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History on the 31st of January

History
Date Text
31 Jan 1538 RELIGIOUS French reformer John Calvin wrote in a letter: 'I pray the Lord to keep you in His holy protection, and so to direct you that you may not go astray in that slippery path whereon you are, until He shall have manifested to you His complete deliverance.'
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31 Jan 1752 RELIGIOUS The profession ceremony for Sister St. Martha Turpin was held at Ursuline Convent in New Orleans, LA. She was the first American-born woman to become a nun in the Catholic Church.
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31 Jan 1839 RELIGIOUS Two months before his premature death at age 39, Church of Scotland clergyman Robert Murray McCheyne wrote in a letter: 'Is not a Christian's darkest hour calmer than the world's brightest?'
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31 Jan 1911 RELIGIOUS In Falcon, NC, the Fire-Baptized Holiness Church (FBHC) and the Pentecostal Holiness Church (PHC) officially merged. In 1915, the Tabernacle Pentecostal Church (TPC) joined the merger. In 1975, the name of this body officially became the International Pentecostal Holiness Church (IPHC).
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31 Jan 1913 WW2 The keel of Valiant was laid down by Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company in Govan, Scotland, United Kingdom. 
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31 Jan 1915 WW1 Begin of Battle of Bolimov
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31 Jan 1921 WW2 USS Arizona arrived at Callao, Peru. 
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31 Jan 1929 WW2 London was commissioned into service. 
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31 Jan 1929 WW2 He Yingqin was made a member of the finance committee. 
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31 Jan 1931 WW2 Ernst Ziehm became the President of the Senate of Danzig. 
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31 Jan 1933 WW2 The newly appointed German Chancellor Adolf Hitler made a half-sincere attempt to negotiate with the Center Party to form a majority in the Reichstag. As intended, the negotiation failed, which gave Hitler the grounds to demand a re-election in the Reichstag. The re-election was approved by Reichstag President and fellow Nazi Party member Hermann Göring, and was scheduled to take place on 5 Mar 1933. 
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31 Jan 1934 WW2 Chinese artifacts and treasures (19,557 pieces in total, packed in 6,066 crates, transported in five groups) began to be relocated from the Exhibition Office of Ancient Artifacts, the Yiheyuan, and the Hanlin Yuan Imperial Academy in the Beiping area for Shanghai due to the threat of Japanese aggression. 
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31 Jan 1939 WW2 German SS leader Reinhard Heydrich ordered that Jews can only be released from protective custody if they present documents for emigration, and that Jews who were being committed to a concentration camp a second time would be committed to concentration camps for life. 
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31 Jan 1940 WW2 German submarine U-13 torpedoed and sank Norwegian steamer Start about halfway between Stavanger, Norway and Aberdeen, Scotland, killing the entire crew of 16. Start was carrying coal from Sunderland, northern England. 
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31 Jan 1940 WW2 German submarine U-21 fired two torpedoes at Danish ship Vidar, but both malfunctioned. A third torpedoed, however, struck Vidar 25 miles east of Aberdeen, Scotland, killing 16 and rendering her dead in the water. Danish steamer Disko rescued 18 survivors while surviving a hit from another malfunctioning torpedo from U-21. Vidar would remain afloat until the next day. 
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31 Jan 1940 WW2 Soviet forces gathered in the Summa sector in the Karelian Isthmus now grew to the size of 12 divisions and 400 heavy artillery pieces. 
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31 Jan 1940 WW2 Desperately short of aircraft, the British made a secret approach to Italy (not yet in the war) to buy fighters. The deal was later vetoed by Germany. 
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31 Jan 1940 WW2 Sir John Simon of Britain announced that food subsidies were running at £1,000,000 per week. 
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31 Jan 1941 WW2 In Oslo, Reichsführer-SS Himmler accepted the oath of the first group of Norwegian enlistees in the Waffen-SS. 
