This Week in History – January 31-February 6
January 31, 1892 – Charles Haddon Spurgeon, considered one of the greatest preachers of all time, dies.
January 31, 1928 – Scotch Tape is introduced by Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Company (3M).
January 31, 2019 – President Donald Trump issues “Buy American” order, contributing to the most robust U.S. economy since the 1950s.
February 1, 1862 – Ardent abolitionist Julia Ward Howe publishes “Battle Hymn of the Republic” in The Atlantic Monthly.
February 1, 1886 – St. Paul’s first Winter Carnival opens, hosting competitions in curling, skating, and ice polo and boasting the first ice palace in the United States. Built in Central Park, the palace was 140 feet long, 120 feet wide, and 100 feet high.
February 1, 1895 – Hollywood director John Ford was born in Cape Elizabeth, ME. In a career of more than 50 years, Ford directed more than 140 films, including Stagecoach (1939), The Searchers (1956), The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) and The Grapes of Wrath (1940). He was the recipient of six Academy Awards including a record four wins for Best Director. He also served in World War II as chief of the Photographic Unit of the OSS, and earned two Academy Awards for documentaries made during the war.
February 1, 1949 – The modern state of Israel formally annexed more of their historic land in West Jerusalem.
February 1, 1960 – In Greensboro, NC, four black students sat down and ordered coffee at a lunch counter inside a Woolworth’s store. They were refused service, but did not leave. Instead, they waited all day. The scene was repeated over the next few days, with protests spreading to other southern states, resulting in the eventual arrest of over 1,600 persons for participating in sit-ins.
February 1, 2003 – Sixteen minutes before it was scheduled to land, the Space Shuttle Columbia broke apart in flight over west Texas, killing all seven crew members. This was the second space shuttle lost in flight.
February 2, 1848 – The war between the U.S. and Mexico ended with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. In exchange for $15 million, the U.S. acquired the areas encompassing parts or all of present day California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, and Texas. The treaty was ratified on March 10, 1848.
February 2, 1996 – Minnesota’s then-coldest temperature is recorded at Tower, officially 60 degrees below zero (Fahrenheit), besting by one degree the previous scientifically measured low in the lower 48 United States established in 1899.
February 2, 2021 – Democrat President Joe Biden issues three executive orders—all pertaining “immigration” at U.S borders. Almost immediately—and continuing through his entire four-year term—was an unprecedented invasion of illegals, primarily across the southern border including members of drug and human trafficking cartels and military-age young men, most of whom were from America’s adversaries: Russia, China, and Iran.
February 3, 1469 – Death in Mainz, Germany, of Johannes Gutenberg, inventor of the printing press, originating a method of printing from movable type, which will become a powerful factor in the spread of the Protestant Reformation—his press printed the first Bible.
February 3, 1809 – Congress creates the Illinois Territory, which includes all of present-day Minnesota east of the Mississippi River.
February 3, 1870 – The 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, guaranteeing the right of citizens to vote, regardless of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
February 3, 1894 – American artist and illustrator Norman Rockwell was born in New York City. Best known for depicting ordinary scenes from small town American life for the covers of Saturday Evening Post magazine.
February 3, 1913 – The notorious 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, granting Congress the authority to collect income taxes.
February 3, 1943 – An extraordinary act of heroism occurred in the icy waters off Greenland after the U.S. Army transport ship Dorchester was hit by a German torpedo and began to sink rapidly. When it became apparent there were not enough life jackets, four U.S. Army chaplains on board removed theirs, handed them to frightened young soldiers, and chose to go down with the ship into icy waters while praying. The bravery of Rev. Clark Poling (Dutch Reformed), Rev. George Lansing Fox (Methodist), Father John Washington (a Catholic priest) and Alexander David Goode (a Jewish rabbi) led Congress afterward to mark February 3rd as “Four Chaplains Day.”
February 4, 1789 – The first U.S. electoral college chooses George Washington as President and John Adams as Vice-President.
February 4, 1824 – J. W. Goodrich introduces rubber galoshes to the public.
February 4, 1902 – Aviation pioneer Charles Lindbergh was born in Detroit, MI. He made the first non-stop solo flight from New York to Paris, May 20-21, 1927.
