(Redirected from 31 March)
Events
★
307 - After divorcing his wife
Minervina,
Constantine marries
Fausta, the daughter of the retired
Roman Emperor Maximian.
★
1146 -
Bernard of Clairvaux preaches his famous sermon in a field at
Vézelay, urging the necessity of a
Second Crusade.
Louis VII is present, and joins the Crusade.
★
1492 -
Queen Isabella of Castille
orders her 150,000 Jewish subjects to convert to Christianity or face expulsion.
★
1717 - A
sermon on "
The Nature of the Kingdom of Christ" by
Benjamin Hoadly, the
Bishop of Bangor, provoked the
Bangorian Controversy.
★
1774 -
American Revolutionary War: The
Kingdom of Great Britain orders the port of
Boston, Massachusetts closed in the
Boston Port Act.
★
1822 -
The massacre of the population of the Greek island of
Chios by soldiers of the
Ottoman Empire following a rebellion attempt, depicted by the French artist
Eugène Delacroix.
★
1854 -
Commodore Matthew Perry signs the
Treaty of Kanagawa with the
Japanese
government, opening the ports of
Shimoda and
Hakodate to
American trade.
★
1866 - The
Spanish Navy bombs the harbour of
ValparaÃso,
Chile.
★
1877 - The family with samurai antecedents who responded to the
Saigo army in
ÅŒita Nakatsu rebels.
★
1885 - The
United Kingdom establishes a
protectorate over
Bechuanaland.
★
1889 - The
Eiffel Tower is inaugurated.
★
1903 -
Richard Pearse apparently made the worlds first powered flight, after flying a few hundred metres he crashed into a hedge.
★
1906 - The
Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States (later
National Collegiate Athletic Association) is established to set rules for amateur
sports in the
United States.
★
1909 -
Serbia accepts
Austrian control over
Bosnia-Herzegovina.
★
1917 - The
United States takes possession of the
Danish West Indies after paying $25 million to
Denmark, and renames the territory the
U.S. Virgin Islands.
★
1918 -
Daylight saving time goes into effect in the
United States for the first time.
★
1930 - The
Motion Pictures Production Code is instituted, imposing strict guidelines on the treatment of
sex,
crime,
religion and
violence in
motion pictures for the next thirty eight years.
★
1931 - An
earthquake destroys
Managua,
Nicaragua, killing 2,000.
★
1933 - The
Civilian Conservation Corps is established with the mission to relieve rampant unemployment.
★
1942 - In
World War II, Japanese forces
invade Christmas Island, then a British possession.
★ 1942 -
Holocaust in
Ivano-Frankivsk (then called Stanislawow), western
Ukraine.
German Gestapo organise the first deportation of 5.000
Jews from Stanislawow
ghetto to
Belzec death camp. It was one of the biggest transports to
Belzec in the first phase of the camp.
★
1944 - Japanese Navy Marshal
Mineichi Koga dies in the performance of job in the
Navy Second Incident.
★
1946 - The first election is held in
Greece after
World War II.
★
1949 - The
Dominion of Newfoundland joins
Confederation and becomes the 10th
Province of
Canada.
★
1951 - The first commercial US made computer,
UNIVAC I, was delivered to the
United States Census Bureau.
★
1957 - Elections to the
Territorial Assembly of the
French colony
Upper Volta. After the elections
PDU and
MDV form a
government.
★
1959 - The 14th
Dalai Lama,
Tenzin Gyatso, crosses the border into
India and is granted
political asylum.
★
1964 - The
Dictatorship in Brazil, under the aegis of general
Castello Branco, begins.
★
1965 -
Iberia Airlines Convair 440, crashed into the sea on approach to
Tangier killing 47 of 51 occupants.
★
1966 - The
Soviet Union launches
Luna 10 which later becomes the first
spaceprobe to enter orbit around the
Moon.
★
1968 -
President Lyndon Johnson announces he will not run for re-election.
