March 31

2024 Calendar

March 31 is the 90th day of the year (91st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 275 days remaining until the end of the year.

It is the last day of the first quarter of the year.

Events

Up to 1900

307 – After divorcing his wife Minervina, Constantine marries Fausta, the daughter of the retired Roman Emperor Maximian.
1492 – Queen Isabella of Castile issues the Alhambra Decree, ordering her 150,000 Jewish and Muslim subjects to convert to Christianity, or face being forced to leave.
1547 – King Henry II of France becomes king on his 28th birthday, following the death of his father, King Francis I of France.
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 United Kingdom of Great Britain orders the port of Boston, Massachusetts closed in the Boston Port Act.
1822 – Massacre of the population of the Greek island of Chios by Ottoman Empire soldiers following an attempted rebellion.
1829 – Francesco Saverio Castiglione is elected Pope, becoming Pope Pius VIII.
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, present–day Botswana.
1889 – The Eiffel Tower is inaugurated.
1899 – Malolos, capital of the First Philippine Republic, is captured by American forces.

1901 – 2000

1901 – The 1901 Black Sea earthquake occurs.
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.
1909 – Building work on the RMS Titanic begins.
1910 – Six North Staffordshire pottery towns merge to form Stoke–on–Trent.
1917 – The United States takes possession of the United States Virgin Islands after paying $25 million to Denmark.
1918 – Daylight Saving Time goes into effect in the United States for the first time.
1918 – Massacre of ethnic Azerbaijanis is committed by groups of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation and Bolsheviks. Almost 12,000 Azerbaijani Muslims are killed.
1921 – The Royal Australian Air Force is formed.
1930 – The Motion Pictures Production Code is instituted, imposing strict guidelines on the treatment of sex, crime, religion and violence in movies for the next forty years.
1931 – An earthquake destroys Managua, Nicaragua, killing 2,000.
1931 – TWA Flight 599 crashes near Bazaar, Kansas, killing 8 people, including University of Notre Dame American football coach Knute Rockne.
1933 – The Civilian Conservation Corps is established with the mission to relieve unemployment.
1942 – World War II: Japanese forces invade Christmas Island.
1945 – World War II: A defecting German pilot delivers a Messerschmitt Me 26ZA–1, the world's first jet–powered fighter aircraft, to the Americans.
1949 – Newfoundland and Labrador joins the Canadian Confederation and becomes the 10th province of Canada.
1958 – Canadian Federal Election: The Progressive Conservatives under John Diefenbaker win 208 out of 265 seats in parliament, setting a Canadian record for the number of seats occupied by a single party.
1959 – The 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, crosses the border into India and is granted political asylum.
1964 – The Dictatorship in Brazil, under general Castello Branco, begins.
1965 – Iberia Airlines Convair 440 flight crashes into the sea off Tangier, Morocco, killing 47 out of the 51 people on board.
1966 – The Soviet Union launches Luna 10 which later becomes the first spaceprobe to enter orbit around the Moon.
1966 – In the United Kingdom the Labour Party under Harold Wilson is elected to a second consecutive term in government.
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 – United States President Lyndon B. 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, using samurai swords and carrying a bomb.
1979 – In Jerusalem, Israel, Gali Atari & Milk and Honey win the twenty–fourth Eurovision Song Contest for Israel singing "Hallelujah".
1979 – The last British 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 en route to Puerto Vallarta catches fire 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 – TAROM Flight 371 crashes in Balotesti, Romania, killing all 60 people on board.
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.
1997 – At age 16, Martina Hingis becomes the youngest female tennis players to reach Number 1 in the world rankings.
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.

