. The country claims 32,000 square kilometres of southeastern Algeria, south of the Libyan town of Ghat. The capital and largest city is Tripoli, located in the northwest and containing over a million of Libya's seven million people.

Japan Airlines (JAL) is a major Japanese airline headquartered in Shinagawa, Tokyo. The airline's main hubs are Tokyo's Narita and Haneda airports, as well as secondary hubs in Osaka's Kansai and Itami airports. The JAL group comprises Japan Airlines, Hokkaido Air System, J-Air, Japan Air Commuter, Japan Transocean Air and Ryukyu Air Commuter for domestic feeder services, and JAL Cargo for cargo and mail services, as well as low-cost carriers Zipair Tokyo and Jetstar Japan.

At approximately 7:15 am AEDT, on 31 January 2003, south of Waterfall, New South Wales, Australia, an Intercity Tangara G set derailed on a curve at high speeds when the driver had a heart attack, and the deadman's brake failed. The incident killed seven people aboard, including the train driver, and injured 40. The accident is notably remembered by systems engineers due to the poorly designed safety systems.

Aqua Teen Hunger Force is an American adult animated television series created by Dave Willis and Matt Maiellaro for Cartoon Network's late night programming block Adult Swim. Produced by Williams Street, the series follows the surreal adventures of three anthropomorphic fast food items: Master Shake, Meatwad, and Frylock, who live together as roommates and clash with their human next-door neighbor, Carl. The series is known for its crude digital cutout animation style and absurdist humor, which helped define the tone of Adult Swim's early programming.

Kenya, officially the Republic of Kenya, is a country located in East Africa. With an estimated population of more than 54.2 million as of mid-2026, it is the 26th-most populous country in the world and the seventh-most populous in Africa. Kenya's capital and largest city is Nairobi. The second-largest and oldest city is Mombasa, a port city located on Mombasa Island. Other major cities within the country include Kisumu, Nakuru and Eldoret. Going clockwise, Kenya is bordered by South Sudan to the northwest, Ethiopia to the north, Somalia to the east, the Indian Ocean to the southeast, Tanzania to the southwest, and Lake Victoria and Uganda to the west. Its geography, climate and population vary. In western Rift Valley counties, the landscape includes cold, snow-capped mountaintops with surrounding forests, wildlife, and fertile agricultural regions in temperate climates. In other areas there are dry, arid, and semi-arid climates, as well as absolute deserts.

Al-Sultan Abdullah Ri'ayatuddin Al-Mustafa Billah Shah ibni Almarhum Sultan Haji Ahmad Shah has been the sixth sultan of Pahang since ascending to the throne in 2019. He previously reigned as the King of Malaysia from 2019 until 2024.

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, with a population of over 69 million in 2024. The UK includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland, and most of the smaller islands within the British Isles, covering 94,354 square miles (244,376 km2). It shares a land border with the Republic of Ireland and is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, the English Channel, the Celtic Sea and the Irish Sea, while maintaining sovereignty over the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. The capital and largest city of England and the UK is London; Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast are the national capitals of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, respectively.

Susan Ann Gray, Baroness Gray of Tottenham, is a British politician, special adviser, and former civil servant who served as Downing Street Chief of Staff under Prime Minister Keir Starmer from July to October 2024, having previously served under Starmer as chief of staff to the Leader of the Opposition from 2023 to 2024.

The Boeing 747 is a long-range wide-body airliner designed and manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes in the United States between 1968 and 2023. It was conceived in response to the demand of Pan Am for a jet 2+1⁄2 times the size of the 707, which had been introduced in October 1958, to reduce the airline's seat cost by 30%. The design team was led by Joe Sutter, who left the 737 development program in 1965 to design the 747. In April 1966, Pan Am ordered 25 Boeing 747-100 aircraft, and in late 1966, Pratt & Whitney agreed to develop the JT9D engine, a high-bypass turbofan. On September 30, 1968, the first 747 was rolled out of the purpose-built Everett Plant, the world's largest building by volume. The 747's first flight took place on February 9, 1969, and the 747 was certified in December 1969. It entered service with Pan Am on January 22, 1970. The 747 was the first airplane called a "Jumbo Jet" as the first wide-body airliner.

Med Jets Flight 056 was a medevac flight from Northeast Philadelphia Airport to Tijuana International Airport with a planned refueling stop at Springfield–Branson National Airport, operated by Jet Rescue Air Ambulance. On January 31, 2025, a Learjet 55 operating that flight crashed in the Castor Gardens neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, shortly after takeoff, killing everyone on board and two people on the ground.