Making Maui Proud
January 31, 2010 7:23 am > MAUI TODAY, > Maui Yesterdays |
 Backward DayDay 31 of 2010 334 days left in this year |
HAWAIIAN WORD OF THE DAY — Manawale’a: Generous Heart PIDGIN WORD OF THE DAY— Klok: Heart HAWAIIAN PROVERB OF THE DAY — “A heart full to the brim.” HAOLE QUOTE OF THE DAY — “In America few people will trust you unless you are irreverent.” - Norman Mailer
January 31st, 1943: More than 100 men from Maui join the group of 1,500 men from all of Hawaii who are forming a combat team traveling to Mississippi to be trained before serving in the European theater – a surprising term for the World War II front fighting Hitler. What makes this team so special? It’s made entire of Japanese Americans.
And these men volunteered for this duty during the year when most – more than 100,000 – Japanese Americans are stripped of their rights, property and dignity, and interned in California concentration camps.Though no exact number of casualties are known for this team, it is estimated that about 1,000 are killed or wounded during the war.
HISTORICAL EVENTS ON THIS DAY — January 31st
- 1865: The 13th Amendment, banning slavery, is proposed by Congress
- 1865: General Robert E Lee is named general-in-chief of the Confederate armies
- 1925: Gray colored snow falls in Japan
- 1928: Scotch tape is first marketed by the 3-M Company
- 1929: Leon Trotsky is expelled from Russia
- 1958: Explorer I is launched and becomes the first U.S. satellite in Earth orbit
- 1958: James van Allen discovers Earth’s radiation belt
- 1970: The Grateful Dead band members are arrested on LSD charges
- 1974: MacDonald’s founder Ray Kroc buys the San Diego Padres
- 1985: South African president P W Botha offers to free Nelson Mandela if he denounces violence
- 2001: A Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands convicts one Libyan and acquits a second in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie Scotland
- 2006: Samuel Alito was confirmed by the Senate and sworn in as a Supreme Court justice.
- 2006: The Senate approved Ben Bernanke as chairman of the Federal Reserve.
BORN ON THIS DAY — January 31st
- 1734: Robert Morris, merchant (signed Declaration of Independence)
- 1797: Franz Schubert, composer
- 1872: Zane Grey, American West novelist
- 1882: Anna Pavlova, ballerina/choreographer
- 1892: Eddie Cantor, comedian
- 1902: Alva Myrdal, diplomat (Nobel Peace Prize-1982)
- 1905: John O’Hara, novelist
- 1915: Thomas Merton, Trappist monk/poet/essayist
- 1919: Jackie Robinson, baseball player who broke color barrier
- 1923: Norman Mailer, novelist,
- 1925: Benjamin Hooks, civil rights leader
- 1926: Jean Simmons, actress
- 1931: Ernie Banks, hall of fame baseball player
- 1934: James Franciscus, actor
- 1937: Philip Glass, composer
- 1937: Suzanne Pleshette, actress
- 1940: Stuart Margolin, actor
- 1941: Richard Gephardt, (Sen-D-Mo)
- 1944: Charley Musselwhite, musician
- 1947: Nolan Ryan, hall of fame basebal pitcher
- 1951: Phil Manzanera, rock guitarist (Roxy Music-Let’s Stick Together)
- 1956: Johnny Rotten, (John Lydon), rocker (Sex Pistols-God Save the Queen)
- 1971: Minnie Driver, actress
- 1981: Justin Timberlake, singer
DIED ON THIS DAY — January 31st
- 1606: Guy Fawkes convicted in the “Gunpowder Plot”, executed at 35
- 1788: Charles E Stuart English pretender to the throne, dies at 67
- 1788: [Bonnie Prince] Charles E Stuart English pretender, dies at 67
- 1828: Alexandros Ypsilanti Greek resistance fighter, dies at 35
- 1933: John Galsworthy England, writer (Forsythe, Nobel 1932), dies at 65
- 1945: Eddie Slovik 1st US soldier executed for desertion since Civil War at 25
- 1970: Slim Harpo [James Moore], rocker, dies at 28
- 1974: Samuel Goldwyn Polish/English/US film magnate (MGM), dies at 91
- 1996: Gustave Solomon mathematician, dies at 65
- 2006: Coretta Scott King, the widow of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., died at age 78
- 2007: Molly Ivins, American political columnist and author (b. 1944)
