This day in history...

On January 29, 2002, in his first State of the Union address since the September 11 attacks, President George W. Bush describes Iraq, Iran and North Korea as an "axis of evil." White House speechwriter David Frum actually gets credit for the phrase. In the SOTU, Bush also outlined his plans for the "War on Terror", which was already underway; US troops invaded Afghanistan to depose the Taliban regime in October.

On January 29, 1964, Stanley Kubrick’s black comic masterpiece, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb opens in theaters. Its the story of a rogue U.S. officer who orders atomic bomb strikes on the Soviet Union. Hot line exchanges between the President and Soviet premier ensue, with the Russian leader warning the attack will automatically unleash a "doomsday machine" that will obliterate all life on earth. The movie’s popularity was evidence of changing attitudes toward atomic weapons and the concept of nuclear deterrence, and in 1989, was one of the first films selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress. The scene of Slim Pickens riding the bomb as Major Kong is as iconic as any in film history.


On January 29, 1936, Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Christy Matthewson and Walter Johnson are elected as the first class of the U.S. Baseball Hall of Fame.

 

On January 30, 1968, Communist forces violate a cease fire for the Tet holiday with a series of coordinated attacks all across South Vietnam. An estimated 80,000 troops attack cities and military establishments throughout the nation, in the largest offensive by the north to date. Though South Vietnamese and American forces turn back the assault, inflicting roughly 50% casualties, the Tet Offensive significantly turns American public opinion against the war.

On January 30, 1972, 13 unarmed civil rights demonstrators are shot dead by British Army paratroopers in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, in an event that becomes known as “Bloody Sunday.” The protesters, all Northern Catholics, were marching in protest of the British policy of internment of suspected Irish nationalists. In addition to the dead, 17 protesters are wounded when soldiers fire indiscriminately into the crowd of protesters.

On January 30, 1835, Andrew Jackson becomes the first American president to experience an assassination attempt. Jackson is walking out of the House chamber of the Capitol building when Richard Lawrence, an unemployed house painter, approached Jackson and shoots at him, but his gun misfires. The 67-year-old Jackson begins clubbing Lawrence with his walking cane, but Lawrence manages to pull out a second loaded pistol. Incredibly, that gun also misfires. Jackson’s aides then wrestle Lawrence to the ground. An investigation deems Lawrence mentally unstable and finds no political or personal reason for him to attack the president, but Jackson is convinced opponents in the rival Whig Party are behind the attempt. A century later, Smithsonian Institute researchers conduct a study of Lawrence’s derringers, during which both guns discharge properly on the test’s first try. It is later determined that the odds of both guns misfiring during the assassination attempt were one in 125,000.

On January 30, 1973, a New York club band previously known as Wicked Lester performs for the first time with a new name, KISS. In a few months, band members Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Peter Criss, and Ace Frehley will further catch their fan base's attention by performing for the first time in distinctive facial makeup, and the rest will be Kisstory.

 

On January 31, 1971, Apollo 14, piloted by astronauts Alan B. Shepard Jr., Edgar D. Mitchell, and Stuart A. Roosa, is successfully launched from Cape Canaveral. The mission was delayed 4 months while investigators determined the cause of the explosion that nearly led to disaster for Apollo 13. Apollo 14 launches with a service module that's been modified based on that investigation's findings. On February 5, Shepard and Mitchell touch down in the Fra Mauro Highlands, Apollo 13's intended landing site. They remained on the lunar surface for nearly 34 hours, conducting simple scientific experiments, including Shepard's hitting golf balls into space, and collecting 96 pounds of lunar samples. On February 9, Apollo 14 safely returns to Earth.


On January 31, 1945, Pvt. Eddie Slovik becomes the first American soldier since the Civil War to be executed for desertion. Slovik was a draftee and a replacement assigned to the 28th Infantry in France. A day after his arrival, he claimed he was “too scared and too nervous” to be a rifleman, and threatened to run away if forced into combat. His confession was ignored-and Slovik took off. One day later he returned and signed a confession of desertion, claiming he would run away again if forced to fight. He was given multiple chances to make amends, but refused them all. On November 11 was tried for desertion and was convicted in less than two hours. The nine-officer court-martial panel passed a unanimous sentence of execution, “to be shot to death with musketry.” Two appeals - the second of which went directly to General Eisenhower - were denied, and Slovik was put to death by firing squad, the only U.S. soldier executed during World War II.

On January 31, 1606, Guy Fawkes avoids the hangman's noose by taking his own life. Fawkes was a chief conspirator in the "Gunpowder Plot," the attempt to blow up the British Parliament building the previous November. He and the other conspirators were sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered in London. The public executions began on the 30th, and Fawkes is called to the gallows the following day. While climbing to the hanging platform, however, he jumps from the ladder and breaks his neck, dying instantly.

 

On February 1, 2003, the space shuttle Columbia breaks up while entering the atmosphere over Texas, killing all seven crew members on board. Video of the launch 16 days earlier had shown that a piece of foam insulation broke off from the shuttle’s propellant tank 80 seconds into the launch and hit the edge of the shuttle’s left wing. Similar incidents had occurred on 3 earlier shuttle missions with no catastrophic consequences. In August 2003, an investigation board issued a report that revealed that it in fact would have been possible either for the Columbia crew to repair the damage to the wing or for the crew to be rescued from the shuttle. The Columbia could have stayed in orbit until February 15 and the already planned launch of the shuttle Atlantis could have been moved up as early as February 10, leaving a short window for repairing the wing or getting the crew off of the Columbia. In the aftermath of the Columbia disaster, the space shuttle program was grounded until July 16, 2005.