★
1970 -
Explorer 1 re-enters the
Earth's atmosphere (after 12 years in orbit).
★ 1970 - Eight
terrorists from the
Japanese Red Army hijacked Japan Airlines Flight 351 at
Tokyo International Airport, wielding
samurai swords and carrying a
bomb.
★
1979 - The last
British soldier leaves the
Maltese Islands.
Malta declares its Freedom Day (Jum il-Helsien).
★
1985 -
Wrestlemania I occurs in
Madison Square Garden,
New York City
★
1986 - A
Mexicana Boeing 727 en route to
Puerto Vallarta erupts in flames and crashes in the mountains northwest of
Mexico City, killing 166.
★ 1986 - Six
metropolitan county councils are abolished in
England.
★
1990 -
200,000 protestors took to the streets of
London to show their displeasure at the newly introduced
Poll Tax.
★
1991 - The Establishment of Islamic Constitutional Movement -
Hadas in
Kuwait.
★
1992 -
USS Missouri (BB-63), the last active US Navy
Battleship, is decommissioned in
Long Beach, California.
★
1994 - The
journal ''
Nature'' reports the finding in
Ethiopia of the first complete ''
Australopithecus afarensis'' skull (see
Human evolution).
★
1995 - In
Corpus Christi, Texas, Latin superstar
Selena Quintanilla Perez is shot and killed by
Yolanda Saldivar, the president of her own fan club.
★
1998 -
Netscape releases the
code base of its browser under an
open-source license agreement; the project is given the code name
Mozilla and would eventually be spun off into the non-profit
Mozilla Foundation.
★
2002 - 331 Earthquake in Taiwan, which measured 7.1 and killed at least four people.
★
2004 - In
Fallujah,
Iraq, 4
American private military contractors working for
Blackwater USA, are killed and their bodies mutilated after being ambushed.
Births
★
250 -
Constantius Chlorus,
Roman Emperor (d.
306)
★
1499 -
Pope Pius IV (d.
1565)
★
1504 -
Guru Angad Dev, second Sikh guru (d.
1552)
★
1519 - King
Henry II of France (d.
1559)
★
1536 -
Ashikaga Yoshiteru, Japanese shogun (d.
1565)
★
1576 -
Louise Juliana of Nassau, Regent of Bohemia (died
1644)
★
1596 -
René Descartes, French mathematician (d.
1650)
★
1621 -
Andrew Marvell, English poet (d.
1678)
★
1651 -
Karl II, Elector Palatine (d.
1685)
★
1675 -
Pope Benedict XIV (d.
1758)
★
1718 -
Marianne Victoria of Borbón, queen regent of Portugal (d.
1781)
★
1723 - King
Frederick V of Denmark (d.
1766)
★
1730 -
Étienne Bézout, French mathematician (d.
1783)
★
1732 -
Joseph Haydn, Austrian composer (d.
1809)
★
1777 -
Charles Cagniard de la Tour, French physicist (d.
1859)
★
1778 -
Coenraad Jacob Temminck, Dutch zoologist (d.
1858)
★
1794 -
Thomas McKean Thompson McKennan, American politician (d.
1852)
★
1809 -
Edward FitzGerald, English poet (d.
1883)
★
1811 -
Robert Wilhelm Bunsen, German chemist and inventor (d.
1899)
★
1819 -
Prince Chlodwig zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst,
Chancellor of Germany (d.
1901)
★
1847 -
Yegor Ivanovich Zolotarev, Russian mathematician (d.
1878)
★
1855 -
Alfred E. Hunt, founder of
Alcoa (d.
1899)
★
1871 -
Arthur Griffith,
President of Ireland (d.
1922)
★
1872 -
Alexandra Kollontai, Russian ambassador to Norway (d.
1952)
★ 1872 -
Serge Diaghilev, Russian ballet impresario (
Ballets Russes) (d.
