Today is Tuesday, February 1, the 32nd day of 2011. There are 333 days left in the year.
1587 ― English queen Elizabeth I signs Mary Stuart's death sentence
1788 ― First U.S. steamboat patent issued, by Georgia to Briggs & Longstreet
1884 ― First volume of the Oxford English Dictionary, A-Ant, published
1893 ― Thomas Edison completes world’s first movie studio (West Orange, N.J.)
1896 ― Giacomo Puccini's Opera ``La Boheme" premieres in Turin
1898 ― First auto insurance policy in U.S. issued, by Travelers Insurance Company
1902 ― China's empress Tzu-hsi forbids binding woman's feet
1951 ― U.N. condemns People's Republic of China as aggressor in Korea
1959 ― Swiss males vote against voting rights for women
1978 ― Director Roman Polanski skips bail and fled to France after pleading guilty to charges of engaging in sex with a 13-year-old girl