WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 2012

Today is Wednesday, February 1, the 32nd day of 2012. There are 334 days left in the year.

1587 ― English queen Elizabeth I signs Mary Stuart's death sentence

1867 ― Bricklayers start working 8-hour days

1884 ― First volume of the Oxford English Dictionary, A-Ant, published

1896 ― Giacomo Puccini's Opera ``La Boheme" premieres in Turin

1923 ― Fascists Voluntary Militia forms in Italy under Mussolini

1951 ― U.N. condemns People's Republic of China as aggressor in Korea

1964 ― Beatles' ``I Want to Hold Your Hand" first No. 1 hit and stays for seven weeks

1968 ― Famous photo Saigon police chief Nguyen Ngoc Loan executes a Viet Cong officer with a pistol shot to the head

1979 ― Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returns to Iran after 15 years in exile

1991 ― President F. W. de Klerk, says he would repeal all apartheid laws