March 31
is the
90th day of the year in the
Gregorian Calendar (91st in
Leap years), with 275 days remaining.
*
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.
*
1985 - The first
Wrestlemania event is held at
Madison Square Gardens in
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.
*
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).
*
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.
*
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 -
Joseph 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)
*
1916 -
John H. Wood, Jr., American federal judge (d.
1979)
*
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
*
1969 -
Samantha Brown, American television host
*
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
* 1978 -
Tony Yayo, American rapper
*
1979 -
Josh Kinney, baseball player
*
1980 -
Chien-Ming Wang, Taiwanese
Major League Baseball player
*
1982 -
Philippe Mexès, French footballer
*
1983 -
Paddy McCarthy, Irish footballer
*
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)
*
1968 -
Grover Lowdermilk, baseball player (b.
1885)
*
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 -
Jeanine Deckers, 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
*
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*
BBC: On This Day*
Epic Idiot: On This DayFebruary 28 -
February 29 - (
February 30) -
March 30 -
April 1 -
April 30 --
listing of all days
