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Explore 31 January

Explore 31 January: the US House of Representatives votes to abolish slavery, Field Marshal Paulus surrenders at Stalingrad, Nauru becomes the world’s smallest republic and the United Kingdom leaves the European Union. Meet Franz Schubert, Jackie Robinson and Kenzaburō Ōe, born on 31 January.

This day through time →7 verified events across 4 eras

⌛7Full
Timeline ◈4Historic
Moments ♙6Born
Today ✦4Lives
Remembered ◉1Firsts &
Discoveries ♫1Culture
Stories ☉1Observances
Harper's Weekly's engraving of the celebration in the House of Representatives after the vote on the Thirteenth Amendment, published 18 February 1865.
Harper’s Weekly’s engraving of the celebration in the House of Representatives after the vote on the Thirteenth Amendment, published 18 February 1865.
Image creditHarper's Weekly, 18 February 1865 · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
1865

The House of Representatives votes to abolish slavery

Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 had freed enslaved people only in the rebel states, as a war measure that the courts might overturn. To end slavery everywhere and for good, the Constitution itself had to be changed. The Senate passed an amendment in April 1864, but it fell short of the two-thirds needed in the House.

After Lincoln’s re-election he and his allies pressed wavering Democrats hard, and on 31 January 1865 the House passed the Thirteenth Amendment by 119 votes to 56. Members cheered, wept and embraced, and the crowded galleries erupted in applause. Three-quarters of the states had ratified it by 6 December 1865.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: US House of Representatives, History, Art & Archives: the Thirteenth Amendment ↗
Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus, left, with other captured German officers after the surrender at Stalingrad, February 1943.
Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus, left, with other captured German officers after the surrender at Stalingrad, February 1943.
Image creditUnknown authorUnknown author · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
1943

Field Marshal Paulus surrenders at Stalingrad

In November 1942 the Red Army encircled the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad on the Volga. Hitler forbade any attempt to break out, the airlift meant to supply the trapped troops failed, and through December and January the soldiers starved and froze in the ruined city.

On 30 January Hitler promoted the army’s commander, Friedrich Paulus, to field marshal, since no German field marshal had ever surrendered. The next day, 31 January 1943, Paulus gave himself up to the Soviets in the southern pocket. The last Germans in the north surrendered on 2 February. About 91,000 men went into captivity, and fewer than 6,000 of them ever came home. Stalingrad was the turning point of the war in the east.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: Battle of Stalingrad ↗
Nauru from the air, 1999: the whole island is about 21 square kilometres.
Nauru from the air, 1999: the whole island is about 21 square kilometres.
Image creditU.S. Department of Energy's Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Program · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
1968

Nauru becomes the world’s smallest republic

Nauru, a single island in the central Pacific, was rich in phosphate rock, which foreign companies mined for fertiliser. After the First World War it was ruled by Australia on behalf of the League of Nations and later the United Nations. In the Second World War Japan occupied it and deported about 1,200 islanders to Truk, where many died.

Led by their head chief, Hammer DeRoburt, the Nauruans won control of the phosphate industry and then independence, which came on 31 January 1968. The date marked the anniversary of the survivors’ return from Truk in 1946. Nauru became the smallest independent republic in the world, with DeRoburt as its first president.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: Nauru, history ↗
Crowds in Parliament Square, London, on the evening of 31 January 2020.
Crowds in Parliament Square, London, on the evening of 31 January 2020.
Image creditAndrew Davidson · CC BY-SA 4.0Resized and cropped for display.
2020

The United Kingdom leaves the European Union

Britain joined the European Economic Community in 1973. In a referendum in June 2016, 52 per cent of those who voted chose to leave the European Union, and years of negotiation and political crisis followed before Parliament approved a withdrawal agreement in January 2020.

At 11 pm London time on 31 January 2020, midnight in Brussels, the United Kingdom ceased to be a member of the EU after 47 years, the first country ever to leave. Supporters celebrated in Parliament Square. EU rules continued to apply during a transition period until the end of 2020, when the UK left the single market and customs union.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: House of Commons Library: Brexit timeline, events leading to the UK’s exit from the European Union ↗
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PEOPLE

Born Today

Franz Schubert
Image creditWilhelm August Rieder · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
Born 1797

Franz Schubert

Austrian composer of more than 600 songs, the Unfinished Symphony and the Trout Quintet.

Kenzaburō Ōe
Image creditUnknown photographer · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
Born 1935

Kenzaburō Ōe

Japanese novelist, winner of the 1994 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Philip Glass
Image creditPasquale Salerno · CC BY-SA 2.0Resized and cropped for display.
Born 1937

Philip Glass

American composer of Einstein on the Beach and other minimalist works.

Beatrix of the Netherlands
Image creditRVD Koninklijk Huis · CC0Resized and cropped for display.
Born 1938

Beatrix of the Netherlands

Queen of the Netherlands from 1980 until she abdicated in 2013.

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IDEAS THAT CHANGED THINGS

Firsts, Science & Discoveries

William Pickering, James Van Allen and Wernher von Braun hold up a model of Explorer 1 at the press conference after the launch.
William Pickering, James Van Allen and Wernher von Braun hold up a model of Explorer 1 at the press conference after the launch.
Image creditNASA · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
1958

America’s first satellite reaches orbit

The Soviet Union’s Sputnik, launched in October 1957, shocked the United States, and the failure of the US Navy’s Vanguard rocket on live television that December made things worse. A US Army team under Wernher von Braun and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory were given the chance to try.

At 10.48 pm Florida time on 31 January 1958 a Jupiter-C rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral carrying Explorer 1, a slim satellite with a Geiger counter built by James Van Allen of the University of Iowa. It reached orbit, and its readings, with those of later Explorers, revealed belts of intense radiation around the Earth, now named the Van Allen belts.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory: Explorer 1, the beginning of American space science ↗
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MUSIC • FILM • BOOKS • CULTURE

Culture Stories

The McDonald's restaurant on Pushkin Square, Moscow, photographed in 2013.
The McDonald’s restaurant on Pushkin Square, Moscow, photographed in 2013.
Image creditArtem Svetlov from Moscow, Russia · CC BY 2.0Resized and cropped for display.
1990

The first McDonald’s in the Soviet Union opens in Moscow

Under Mikhail Gorbachev the Soviet Union began to open up to Western business. McDonald’s of Canada spent years negotiating a joint venture with the city of Moscow, building its own farms and a food-processing plant because Soviet suppliers could not meet its standards.

On 31 January 1990 the restaurant opened on Pushkin Square, with 900 seats, then the largest McDonald’s in the world. Muscovites queued for hours in the cold, and some 30,000 people were served on the first day. The restaurant became a symbol of the end of the Cold War; McDonald’s left Russia in 2022.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: McDonald’s Corporation: our history ↗
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LIVES REMEMBERED

Remembered Today

Charles Edward Stuart
Image creditAllan Ramsay · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
Died 1788

Charles Edward Stuart

‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’, who led the Jacobite rising of 1745 to win back the British throne for the Stuarts.

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AROUND THE WORLD

Observances & Anniversaries

HISTORY & TIMELINE

Finished the highlights?

Follow 31 January chronologically, from the Middle Ages to the modern day, with 7 verified events and the sources behind them.

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Sources & further reading