Moments in time

• On Jan. 29, 1845, Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “The Raven,” which begins “Once upon a midnight dreary,” is published in the New York Evening Mirror. Poe’s macabre work often portrayed motiveless crimes and intolerable guilt in his characters.

• On Feb. 2, 1887, Groundhog Day, featuring a rodent meteorologist, is celebrated for the first time at Gobbler’s Knob in Punxsutawney, Pa. According to tradition, if a groundhog comes out of its hole on this day and sees its shadow, there will be six more weeks of winter weather; no shadow means an early spring.

• On Jan. 30, 1943, the British Royal Air Forc...