#Middlebury
On Jan. 31, 1606, at Westminster in London, Guy Fawkes, a conspirator in the plot to blow up the British Parliament building, jumps to his death before his execution for treason. On Nov. 5, 1605, Fawkes had been found lurking in a cellar of Parliament with two tons of gunpowder.- On Feb. 1, 1781, the Articles of Confederation are finally ratified. The Articles had been signed by Congress and sent to the individual states on Nov. 15, 1777, but bickering between Virginia and Maryland delayed final ratification for almost four years.
- On Feb. 2, 1887, Groundhog Day, featuring a rodent meteorologist, is celebrated for the first time at Gobbler’s Knob in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. According to tradition, if a groundhog comes out of its hole on this day and sees its shadow, it gets scared and runs back into its burrow, predicting six more weeks of winter weather.
- On Jan. 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler, leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party (or Nazi Party), is named chancellor (Fuehrer) of Germany. Hitler immediately ordered a rapid expansion of the state police, the Gestapo.
- On Jan. 27, 1943, future President Ronald Reagan, an Army Air Corps first lieutenant during World War II, is on assignment with the Army’s First Motion Picture Unit. He had been tapped to star in a motion picture called “Air Force.”
- On Jan. 28, 1964, the U.S. State Department angrily accuses the Soviet Union of shooting down an American jet that strayed into East German airspace, killing three U.S. officers aboard the plane. The Soviets said the flight was a “gross provocation.”
- On Jan. 29, 1977, “Roots,’ a groundbreaking television program, premieres on ABC. The eight-episode miniseries, which aired on consecutive nights, follows a family from West Africa through generations of slavery and the end of the Civil War.
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