Today in HistoryToday is Tuesday, January 31, the 31st day of 2006. There are 334 days left in the year.

ON THIS DATE<$>

In 1606, Guy Fawkes, convicted of treason for his part in the “Gunpowder Plot” against Parliament and King James I, was executed.

In 1996, in one of the worst attacks in Sri Lanka’s civil war, a truck packed with explosives rammed into the central bank and exploded, killing 88 people and wounding 1,400 others.

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

“The third-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the majority. The second-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the minority. The first-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking.” — A.A. Milne (1882-1956).