1929)
★
1876 -
Borisav "Bora" Stanković,
Serbian writer (d.
1927)
★
1878 -
Jack Johnson, American boxer (d.
1946)
★
1884 -
Adriaan van Maanen, Dutch-American astronomer (d.
1946)
★
1885 -
Pascin, Bulgarian painter (d.
1930)
★
1890 -
William Lawrence Bragg, English physicist,
Nobel laureate (d.
1971)
★
1891 -
Victor Varconi, Hungarian film actor (d.
1976)
★
1893 -
Clemens Krauss, Austrian conductor (d.
1954)
★
1906 -
Sin-Itiro Tomonaga, Japanese physicist,
Nobel laureate (d.
1979)
★
1907 -
Eddie Quillan, American actor (d.
1990)
★
1908 -
Red Norvo, American jazz vibraphonist (d.
1999)
★
1911 -
Elisabeth Grümmer, Alsatian soprano (d.
1986)
★
1914 -
Octavio Paz, Mexican diplomat and writer,
Nobel laureate (d.
1998)
★
1915 -
Albert Hourani, English historian (d.
1993)
★ 1915 -
Shoichi Yokoi, Japanese military man (d.
1997)
★
1916 -
Lucille Bliss, American voice actress
★ 1916 -
John H. Wood, Jr., American federal judge (d.
1979)
★
1919 -
Frank Akins, American football player (d.
1993)
★
1922 -
Richard Kiley, American actor and singer (d.
1999)
★
1924 -
Leo Buscaglia, American author (d.
1998)
★ 1924 -
Charles Guggenheim, American film director/producer (d.
2002)
★
1925 -
Jean Coutu, French Canadian actor (d.
1999)
★
1926 -
John Fowles, English author (d.
2005)
★
1927 -
César Chávez, American labor activist (d.
1993)
★ 1927 -
William Daniels, American actor
★
1928 -
Lefty Frizzell, American singer and songwriter (d.
1975)
★ 1928 -
Gordie Howe, Canadian ice hockey player
★
1929 -
Liz Claiborne, Belgian-born American fashion designer (d.
2007)
★ 1929 -
Bertram Fields, American lawyer
★
1931 -
Miller Barber, American golfer
★
1932 -
Nagisa Oshima, Japanese film director
★
1933 -
Nichita Stănescu, Romanian poet (d.
1983)
★
1934 -
Richard Chamberlain, American actor
★ 1934 -
Shirley Jones, American singer and actress
★ 1934 -
Carlo Rubbia, Italian physicist,
Nobel laureate
★ 1934 -
John D. Loudermilk, American singer and songwriter
★
1935 -
Herb Alpert, American trumpeter and band leader
★ 1935 -
Judith Rossner, American author
★
1936 -
Bob Pulford, Canadian ice hockey player
★ 1936 -
Marge Piercy, American writer
★ 1936 -
Dokumamushi Sandayu, Japanese actor
★
1938 -
Sheila Dikshit, Chief Minister of Delhi
★ 1938 -
David Steel, Scottish politician
★ 1938 -
Michiko Nomura, Japanese voice actor
★ 1938 -
Bill Hicke, Canadian ice hockey player (d.
2005)
★
1939 -
Zviad Gamsakhurdia, first
President of Georgia (d.
1993)
★ 1939 -
Volker Schlöndorff, German film director
★
1940 -
Patrick Leahy, U.S. Senator from Vermont
★ 1940 -
Barney Frank, U.S. Representative from Massachusetts
★
1942 -
Michael Savage, American talk radio host and commentator
★ 1942 -
Ulla Hoffmann, Swedish politician
★
1943 -
Christopher Walken, American actor
★
1944 -
Pascal Danel, French singer and songwriter
★ 1944 -
Mick Ralphs, English guitarist (
Mott the Hoople,
Bad Company)
★
1945 -
Valerie Curtin, American actress, writer, and producer
★ 1945 -
Gabe Kaplan, American actor and comedian
★
1946 -
Gonzalo Márquez, Venezuelan baseball player (d.