February 4, 1906 – Lutheran pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer is born in Breslau, Germany. Author of The Cost of Discipleship (1937) and Letters from Prison (1944), he opposed the socialist Nazis as one of Germany’s few Confessing Church leaders. Believing that Hitler was like a madman “driving a car into a group of innocent bystanders,” he was privy to various a plots to kill the leader. Bonhoeffer was arrested, imprisoned, and eventually hanged—just days before Allied troops liberated the concentration camp where he was held.
February 4, 2021 – Democrat President Joe Biden issues a memorandum threatening to stop foreign aid to any nation that doesn’t promote his LGBTQI+ agenda, offering “asylum” to LGBTQI+ individuals, and granting them “refugee” status.
February 5, 1597 – A group of early Japanese Christians, known as the 26 Martyrs, are crucified by the new government of Japan for being seen as a threat to Japanese society.
February 5, 1631 – English clergyman Roger Williams arrives in America. He bought land from native Americans and founded Rhode Island, where he established America’s first Baptist church in America. His writings on religious liberty were greatly influential in securing that freedom later in America.
February 5, 1837 – Dwight Lyman (D.L.) Moody, the greatest evangelist of his day and one of the greatest revivalists of all time, is born in Northfield, MA. Speaking to 10,000 or 20,000 at a time, he presented his message, by voice or pen, to at least 100 million people.
February 5, 1861 – The Confederate constitutional convention meets for 1st time; Jefferson Davis elected President of Confederacy.
February 5, 1887 – The Chicago Evangelization Society was organized by evangelist D. L. Moody, 50. Two years later, the Society established the Bible Institute for Home and Foreign Missions. Moody died in 1899, and in 1900 the school was renamed Moody Bible Institute.
February 5, 1918 – Soviet Russia’s communists issue a Decree on the Separation of Church and State that strips the church of legal rights and the power to hold property.
February 5, 1922 – Reader’s Digest magazine is first published.
February 5, 1924 – Forty-one iron-ore miners drown or are fatally buried in mud and seven more escape by climbing a ladder during the Milford Mine Disaster, which occurs north of Crosby on the Cuyuna Range in north-central Minnesota when a nearby lake suddenly empties into an underground mining operation. A county inspector, who had visited the mine the week before the accident, would later state that every precaution had been taken and that the flooding was unavoidable.
February 5, 1937 – As has become a chronic problem in his party, Democrat President Franklin Roosevelt proposes enlarging Supreme Court, but his “court packing” scheme failed.
February 5, 2020 – The U.S. Senate votes to acquit President Donald Trump 52-48 on charges of abuse of power and 53-47 on obstruction of Congress due to lack of evidence after U.S. House Democrats, led by Rep. Nancy Pelosi, did little else for three years but dream up schemes to remove the duly-elected president from office.
February 6, 1756 – Aaron Burr was born in Newark, NJ. In 1804, Vice President Burr challenged Alexander Hamilton to a duel over Hamilton’s negative remarks and mortally wounded him. Burr was later tried for treason over allegations he was planning to invade Mexico as part of a scheme to establish his own empire in the Southwest, but was acquitted.
February 6, 1895 – Legendary baseball player George Herman “Babe” Ruth was born in Baltimore, MD. Ruth held or shared 60 Major League records, including pitching 29 consecutive scoreless innings and hitting 714 home runs.
February 6, 1899 – The Spanish-American War ends, peace treaty ratified by Senate.
February 6, 1911 – Ronald Reagan, the 40th U.S. President, was born in Tampico, IL. Reagan spent 30 years as an entertainer in radio, film, and television before becoming governor of California in 1966. Elected to the White House in 1980, he repaired the economy, survived an assassination attempt, is credited with the fall of the Soviet Union, and became one of the most popular and effective presidents in U.S. history.
February 6, 1917 – Democrat President Woodrow Wilson issues executive order 2526 which forbade any persons of Chinese descent from entering the Panama Canal, punishable by a $500 fine and up to one year in prison.
February 6, 1952 – King George VI of England died. Upon his death, his daughter Princess Elizabeth became Queen Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Her actual coronation took place on June 2, 1953.