From 2001

2002 – Major flooding affects the city of Santa Cruz de Tenerife in the Canary Islands.
2004 – Google announces Gmail, the first web–based mail service to offer 1 gigabyte of storage.
2004 – In Fallujah, Iraq, 4 American 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.
2013 – The UK records it coldest Easter Sunday. Overall, it was the coldest March there since 1962.
2014 – South Korea and North Korea exchange fire over their western maritime border.
2014 – The United Nations International Court of Justice rules that Japan's Antarctic whaling program is not scientific but commercial.
2014 – Manuel Valls replaces Jean–Marc Ayrault as Prime Minister of France.
2016 – A flyover collapses in Kolkata, India, killing at least 20 people.
2017 – Former South Korean President Park Geun–hye is arrested on corruption charges.
2019 – Comedian Volodymyr Zelensky wins the first round of Ukraine's Presidential election, ahead of Petro Poroshenko.

Births

Up to 1800

250 – Constantius Chlorus, Roman Emperor (d. 306)
1360 – Philippa of Lancaster, Queen of Portugal (d. 1415)
1425 – Bianca Maria Visconti, Duchess of Milan (d. 1468)
1499 – Pope Pius IV (d. 1565)
1504 – Guru Angad Dev, 2nd Sikh Guru (d. 1552)
1519 – King Henry II of France (d. 1559)
1536 – Ashikaga Yoshikatsu, Japanese shogun (d. 1565)
1576 – Louise Juliana of Nassau, Regent of Bohemia (d. 1644)
1596 – René Descartes, French mathematician (d. 1650)
1621 – Andrew Marvell, English poet (d. 1678)
1635 – Patrick Gordon, Scottish general in the Russian army (d. 1699)
1644 – Henry Winstanley, English painter and engineer (d. 1703)
1651 – Karl II, Elector Palatine (d. 1685)
1675 – Pope Benedict XIV (d. 1758)
1684 – Francesco Durante, Italian composer (d. 1755)
1685 – Johann Sebastian Bach, German composer (d. 1750)
1718 – Mariana Victoria of Spain (d. 1781)
1723 – King Frederick V of Denmark (d. 1766)
1732 – Joseph Haydn, Austrian composer (d. 1809)
1747 – Johann Abraham Peter Schulz, German musician and composer (d. 1800)
1777 – Charles Cagniard de la Tour, French physicist (d. 1859)
1788 – Jessadabodindra (Rama III), King of Siam (d. 1851)
1794 – Thomas McKean Thompson McKennan, American politician (d. 1852)

1801 – 1900

1808 – James Pinckney Henderson, 1st Governor of Texas (d. 1858)
1809 – Edward FitzGerald, English poet (d. 1883)
1809 – Nikolai Gogol, Russian writer (d. 1852)
1819 – Chlodwig, Prince of Hohenlohe–Schillingsfürst, German statesman (d. 1901)
1822 – Dmitry Grigorovich, Russian writer (d. 1900)
1831 – Archibald Scott Couper, Scottish chemist (d. 1892)
1847 – Yegor Ivanovich Zolotarev, Russian mathematician (d. 1878)
1848 – Diederik Korteweg, Dutch mathematician (d. 1941)
1848 – William Waldorf Astor, 1st Viscount Astor, American–born British financier, writer and statesman (d. 1919)
1851 – Francis Bell, 20th Prime Minister of New Zealand (d. 1936)
1853 – Isaac Bayley Balfour, Scottish botanist (d. 1922)
1870 – James M. Cox, Governor of Ohio (d. 1957)
1871 – Arthur Griffith, Irish politician (d. 1922)
1872 – Sergei Diaghilev, Russian ballet impresario, publicist, curator and art critic (d. 1929)
1872 – Alexandra Kollontai, Russian Communist revolutionary (d. 1952)
1873 – William D. Denney, Governor of Delaware (d. 1953)
1876 – Borisav Stankovic, Serbian writer (d. 1927)
1878 – Jack Johnson, American boxer (d. 1946)
1884 – Adriaan van Maanen, Dutch–American astronomer (d. 1946)
1884 – Henri Queuille, Prime Minister of France (d. 1970)
1890 – William Lawrence Bragg, Australian–British physicist (d. 1971)
1890 – Ben Adams, American athlete (d. 1961)
1893 – Clemens Krauss, Austrian conductor (d. 1954)
1900 – Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester (d. 1974)

