Today is Thursday, January 31, the 31st day of 2008. There are 335 days left in the year.
314 _St. Silvester I begins his reign as Catholic pope
876 _ Charles becomes king of Italy
1504 _ By treaty of Lyons, France cedes Naples to Ferdinand of Aragon
1627 _ The Spanish government goes bankrupt
1901 _ Chekhov's ``Three Sisters" opens at the Moscow Art Theater
1929 _ Leon Trotsky expelled from Russia to Turkey
1950 _ President Truman reveals that he ordered the Atomic Energy Commission to develop the hydrogen bomb
1955 _ RCA demonstrates the first music synthesizer
1958 _ James van Allen discovers radiation belt
1971 _ Apollo 14 launched, 1st landing in lunar highlands
1972 _ Military coup ousts civilian government of Ghana
1994 _ Dow Jones hits a record 3,978.36