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31 Jan 1941 WW2 Free French forces from Chad, French Equatorial Africa attacked the Italian forces at Kufra, Libya, supported by T Patrol of the British Long Range Desert Group. 
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31 Jan 1941 WW2 Indian 4th Division flanked and then captured Agordat, Eritrea, Italian East Africa. 1,000 Italian troops and 43 field guns were captured. 
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31 Jan 1941 WW2 Italian torpedo boat Francesco Stocco hit a mine, broke in two, and sank off Fiume, Italy (now Rijeka, Croatia). 
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31 Jan 1941 WW2 Italian submarine Dandolo sank British tanker Pizarro 350 miles southwest of Ireland after dark with torpedoes; 23 killed and 6 survived. 
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31 Jan 1941 WW2 German armed merchant cruiser Atlantis stopped British ship Speybank with gunfire and captured the ship. Speybank would soon set sail for Bordeaux, France where she would be converted into an auxiliary minelayer named Schiff 53/Doggerbank and serve in the German Navy. 
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31 Jan 1941 WW2 Destroyer USS Edison (DD-439) was commissioned with Lieutenant Commander A. C. Murdaugh in command. 
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31 Jan 1941 WW2 Oberstleutnant Hans Korte stepped down as the commanding officer of the German Kampfgeschwader 55 wing. 
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31 Jan 1941 WW2 The cease fire ending the Franco-Thai War was signed aboard Japanese cruiser Natori at Saigon, French Indochina, effective 28 Jan 1941. 
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31 Jan 1941 WW2 Submarine Grayback was launched in Groton, Connecticut, United States, sponsored by the wife of Rear Admiral Wilson Brown, who was the Superintendent of the United States Naval Academy. 
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31 Jan 1942 WW2 German SS Einsatzgruppe A reported a tally of 229,052 Jews killed in the Baltic States and in Byelorussia, while Estonia was reported to be free of Jews. Extermination activities had paused in Lithuania, it reported, but would soon be picked up again. 
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31 Jan 1942 WW2 More than 200,000 Russians had died in Leningrad this month from starvation, disease and illness. Reports began to circulate of cannibalism amongst the besieged population. 
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31 Jan 1942 WW2 The German support ship Spreewald, disguised as British Royal Mail steamer Brittany, was carrying 200 British seamen captured from sunken merchantmen when German submarine U-333 found her. Believing she was indeed a British ship, Spreewald was torpedoed and sunk off Bordeaux, France. Only 24 crewmen and 58 POWs were rescued. The U-boat captain, Peter Cremer, was exonerated by a Royal Navy inquiry because he identified the ship as the Royal Mail steamer, Brittany, which was precisely what the Spreewald's captain had disguised his ship to resemble. 
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31 Jan 1942 WW2 Commander Yahachi Tanabe became the commanding officer of I-68. 
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31 Jan 1942 WW2 German submarine U-107 sank British tanker San Arcadio 425 miles southeast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, United States at 0445 hours; 41 were killed, 9 survived. To the south, U-109 sank British tanker Tacoma Star 200 kilometers east of Virginia, United States. Out to sea, U-333 sank German freighter Spreewald by mistake (Spreewald was under disguise as British Royal Mail transport Brittany); 41 German crew members and 31 British prisoners of war were killed, 25 German crew members and 55 British prisoners of war survived. At 2212 hours, U-82 attacked Allied troop convoy NA-2 in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and sank British destroyer HMS Belmont, killing all 138 aboard. At 2331 hours, U-105 attacked Allied convoy SL-98 500 miles southwest of Ireland, sinking British Sloop HMS Culver with 2 torpedoes which detonated the magazine; 126 were killed, 12 survived. 