1901 – 1950

1904 – Sam Zimbalist, American film producer (d. 1958)
1905 – Robert Stevenson, British director, screenwriter and producer (d. 1986)
1906 – Shin'ichiro Tomonaga, Japanese physicist (d. 1979)
1913 – Etta Baker, American blues musician and singer (d. 2006)
1914 – Octavio Paz, Mexican writer (d. 1998)
1914 – Dagmar Lange (Maria Lang), Swedish writer (d. 1991)
1915 – Shoichi Yokoi, Japanese sergeant (d. 1997)
1916 – Lucille Bliss, American actress (d. 2012)
1917 – Dorothy DeLay, American violin instructor (d. 2002)
1920 – Deborah Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire, English aristocrat (d. 2014)
1922 – Richard Kiley, American actor (d. 1999)
1922 – William Stanley Peart, British physician and clinical researcher (d. 2019)
1925 – Andrea Bianchi, Italian movie director and writer
1926 – John Fowles, English novelist (d. 2005)
1927 – César Chávez, American labor activist (d. 1993)
1927 – Vladimir Ilyushin, Russian pilot (d. 2010)
1927 – Eduardo Martinez Somalo, Spanish cardinal
1928 – Gordie Howe, Canadian ice hockey player (d. 2016)
1929 – Liz Claiborne, Belgian–born fashion designer (d. 2007)
1930 – Yehuda Nir, Polish–born psychiatrist (d. 2014)
1930 – Jim Mutscheller, American football player (d. 2015)
1932 – Nagisa Oshima, Japanese movie director and screenwriter (d. 2013)
1934 – Richard Chamberlain, American actor
1934 – Shirley Jones, American singer and actress
1934 – Carlo Rubbia, Italian physicist
1935 – Herb Alpert, American trumpeter and bandleader
1937 – Sid Ahmed Ghozali, former Prime Minister of Algeria
1938 – David Steel, Scottish politician
1938 – Sheila Dikshit, Indian politician
1939 – Zviad Gamsakhurdia, President of the Republic of Georgia (d. 1993)
1939 – Volker Schlöndorff, German movie director
1939 – Karl–Heinz Schnellinger, German footballer
1940 – Barney Frank, American politician
1940 – Patrick Leahy, American politician
1943 – Christopher Walken, American actor
1943 – Sharon Hampson, Canadian singer and musician (Sharon, Lois & Bram)
1944 – Mick Ralphs, English guitarist
1944 – Angus King, 72nd Governor of Maine
1945 – Myfanwy Talog, Welsh actress (d. 1995)
1945 – Valerie Curtin, American actress and screenwriter
1946 – F'Murr, French comic artist (d. 2018)
1947 – Kristian Blak, Danish musician and recording executive
1947 – Eliyahu M. Goldratt, Israeli physicist (d. 2011)
1947 – César Gaviria, 36th President of Colombia
1948 – Al Gore, 45th Vice President of the United States
1948 – David Eisenhower, American author and educator
1948 – Natalia Dubova, Russian ice dancer and coach
1948 – Rhea Perlman, American actress
1948 – Gary Doer, Canadian politician, 20th Premier of Manitoba

1951 – 1975

1952 – Dermot Morgan, Irish comedian and actor (d. 1998)
1953 – Dennis Kamakahi, American musician (d. 2014)
1954 – Laima Vaikule, Latvian actress, singer, director and choreographer
1955 – Angus Young, Scottish–Australian musician (AC/DC)
1955 – Svetozar Marovic, only President of Serbia and Montenegro
1957 – Alan Duncan, British politician
1958 – Tony Cox, American actor
1960 – Popa Chubby, American blues singer and guitarist
1964 – Christian Allard, French–born Scottish politician
1964 – Oleksandr Turchynov, former interim President of Ukraine
1965 – Tom Barrasso, American ice hockey player
1965 – Jean–Christophe Lafaille, French mountaineer (d. 2006)
1966 – Roger Black, British athlete
1969 – Francesco Moriero, Italian footballer
1970 – Alenka Bratusek, 7th Prime Minister of Slovenia
1971 – Ewan McGregor, Scottish actor
1971 – Pavel Bure, Russian ice hockey player
1971 – Martin Atkinson, English footballer and referee
1971 – Craig McCracken, American animator, producer and screenwriter
1972 – Alejandro Amenabar, Chilean–Spanish movie director, screenwriter and composer
1972 – Evan Williams, American businessman
1975 – Adam Green, American director, producer and screenwriter