1984)
★
1947 -
Cesar Gaviria Trujillo,
President of Colombia
★
1948 -
Al Gore,
Vice President of the United States
★ 1948 -
Rhea Perlman, American actress
★
1950 -
Ed Marinaro, American football player and actor
★ 1950 -
András Adorján, Hungarian chess player
★
1955 -
Angus Young, Scottish-born Australian guitarist (
AC/DC)
★
1957 -
Marc McClure, American actor
★ 1957 -
Alan Duncan, British politician
★
1963 -
Paul Mercurio, Australian actor/dancer
★
1964 -
Paul Wong Koon-Chung, Hong Kong musician (
Beyond)
★
1965 -
Tom Barrasso, American ice hockey player
★ 1965 -
Steven T. Seagle, American comic-book writer
★
1966 -
Roger Black, English athlete
★
1968 -
Naoya Ogawa, Japanese professional wrestler
★
1969 -
Samantha Brown, American television host
★ 1969 -
Nyamko Sabuni, Swedish politician
★
1971 -
Pavel Bure, Russian ice hockey player
★ 1971 -
Ewan McGregor, Scottish actor
★
1972 -
Hristos Polihroniou, Greek hammer thrower
★ 1972 -
Alejandro Amenábar, Spanish film director
★
1973 -
Bold Forbes, Puerto Rican/American thoroughbred racehorse (d.
2000)
★
1974 -
Stefan Olsdal, Swedish bassist (
Placebo)
★ 1974 -
Benjamin Eicher, Swiss film director
★ 1974 -
Angela Dotchin, New Zealand actress
★
1976 -
Josh Saviano, American actor
★ 1976 -
Ashton Moore, American porn actress
★
1977 -
Toshiya, Japanese musician (
Dir en grey)
★ 1977 -
Garth Tander, Australian racing driver
★
1978 -
Stephen Clemence, English footballer
★ 1978 -
Jérôme Rothen, French footballer
★ 1978 -
Tony Yayo, American rapper
★
1979 -
Josh Kinney, American baseball player
★
1980 -
Chien-Ming Wang, Taiwanese baseball player
★ 1980 -
Maaya Sakamoto, Japanese voice actor
★ 1980 -
Michael Ryder, Canadian ice hockey player
★
1981 -
Maarten van der Weijden, Dutch swimmer
★
1982 -
Lennon Murphy, American rock singer/songwriter and
Suicide Girl
★ 1982 -
Philippe Mexès, French footballer
★
1983 -
Paddy McCarthy, Irish footballer
★ 1983 -
Vlasios Maras, Greek gymnast
★
1987 -
Georg Listing, German bassist (
Tokio Hotel)
Deaths
★
1074 - Regency
Yorimichi Fujiwara of Japan (b.
992)
★
1204 -
Eleanor of Aquitaine, Queen of France and England (b.
1121)
★
1340 -
Ivan I of Russia, Prince of Moscow (b.
1288)
★
1547 -
Francis I of France (b.
1494)
★
1567 -
Philipp I of Hesse (b.
1504)
★
1621 -
Philip III of Spain (b.
1578)
★
1631 -
John Donne, English writer and prelate (b.
1572)
★
1671 -
Anne Hyde, wife of
James II of England (b.
1637)
★
1703 -
Johann Christoph Bach, German composer (b.
1642)
★
1723 -
Edward Hyde, 3rd Earl of Clarendon, British-born American statesman (b.
1661)
★
1727 -
Sir Isaac Newton, English mathematician and physicist (b.
1643)
★
1741 -
Pieter Burmann the Elder, Dutch classical scholar (b.
1668)
★
1783 -
Nikita Ivanovich Panin, Russian statesman (b.
1718)
★
1837 -
John Constable, English painter (b.