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31 Jan 1942 WW2 Japanese 55th Infantry Division captured the town of Moulmein, Burma one day after the nearby airfield was captured; Burmese 2nd Infantry Brigade (Brigadier Roger Ekin) retreated across the Salween River during the night after having lost 617 men (mostly missing); Archibald Wavell however, unaware of the true situation, was appalled and angry to hear of the ease with which the Japanese had driven Burmese 2nd Infantry Brigade from the town. On the same day, Slim issued a report summarizing the air situation in Burma, noting the Allies had 35 aircraft in the area to defend against about 150 Japanese aircraft; while a few more Allied aircraft were en route for Burma, by mid-Mar 1942 there would be 400 operational Japanese aircraft in this theater of war. 
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31 Jan 1942 WW2 USS Finback was commissioned into service, Lieutenant Commander Jesse L. Hull in command. 
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31 Jan 1942 WW2 Destroyer Yukikaze escorted the Japanese invasion force for Ambon, Dutch East Indies. 
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31 Jan 1942 WW2 Japanese troops captured Batugong and Passo on Ambon, Dutch East Indies. 
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31 Jan 1942 WW2 Indian sappers destroyed the main causeway linking Singapore and British Malaya at 0815 hours. Shortly after, Japanese troops captured Johore Bharu, Malaya. 
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31 Jan 1942 WW2 Japanese submarine I-64 sank Indian merchant ship Jalapalaka 63 miles southeast of Madras, India with the deck gun; 13 were killed, 54 survived. 
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31 Jan 1942 WW2 15 Type 96 A5M4 fighters of the Japanese Chitose Air Group arrived at Rabaul, New Britain to join the A5M4 fighters of the Tainan Air Group that had arrived days earlier. 
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31 Jan 1942 WW2 American carrier USS Lexington was ordered to sail south to cover the return of carriers USS Enterprise and USS Yorktown from their Marshall and Gilbert Islands raid. To that end, she set sail for Pearl Harbor, US Territory of Hawaii with Task Force 11. 
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31 Jan 1942 WW2 He 111 bombers of German Luftwaffe I./KG 4 attacked a depot of transport vehicles at Grodino, central Russia. 
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31 Jan 1942 WW2 HMS Hermes completed her refit at Simon's Town, South Africa. 
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31 Jan 1943 WW2 The Milice was created in Vichy France under Joseph Darnand to counter the Resistance. This organization became another force of the German occupation, reaching a strength of over 20,000 by the Allied invasion in 1944. 
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31 Jan 1943 WW2 The British RAF Bomber Command used the H2S radar system for the first time operationally. 
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31 Jan 1943 WW2 US Marine Corps aircraft from Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands sank Japanese transport Toa Maru between Vella Lavella and Kolombangara. 
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31 Jan 1943 WW2 The US 2nd Marine Regiment and 1st Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment boarded ship to leave Guadalcanal. Some of the men were so debilitated by malaria they had to be carried on board. Observers noted that they looked like young men grown old "with their skins cracked and furrowed and wrinkled." The 2nd Marine Regiment, heading to Wellington, New Zealand for the first time, left behind on the island 263 dead. 
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31 Jan 1943 WW2 Repair ship Akashi completed the repair work for seaplane tender Sanyo, destroyers Arashi and Suzukaze, and light cruiser Nagara at Truk, Caroline Islands. 
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31 Jan 1943 WW2 Tatsuta Maru departed Yokohama, Japan and arrived at Yokosuka, Japan later on the same day. 
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31 Jan 1943 WW2 A transport with 2,834 Polish Jews from Pruzany arrived in Auschwitz Concentration Camp; it included 230 children under four and 520 children between four and ten. 313 men and 180 women were registered in the camp; the remaining 2,341, including all 750 children, were gassed. 
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31 Jan 1943 WW2 Out of food and ammunition, the southern half of the German 6.Armee in Stalingrad, Russia surrendered; the final radio message coming out of this pocket was made at 1945 hours, which closed with the Morse abbreviation "CL", short for "Clear (I am closing my station)". Shortly after, 110 German transport aircraft take off for the northern pocket with supplies; more than 90 of the aircraft found the illuminated triangular drop zone and released their loads. 