From 1976

1978 – Daniel Mays, English actor
1978 – Alexander Douglas–Hamilton, 16th Duke of Hamilton, Scottish nobleman
1979 – Danny Invincibile, Australian footballer
1979 – Euan Burton, Scottish judoka
1979 – Josh Kinney, American baseball player
1980 – Maaya Sakamoto, Japanese voice actress and singer
1980 – Michael Ryder, American ice hockey player
1980 – Pa Dembo Touray, Gambian footballer
1982 – Tal Ben Haim, Israeli footballer
1983 – Hashim Amla, South African cricketer
1983 – Silver Leppik, Estonian basketball player
1984 – Alberto Junior Rodríguez, Peruvian footballer
1984 – Eddie Johnson, American soccer player
1986 – Andreas Dober, Austrian footballer
1987 – Nordin Amrabat, Dutch–Moroccan footballer
1987 – Georg Listing, German musician (Tokio Hotel)
1987 – Humpy Koneru, Indian chess player
1989 – Pablo Piatti, Argentine footballer
1989 – Liu Zige, Chinese swimmer
1990 – Bang Yong–guk, South Korean rapper, actor and dancer
1990 – Lyra McKee, Northern Irish journalist (d. 2019)
1994 – Thomas Batuello, American musician and actor
1998 – Anna Seidel, German speed skater

Deaths

Up to 1900

1074 – Yorimichi Fujiwara, Regent of Japan (b. 992)
1204 – Eleanor of Aquitaine, Queen of France and England (b. 1121)
1340 – Ivan I of Russia (b. 1288)
1547 – Francis I of France (b. 1494)
1567 – Philip I of Hesse (b. 1504)
1621 – Philip III of Spain (b. 1578)
1671 – Anne Hyde, Duchess of York (b. 1637)
1703 – Johann Christoph Bach, German composer (b. 1642)
1727 – Sir Isaac Newton, English mathematician and physicist (b. 1643)
1741 – Pieter Burmann the Elder, Dutch classical scholar (b. 1668)
1797 – Olaudah Equiano, Nigerian–American slave and activist (b. around 1745)
1837 – John Constable, English painter (b. 1776)
1850 – John C. Calhoun, 7th Vice President of the United States (b. 1782)
1855 – Charlotte Brontë, English writer (b. 1816)
1877 – Antoine Auguste Cournot, French mathematician (b. 1801)
1885 – Franz Wilhelm Abt, German composer (b. 1819)

