31st March - Definition and Overview

March 31 is the 90th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (91st in Leap years). There are 275 days remaining.

Events

300-1899

• 307 - After divorcing his wife Minerva, Constantine marries Fausta, the daughter of the retired Roman Emperor Maximian.
• 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.

1900-1949

• 1903 - Richard Pearse is reputed to have flown 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 U.S. 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.

1950-1999

• 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 - Lyndon Johnson announces he will not run for president
• 1970 - Explorer 1 re-enters the Earth's atmosphere (after 12 years in orbit).
• 1979 - In Jerusalem, Israel, Gali Atari & Milk and Honey win the twenth-fourth Eurovision Song Contest for Israel singing "Hallelujah".
• 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 - Thunder Meets Lightning: Julio César Chávez defeats Meldrick Taylor to unify boxing's world junior welterweight title in a very controversial fight.
• 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).
• 1998 - Netscape gives the code base of its browser under an open source license agreement, thus creating Mozilla, a non-lucrative organization in order to oversee the development.

2000-2099

• 2004 - Google announces Gmail, the first web-based mail service to offer 1 gigabyte of storage.
• 2004 - Four American private military contractors working for Blackwater USA, are killed and their bodies mutilated after being ambushed in Fallujah, Iraq.
• 2004 - Sandton Square is renamed Nelson Mandela Square.

Births

250-1899

• 250 - Constantius Chlorus, Roman Emperor (d. 306)
• 1499 - Pope Pius IV (d. 1565)
• 1504 - Guru Angad Dev, Second Guru of the Sikhs (d. 1552)
• 1519 - Henry II of France (d. 1559)
• 1536 - Ashikaga Yoshiteru, Ashikaga shogun (d. 1565)
• 1596 - René Descartes, mathematician (d. 1650)
• 1675 - Pope Benedict XIV (d. 1758)
• 1732 - Joseph Haydn, composer (d. 1809)
• 1742 - P. D. Q. Bach, fictitious composer (d. 1807)
• 1809 - Nikolai Gogol, writer (d. 1852)
• 1809 - Edward FitzGerald, poet (d. 1883)
• 1811 - Robert Wilhelm Bunsen, chemist, inventor: Bunsen burner (d. 1899)
• 1878 - Jack Johnson, African-American boxer (d. 1946)
• 1885 - Pascin, the "Prince of Montparnasse" (d. 1930)

1900-1949

• 1900 - Richard Alexander Walter Windsor, Duke of Gloucester
• 1911 - Elisabeth Grümmer, Alsatian soprano (d. 1986)
• 1912 - Hermann Höcherl, politician (d. 1989)
• 1914 - Octavio Paz, Mexican author, Nobel Prize for Literature (d. 1998)
• 1915 - Albert Hourani, historian (d. 1993)
• 1922 - Richard Kiley, actor, singer (d. 1999)
• 1926 - John Fowles, author
• 1927 - César Chávez, labor activist (d. 1993)
• 1927 - William Daniels, actor
• 1928 - Gordie Howe, ice hockey player
• 1928 - Lefty Frizzell, country music performer
• 1934 - Shirley Jones, singer, actress
• 1935 - Richard Chamberlain, actor
• 1935 - Herb Alpert, musician
• 1939 - Zviad Gamsakhurdia, scientist and writer, first President of the Republic of Georgia (d. 1993)
• 1939 - Volker Schlöndorff, film director
• 1940 - Patrick Leahy, United States Senator from Vermont
• 1943 - Christopher Walken, actor
• 1946 - Gonzalo Márquez, Major League Baseball player (d. 1984)
• 1948 - Al Gore, Former Vice President of the United States
• 1948 - Rhea Perlman, actress
• 1949 - Bethel Enproe Adam, second Angam Baby

1950-1999

• 1966 - Roger Black, British athlete
• 1971 - Ewan McGregor, actor
• 1971 - Pavel Bure, ice hockey player
• 1976 - Josh Saviano, actor (The Wonder Years)
• 1984 - Sean Neuerburg, writer

Deaths

• 1783 - Nikita Ivanovich Panin, Russian statesman (b. 1718)
• 1837 - John Constable, painter (b. 1776)
• 1855 - Charlotte Brontë, author (b. 1816)
• 1880 - Henryk Wieniawski, composer
• 1912 - Karl May, author (b. 1842)
• 1913 - John Pierpont Morgan - US financier and banker (b. 1837)
• 1917 - Emil Adolf von Behring, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1901 (b. 1854)
• 1915 - Wyndham Halswelle, British runner
• 1931 - Knute Rockne, American football coach (b. 1888)
• 1945 - Anne Frank, whose world-famous diary was published after WW II (b. 1929)
• 1954 - Edwin Armstrong, electrical engineer
• 1956 - Ralph DePalma, race car driver (b. 1884)
• 1978 - Charles Best, medical scientist (b. 1899)
• 1980 - Jesse Owens, athlete (b. 1913)
• 1988 - William McMahon, twentieth Prime Minister of Australia (b. 1908)
• 1993 - Brandon Lee, actor (b. 1965)
• 1995 - Selena, Tejano singer (b. 1971)
• 1998 - Bella Abzug, American politician (b. 1920)
• 2002 - Barry Took, British comedian and writer
• 2003 - H.S.M. Coxeter, geometer and author
• 2003 - Michael Jeter, actor

Holidays and observances

• 1991, 2002, 2013, 2024: Easter day
• Thomas Mundy Peterson Day in New Jersey

March 30 - April 1 - February 28 (February 29) - April 30 -- listing of all days