Today's Highlight in History:
On Jan. 31, 1958, the United States entered the Space Age with its first successful launch of a satellite into orbit, Explorer I.
On this date:
In 1606, Guy Fawkes, convicted of treason for his part in the "Gunpowder Plot" against the English Parliament and King James I, was executed.
In 1865, Gen. Robert E. Lee was named general-in-chief of all the Confederate armies.
In 1917, during World War I, Germany served notice it was beginning a policy of unrestricted submarine warfare.
In 1919, baseball Hall-of-Famer Jackie Robinson was born in Cairo, Ga.
In 1929, revolutionary Leon Trotsky and his family were expelled from the Soviet Union.
In 1944, during World War II, U.S. forces began a successful invasion of Kwajalein Atoll and other parts of the Japanese-held Marshall Islands.
In 1945, Pvt. Eddie Slovik, 24, became the first U.S. soldier since the Civil War to be executed for desertion as he was shot by an American firing squad in France.
In 1949, the first TV daytime soap opera, "These Are My Children," began broadcasting from the NBC station in Chicago. (It lasted all of four weeks.)
In 1971, astronauts Alan Shepard Jr., Edgar Mitchell and Stuart Roosa blasted off aboard Apollo 14 on a mission to the moon.
In 2000, an Alaska Airlines jet plummeted into the Pacific Ocean, killing all 88 people aboard.
Ten years ago: The Denver Broncos repeated as NFL champions, defeating the Atlanta Falcons 34-19 in Super Bowl 33. Researchers from the University of Alabama at Birmingham presented what they called convincing proof that the AIDS virus originated in chimpanzees and spread to people in Africa.
