March 31
From the Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can change
March 31 is the 90th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (91st in leap years), with 275 days remaining.
[change] Events
- 307 - After divorcing his wife Minerva, 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 - Spanish Navy bombs the harbour of Valparaíso, Chile
- 1885 - The United Kingdom establishes a protectorate over Bechuanaland.
- 1889 - The Eiffel Tower is inaugurated.
- 1903 - Richard Pearse reportedly flies a heavier-than-air machine in powered flight near Pleasant Point, South Canterbury, New Zealand; some claim 1902
- 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 United States Virgin Islands after paying $25 million to Denmark.
- 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.
- 1949 - Newfoundland and Labrador joins Confederation and becomes the 10th Province of Canada.
- 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.
- 1967 - Jimi Hendrix burns his guitar for the first time at London's Astoria Theatre. He is sent to the hospital afterwards for burns on his hands.
- 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 - In Jerusalem, Israel, Gali Atari & Milk and Honey win the twenth-fourth Eurovision Song Contest for Israel singing "Hallelujah".
- 1979 - The last Bristish soldier leaves the Maltese Islands. Malta is no longer a military base.
- 1985 - The first ever WrestleMania is held in New York City's Madison Square Garden.
- 1986 - A Mexicana Boeing 727 enroute 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 - Boxer Julio César Chávez defeats Meldrick Taylor to unify the boxing's world junior welterweight title in a very controversial fight known as "Thunder Meets Lightning".
- 1991 - The Warsaw Pact comes to an end.
- 1992 - The television news program Dateline NBC premieres.
- 1993 - Actor Brandon Lee is accidentally killed during the filming of The Crow.
- 1994 - The journal Nature reports the finding in Ethiopia of the first complete Australopithecus afarensis skull (see Human evolution).
- 1995 - Popular Tex-Mex singer Selena Quintanilla is murdered by her assistant Yolanda Saldivar in a Corpus Christi, Texas motel after a heated discussion where the latter was accused of ripping off the artist's fan club.
- 1998 - Netscape gives the code base of its browser under an open-source license agreement, thus creating Mozilla Foundation, a not-for-profit corporation to oversee the development of Mozilla.
- 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.
- 2004 - Sandton Square in Johannesburg, South Africa, is renamed Nelson Mandela Square.
[change] Births
- 1519 - King Henry II of France (d. 1559)
- 1596 - René Descartes, French mathematician (d. 1650)
- 1732 - Joseph Haydn, Austrian composer (d. 1809)
- 1811 - Robert Wilhelm Bunsen, German chemist and inventor (d. 1899)
- 1927 - César Chávez, American labor activist (d. 1993)
- 1934 - Shirley Jones, American singer and actress
- 1935 - Herb Alpert, American trumpeter and band leader
- 1943 - Christopher Walken, American actor
- 1948 - Al Gore, Vice President of the United States
[change] Deaths
- 1204 - Eleanor of Aquitaine, Queen of France and England (b. 1121)
- 1547 - Francis I of France (b. 1494)
- 1727 - Sir Isaac Newton, English mathematician and physicist (b. 1643)
- 1837 - John Constable, English painter (b. 1776)
- 1945 - Anne Frank, German-born diarist (b. 1929)
- 1988 - William McMahon, 20th Prime Minister of Australia (b. 1908)