Events January 31
1747 – The first venereal diseases clinic opens at London Lock Hospital.
1915 – World War I: Germany uses poison gas against Russia
1945 – World War II: About 3,000 inmates from the Stutthof concentration camp are forcibly marched into the Baltic Sea at Palmnicken (now Yantarny, Russia) and executed.
1946 – Yugoslavia's new constitution, modeling the Soviet Union, establishes six constituent republics (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia).
1950 – US President Harry S. Truman announces a program to develop the hydrogen bomb.
1953 – A North Sea flood causes over 1,800 deaths in the Netherlands.
1958 – Explorer program: Explorer 1 – The first successful launch of an American satellite into orbit.
1958 – James Van Allen discovers the Van Allen radiation belt.
1961 – Project Mercury: Mercury-Redstone 2 – Ham the Chimp travels into outer space.
1966 – The Soviet Union launches the unmanned Luna 9 spacecraft as part of the Luna program.
1968 – Nauru gains independence from Australia.
1971 – Apollo program: Apollo 14 – Astronauts Alan Shepard, Stuart Roosa, and Edgar Mitchell, aboard a Saturn V, lift off for a mission to the Fra Mauro Highlands on the Moon.
1996 – Comet Hyakutake is discovered by Japanese amateur astronomer Yuji Hyakutake.

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