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31 Jan 1943 WW2 Light cruiser Voroshilov bombarded German troop positions near Novorossiysk, Russia. 
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31 Jan 1943 WW2 USS Tunny detected a Japanese freighter off Takao, Taiwan at about 2230 hours. She fired two torpedoes, both of which missed the target, and survived a counterattack with two depth charges. 
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31 Jan 1944 WW2 Japanese hospital ship Hikawa Maru arrived at Rabaul, New Britain and departed later on the same day. 
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31 Jan 1944 WW2 Americans landed on Kwajalein and Majuro atolls in the Marshall Islands. 
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31 Jan 1944 WW2 Fleet aircraft carrier USS Franklin was commissioned into service with Captain James M. Shoemaker in command. 
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31 Jan 1944 WW2 USS Finback sank a fishing trawler with gunfire in the East China Sea. 
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31 Jan 1944 WW2 The Royal Navy's Second Escort Group (Captain F. J. Walker) sank the German submarine U-592. 
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31 Jan 1944 WW2 USS Seahorse sank Japanese cargo ship Toei Maru south of Japan, which she had been chasing for many hours, hitting her with two of eight torpedoes fired. 
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31 Jan 1944 WW2 USS Luce completed a period of anti-submarine patrol off Attu in the Aleutian Islands. 
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31 Jan 1944 WW2 Barbers Point Naval Air Station: Part of ACORN-22 departed. Part of GROPAC-2 departed. 
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31 Jan 1944 WW2 US 34th Division crossed the Rapido River in Italy. Nearby, French Moroccan colonial troops were halted by troops of German 5th Mountain Division near Cassino and Monte Belvedere, Italy. 
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31 Jan 1944 WW2 The Soviet GKO issued two secret orders to deport ethnic Chechen and Ingush peoples to Kazakhstan and Kirghizia. 
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31 Jan 1944 WW2 USS Wasp departed Hampton Roads off Virginia, United States for Trinidad. 
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31 Jan 1945 WW2 Soviet 1st Ukrainian Front established two bridgeheads over the Oder River near Küstrin, Germany (now Kostrzyn, Poland). 
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31 Jan 1945 WW2 The Duke of Gloucester became the Governor-General of Australia, an appointment designed to ensure that Australia did not become a dependency of the United States. 
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31 Jan 1945 WW2 American submarine chaser PC-1129 intercepted Japanese Shinyo special attack boats in the Philippine Islands, but she was in turn rammed by one of the boats and was sunk. 
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31 Jan 1945 WW2 USS Wake Island completed her repairs at Ulithi, Caroline Islands. 
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31 Jan 1945 WW2 USS Sennet arrived at Saipan, Mariana Islands, ending her first war patrol. 
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31 Jan 1945 WW2 USS Boarfish attacked a Japanese convoy three times in the South China Sea, sinking cargo ship Enki Maru (1 of 2 torpedoes hit) and damaging cargo ship Taietsu Maru (1 of 2 torpedoes hit; she would later be finished off by US aircraft). 
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31 Jan 1945 WW2 In the Philippine Islands, elements of the 11th US Airborne Division came ashore at Nasugbu Bay, some 50 miles south of Manila and opposite Bataan at the mouth of Manila Bay. 
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31 Jan 1945 WW2 The US Navy expanded the piston-jet mix-powered fighter contract with Ryan Aeronautical to 700 examples. 
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31 Jan 1947 WW2 South Dakota was decommissioned from service. 
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31 Jan 1947 WW2 The Bavarian de-Nazification tribunal in Nürnberg, Germany sentenced Hans Fritzsche to nine years of hard labor. 
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31 Jan 1949 WW2 Omar Bradley was promoted to the permanent rank of general. 
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31 Jan 1949 RELIGIOUS American missionary and Auca Indian martyr Jim Elliot wrote in his journal: 'One does not surrender a life in an instant
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