1901 – 2000

1913 – J. P. Morgan, American financier (b. 1837)
1915 – Wyndham Halswelle, British runner (b. 1882)
1917 – Emil von Behring, German doctor, won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1901) (b. 1854)
1920 – Lothar von Trotha, German general (b. 1848)
1929 – Myron T. Herrick, American politician, Governor of Ohio (b. 1854)
1931 – Knute Rockne, American football coach (b. 1888)
1944 – Mineichi Koga, Japanese general (b. 1885)
1945 – Anne Frank, German–born diarist (b. 1929)
1945 – Hans Fischer, German chemist (b. 1881)
1946 – Martin Davey, Governor of Ohio (b. 1884)
1949 – Friedrich Bergius, German chemist (b. 1856)
1956 – Ralph DePalma, Italian racing driver (b. 1884)
1968 – Gary Lowdermilk, American baseball player (b. 1885)
1972 – Meena Kumari, Indian actress (b. 1932)
1972 – Ramon Iglesias i Navarri, Catalan bishop of Urgell, co–Prince of Andorra (b. 1889)
1975 – Percy Alliss, English golfer (b. 1897)
1976 – Paul Strand, American photographer and movie maker (b. 1890)
1978 – Charles Herbert Best, American–Canadian medical scientist (b. 1899)
1980 – Jesse Owens, American athlete (b. 1913)
1986 – O'Kelly Isley, Jr., American singer (The Isley Brothers) (b. 1937)
1986 – Jerry Paris, American actor and director (b. 1925)
1988 – William McMahon, 20th Prime Minister of Australia (b. 1908)
1993 – Brandon Lee, American actor (b. 1965)
1995 – Selena, Mexican–American singer–songwriter (b. 1971)
1997 – Friedrich Hund, German physicist (b. 1896)
1998 – Bella Abzug, American politician (b. 1920)

From 2001

2001 – Clifford Shull, American physicist (b. 1915)
2005 – Terri Schiavo, American patient in right–to–die case (b. 1963)
2007 – Paul Watzlawick, American psychologist (b. 1921)
2008 – Jules Dassin, American movie director (b. 1911)
2009 – Jarl Alfredius, Swedish television journalist (b. 1943)
2009 – Raul Alfonsin, President of Argentina (b. 1927)
2012 – Dale R. Corson, American physicist (b. 1914)
2013 – Charles Amarin Brand, French archbishop (b. 1920)
2014 – Irene Fernandez, Malaysian activist (b. 1946)
2014 – Frankie Knuckles, American DJ and record producer (b. 1955)
2014 – Gonzalo Anes, Spanish economist, professor and historian (b. 1931)
2014 – Charles Keating, American banker (b. 1923)
2014 – David Hannay, Australian movie producer (b. 1939)
2014 – Ferdinand Masset, Swiss politician (b. 1920)
2014 – Roger Somville, Belgian painter (b. 1923)
2016 – Georges Cottier, Swiss cardinal (b. 1922)
2016 – Ronnie Corbett, Scottish actor and comedian (b. 1930)
2016 – Imre Kertész, Hungarian writer (b. 1929)
2016 – Zaha Hadid, Iraqi–British architect (b. 1950)
2016 – Douglas Wilmer, English actor (b. 1920)
2016 – Hans–Dietrich Genscher, German politician and diplomat (b. 1927)
2016 – Denise Robertson, English broadcaster (b. 1932)
2017 – Halit Akçatepe, Turkish actor (b. 1938)
2017 – Gilbert Baker, American LGBT activist, creator of the Rainbow flag (b. 1951)
2017 – William Thaddeus Coleman, Jr., American lawyer, judge and politician (b. 1920)
2017 – Mike Hall, British endurance cyclist (b. 1981)
2017 – James Rosenquist, American artist (b. 1933)
2017 – Radley Metzger, American pornographic filmmaker (b. 1929)
2017 – Richard Nelson Bolles, American writer (b. 1927)
2017 – Jerrier A. Haddad, American computer engineer (b. 1922)
2017 – Amy Ridenour, American political activist (b. 1959)
2018 – Margarita Carrera, Guatemalan philosopher (b. 1929)
2018 – Luigi De Filippo, Italian actor (b. 1930)
2018 – Peg Lautenschlager, American attorney and politician (b. 1955)
2018 – Michael Tree, American violist (b. 1934)
2019 – Peter Coleman, Australian writer and politician (b. 1928)
2019 – Hedi Turki, Tunisian painter (b. 1922)
2019 – Nipsey Hussle, American rapper (b. 1985)
2020 – Vincent Marzello, American voice actor (b. 1951)

Observances

Cesar Chavez Day (United States)
Freedom Day (Malta)
King Nangklao Memorial Day (Thailand)
Transfer Day (United States Virgin Islands
International Transgender Day of Visibility