1776)
★
1855 -
Charlotte Brontë, English author (b.
1816)
★
1877 -
Antoine Augustin Cournot, French mathematician (b.
1801)
★
1880 -
Henryk Wieniawski, Polish composer (b.
1835)
★
1885 -
Franz Wilhelm Abt, German composer (b.
1819)
★
1913 -
John Pierpont Morgan, American financier (b.
1837)
★
1917 -
Emil Adolf von Behring, German physician,
Nobel laureate (b.
1854)
★
1915 -
Wyndham Halswelle, Scottish athlete (b.
1882)
★
1927 -
Borisav "Bora" Stanković,
Serbian writer (b.
1875)
★
1931 -
Knute Rockne, American football coach (b.
1888)
★
1945 -
Hans Fischer, German chemist,
Nobel laureate (b.
1881)
★ 1945 -
Anne Frank, German-born diarist (b.
1929)
★
1952 -
Wallace H. White, Jr., American politician (b.
1877)
★
1956 -
Ralph DePalma, Italian-born race car driver (b.
1884)
★
1968 -
Grover Lowdermilk, American baseball player (b.
1885)
★
1972 -
Meena Kumari, Indian actress (b.
1932)
★
1976 -
Paul Strand, American photographer (b.
1890)
★
1978 -
Charles Best, Canadian medical scientist (b.
1899)
★
1980 -
VladimÃr Holan, Czech poet (b.
1905)
★ 1980 -
Jesse Owens, American athlete (b.
1913)
★
1981 -
Enid Bagnold, British playwright (b.
1889)
★
1984 -
Ronald Clark O'Bryan, American murderer (b.
1944)
★
1985 -
Jeanine Deckers, Belgian nun (b.
1933)
★
1986 -
O'Kelly Isley, Jr., American singer (
The Isley Brothers) (b.
1937)
★ 1986 -
Jerry Paris, American actor (b.
1925)
★
1988 -
William McMahon, 20th
Prime Minister of Australia (b.
1908)
★
1993 -
Brandon Lee, American actor (b.
1965)
★ 1993 -
Mitchell Parish, American lyricist (b.
1900)
★
1995 -
Selena Quintanilla Perez, Mexican American singer (b.
1971)
★
1996 -
Jeffrey Lee Pierce, American singer (
The Gun Club) (b.
1958)
★
1998 -
Bella Abzug, American politician (b.
1920)
★ 1998 -
Tim Flock, American race car driver (b.
1924)
★
1999 -
Yuri Knorosov, Russian linguist (b.
1922)
★
2001 -
Clifford Shull, American physicist,
Nobel laureate (b.
1915)
★
2002 -
Barry Took, British comedian (b.
1928)
★
2003 -
H.S.M. Coxeter, English-born geometer (b.
1907)
★ 2003 -
Tommy Seebach, Danish singer (b.
1949)
★ 2003 -
Anne Gwynne, American film actress (b.
1918)
★
2005 -
Stanley J. Korsmeyer, American oncologist (b.
1951)
★ 2005 -
Frank Perdue, American poultry farmer (b.
1920)
★ 2005 -
Terri Schiavo, American figure in
right to die case (b.
1963)
★
2006 -
Jackie McLean, American jazz saxophonist (b.
1931 or
1932)
★ 2006 -
Angela Devi, American adult model (b.
1975)
Holidays and observances
★
New Jersey -
Thomas Mundy Peterson Day
★
César Chávez Day - official holiday in five states and many cities across the
U.S.
★
Freedom Day (Malta)
Liturgical feasts
★
Abdas of Susa [1]
★
Saint Amos
★
Anesius and companions
★
Blessed Hendrik Werner
References
1. Holweck, F. G. ''A Biographical Dictionary of the Saints''. St. Louis, MO: B. Herder Book Co. 1924.
External links
★
BBC: On This Day
★
★
On This Day in Canada
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