On February 1, 1960, four black students of North Carolina A&T, stage the first "sit-in", taking seats at a lunch counter designated "whites only" at a Greensboro, NC Woolworth, and refuse to give up their places. Police were called, but as the students were not behaving violently, did nothing. The protesters remained in their seats until the store closed, but returned the next day with additional protesters. The "sit in" movement spread quickly; by February 5, the protesters in Greensboro numbered 300, and by the end of March, similar protests were being staged in 55 cities across 13 states. The movement was successful, segregated diners across the South began changing their seating policies; at the end of July, while college students were away on break, the Greensboro Woolworth that was site of the first protest quietly integrated. Four black store employees were the first to be served.


On February 1, 2004, its "Nipplegate!" While performing a duet of the song "Rock Your Body" with Janet Jackson during the Super Bowl halftime show, Justin Timberlake briefly exposed one of her breasts in what was later described as a "wardrobe malfunction." The two later claimed Timberlake was only supposed to rip off Jackson’s bodice to reveal her red lace bra as he sang the final line, which included the lyric, “Bet I’ll have you naked by the end of this song.” Instead, the bra fell away with the rest of the bustier, and the prophecy of the lyrics was fulfilled. An estimated 143.6 million people around the world caught a peek. The FCC received 540,000 complaints about the incident, 65,000 of which came from a single organization, the Parents Television Council. Viacom, CBS’ parent company, received the maximum fine the FCC could issue for such offenses, and paid $3.5 million to settle indecency complaints about the broadcast.

 

On February 2, 1887, Groundhog Day, featuring a rodent meteorologist, is celebrated for the first time at Gobbler’s Knob in Punxsutawney, PA. The origins of Groundhog Day are actually traced back to ancient Europe, where a hedgehog was the animal that could predict the end of winter. Once they came to America, German settlers in Pennsylvania continued the tradition, although they switched from hedgehogs to groundhogs, which were plentiful in the Keystone State. In 1887, a newspaper editor belonging to a group of groundhog hunters from Punxsutawney called the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club declared that Phil, the Punxsutawney groundhog, was America’s only true weather-forecasting groundhog.

On February 2, 1968, Associated Press photographer Eddie Adams shoots a graphic photograph in Saigon, South Vietnam. Adams happened to be nearby when South Vietnamese police brought suspected VC terrorist Nguyễn Văn Lém to Brigadier General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan. Adams later said he thought he was going to shoot a couple of photos of an officer interrogating a prisoner. Instead, "The man just pulled a pistol out of his holster, raised it to the VC’s head and shot him in the temple.” Adams captured the exact moment when the bullet from Loan’s Smith & Wesson entered Lém’s head at point-blank range. The image, which very much appeared to depict the summary execution of an unarmed civilian by a South Vietnamese military official, ran in newspapers around the world, causing a sensation. The story behind the photo was much more complex, but the shot came to encapsulate Americans’ darkest fears about the war.


On February 2, 1876, the National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, which comes to be more commonly known as the National League (NL), is formed. Its 8 members are the Boston Red Stockings (now the Atlanta Braves), Chicago White Stockings (now the Chicago Cubs), Cincinnati Red Stockings (now the Cincinnati Reds; they had become the first professional baseball team in 1869), Hartford Dark Blues, Louisville Grays, Mutual of New York, Philadelphia Athletics and the St. Louis Brown Stockings.

 

On February 3, 1780, the infant United States of America suffers its first mass murder. Barnett Davenport, a veteran of the Revolutionary War, kills his landlord, Caleb Mallory. His wife, daughter-in-law, and two grandchildren were also killed in their home in rural Connecticut. Mallory and 2 of the children had been beaten to death. Davenport then looted the home and set it on fire, killing the other two. In his confession, Davenport never gave a motive or source of provocation for the murders. Modern studies of the killing suggest Davenport, who survived the siege on Fort Ticonderoga and the winter at Valley Forge, may have suffered from a form of PTSD.

On February 3, 1944, American forces invade and take control of the Marshall Islands, long occupied by the Japanese and used by them as a base for military operations. Japan had occupied the Marshalls since post WWI as designated by the League of Nations. They began building up military assets on the islands - most notably Kwajalein - in the early 1930's, and their airfields were a threat to the shipping lanes between Hawaii and Australia until finally taken by the Americans.

On February 3, 1959, rising American rock stars Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson are killed when their chartered plane crashes in Iowa a few minutes after takeoff from Mason City on a flight headed for Moorehead, Minnesota. Investigators blamed the crash on bad weather and pilot error. Holly and his band, the Crickets, had just scored a No. 1 hit with “That’ll Be the Day.” After mechanical difficulties with the tour bus, Holly had chartered a plane for his band to fly between stops on the Winter Dance Party Tour. However, Richardson, who had the flu, convinced Holly’s band member Waylon Jennings to give up his seat, and Ritchie Valens won a coin toss for another seat on the plane. Holly was 22 years old, Valens 17 and Richardson 28. In 1972, the tragedy would be the source of inspiration for Don McLean's number one single, “American Pie,” which refers to February 3, 1959 as “the day the music died.”