March 31
Encyclopedia : M : MA : MAR : March 31
|
Events
- 307 - After divorcing his wife Minervina, Constantine marries Fausta, the daughter of the retired Roman Emperor Maximian.
- 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.
- 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 Valparaíso, Chile..
- 1885 - The United Kingdom establishes a protectorate over Bechuanaland.
- 1889 - The Eiffel Tower is inaugurated.
- 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 Savings 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 forty 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.
- 1949 - The Dominion of Newfoundland joins Confederation and becomes the 10th Province of Canada.
- 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.
- 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 a Japan Airlines Boeing 727 at Tokyo International Airport, wielding samurai swords and carrying a bomb.
- 1979 - The last British soldier leaves the Maltese Islands.
- 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.
- 1994 - The journal Nature reports the finding in Ethiopia of the first complete Australopithecus afarensis skull (see Human evolution).
- 1996 - The community eWorld created by Apple Computer officially shut down at 12:01 am Pacific Time.
- 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.
- 1999 - The Matrix, first episode of the Matrix trilogy movies, is released in theaters.
- 2004 - Google announces Gmail, the first web-based mail service to offer 1 gigabyte of storage.
- 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)
- 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)
- 1732 - Franz Josef Haydn, Austrian composer (d. 1809)
- 1777 - Charles Cagniard de la Tour, French physicist (d. 1859)
- 1778 - Coenraad Jacob Temminck, Dutch zoologist (d. 1858)
- 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)
- 1871 - Arthur Griffith, President of Ireland (d. 1922)
- 1872 - Alexandra Kollontai, Russian ambassador to Norway (d.1952)
- 1878 - Jack Johnson, American boxer (d. 1946)
- 1885 - Pascin, Bulgarian painter (d. 1930)
- 1890 - William Lawrence Bragg, English physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1971)
- 1891 - Victor Varconi, Hungarian film actor (d. 1976)
- 1906 - Sin-Itiro Tomonaga, Japanese physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1979)
- 1911 - Elisabeth Grümmer, Alsatian soprano (d. 1986)
- 1914 - Octavio Paz, Mexican diplomat and writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1998)
- 1915 - Albert Hourani, English historian (d. 1993)
- 1922 - Richard Kiley, American actor and singer (d. 1999)
- 1924 - Leo Buscaglia, American author (d. 1998)
- 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 hockey player
- 1929 - Lucille Bliss, American voice actress
- 1929 - Liz Claiborne, Belgian fashion designer
- 1929 - Bertram Fields, American lawyer
- 1931 - Miller Barber, American professional golfer
- 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 Prize laureate
- 1935 - Herb Alpert, American trumpeter and band leader
- 1935 - Judith Rossner, American author
- 1936 - Bob Pulford, Canadian hockey player
- 1936 - Marge Piercy, American writer
- 1938 - Sheila Dikshit, Chief Minister of Delhi
- 1938 - David Steel, Scottish politician
- 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, talk radio host and commentator
- 1943 - Christopher Walken, American actor
- 1945 - Valerie Curtin, American actress, writer, and producer
- 1945 - Gabe Kaplan, American actor and comedian
- 1946 - Gonzalo Márquez, Venezuelan Major League 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 - Andras Adorjan, Hungarian chess player
- 1955 - Angus Young, Scottish-born musician (AC/DC)
- 1957 - Marc McClure, American actor
- 1963 - Paul Mercurio, Australian actor/dancer
- 1965 - Tom Barrasso, American hockey player
- 1966 - Roger Black, British athlete
- 1971 - Pavel Bure, Russian hockey player
- 1971 - Ewan McGregor, Scottish actor
- 1973 - Bold Forbes, Puerto Rican racehorse (d. 2000)
- 1974 - Stefan Olsdal, Swedish bassist (Placebo)
- 1974 - Benjamin Eicher, Swiss film director
- 1976 - Josh Saviano, American actor
- 1978 - Stephen Clemence, English footballer
- 1978 - Jérôme Rothen, French footballer
- 1980 - Chien-Ming Wang, Taiwanese Major League Baseball player
- 1982 - Philippe Mexès, French footballer
- 1983 - Paddy McCarthy, Irish footballer
Deaths
- 1204 - Eleanor of Aquitaine, Queen of France and England (b. 1121)
- 1340 - Ivan I of Russia, Prince of Moscow (b. 1288)
- 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 Governor of New York and New Jersey (b. 1661)
- 1727 - Sir Isaac Newton, 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)
- 1880 - Henryk Wieniawski, Polish composer (b. 1835)
- 1885 - Franz Wilhelm Abt, German composer (b. 1819)
- 1913 - John Pierpont Morgan, American financier and banker (b. 1837)
- 1917 - Emil Adolf von Behring, German physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1854)
- 1915 - Wyndham Halswelle, British runner (b. 1882)
- 1931 - Knute Rockne, American football coach (b. 1888)
- 1945 - Hans Fischer, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1881)
- 1945 - Anne Frank, German-born diarist (b. 1929)
- 1952 - Wallace H. White, Jr., U.S. Senator from Maine (b. 1877)
- 1954 - Edwin Armstrong, American electrical engineer and inventor (b. 1890)
- 1956 - Ralph DePalma, Italian-born race car driver (b. 1884)
- 1978 - Charles Best, Canadian medical scientist (b. 1899)
- 1980 - Vladimír Holan, Czech poet (b. 1905)
- 1980 - Jesse Owens, American athlete (b. 1913)
- 1981 - Enid Bagnold, British author and playwright (b. 1889)
- 1984 - Ronald Clark O'Bryan, American murderer (executed) (b. 1944)
- 1985 - The Singing Nun, Belgian nun and singer (b. 1933)
- 1988 - William McMahon, twentieth Prime Minister of Australia (b. 1908)
- 1993 - Brandon Lee, American actor (b. 1965)
- 1995 - Selena, Mexican-American singer (b. 1971)
- 1998 - Bella Abzug, American politician (b. 1920)
- 1998 - Tim Flock, American NASCAR Driver and stock car racing pioneer
- 1999 - Yuri Knorosov, Russian linguist and epigrapher (b. 1922)
- 2001 - Clifford Shull, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1915)
- 2002 - Barry Took, British comedian and writer (b. 1928)
- 2003 - H.S.M. Coxeter, English-born geometer and author (b. 1907)
- 2003 - Tommy Seebach, Danish singer (b. 1949)
- 2005 - Stanley J. Korsmeyer, American oncologist (b. 1951)
- 2005 - Frank Perdue, American poultry farmer (b. 1920)
- 2005 - Terri Schiavo, cause célèbre for the American right-to-die movement
- 2006 - Jackie McLean, American jazz saxophonist
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 in Malta.
Liturgical feasts
- Saint Amos
- Saint Benjamin
- Blessed Hendrik Werner
- Saint Balbina of Rome
- Saint Cornelia
External links
February 28 - February 29 - (February 30) - March 30 - April 1 - April 30 -- listing of all days
| January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November | December |
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.