March 31 in History

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Historical Events on March 31

307

After divorcing his wife Minervina, Constantine marries Fausta, daughter of the retired Roman Emperor Maximian.
627

Battle of the Trench: Muhammad undergoes a 14-day siege at Medina (Saudi Arabia) by Meccan forces under Abu Sufyan.
1146

Bernard of Clairvaux preaches his famous sermon in a field at Vézelay, urging the necessity of a Second Crusade. Louis VII is present, and joins the Crusade.
1492

Queen Isabella of Castile issues the Alhambra Decree, ordering her 150,000 Jewish and Muslim subjects to convert to Christianity or face expulsion.
1561

The city of San Cristóbal, Táchira is founded.
1717

A sermon on "The Nature of the Kingdom of Christ" by Benjamin Hoadly, the Bishop of Bangor, provokes the Bangorian Controversy.
1774

American Revolutionary War: The Kingdom of Great Britain orders the port of Boston, Massachusetts closed pursuant to the Boston Port Act.
1822

The massacre of the population of the Greek island of Chios by soldiers of the Ottoman Empire following an attempted rebellion, depicted by the French artist Eugène Delacroix.
1854

Commodore Matthew Perry signs the Convention of Kanagawa with the Tokugawa Shogunate, opening the ports of Shimoda and Hakodate to American trade.
1885

The United Kingdom establishes the Bechuanaland Protectorate.
1889

The Eiffel Tower is officially opened.
1899

Malolos, capital of the First Philippine Republic, is captured by American forces.
1906

The Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States (later the National Collegiate Athletic Association) is established to set rules for college sports in the United States.
1909

Serbia accepts Austrian control over Bosnia and Herzegovina.
1913

The Vienna Concert Society rioted during a performance of modernist music by Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg, Alexander von Zemlinsky, and Anton von Webern, causing a premature end to the concert due to violence; this concert became known as the Skandalkonzert.
1917

The United States takes possession of the Danish West Indies after paying $25 million to Denmark, and renames the territory the United States Virgin Islands.
1918

Massacre of ethnic Azerbaijanis is committed by allied armed groups of Armenian Revolutionary Federation and Bolsheviks. Nearly 12,000 Azerbaijani Muslims are killed.
1918

Daylight saving time goes into effect in the United States for the first time.
1921

The Royal Australian Air Force is formed.
1930

The Motion Picture Production Code is instituted, imposing strict guidelines on the treatment of sex, crime, religion and violence in film, in the U.S., for the next thirty-eight years.
1931

An earthquake in Nicaragua destroys Managua; killing 2,000.
1931

A Transcontinental & Western Air airliner crashes near Bazaar, Kansas, killing eight, including University of Notre Dame head football coach Knute Rockne.
1933

The Civilian Conservation Corps is established with the mission of relieving rampant unemployment in the United States.
1942

World War II: Japanese forces invade Christmas Island, then a British possession.
1945

World War II: A defecting German pilot delivers a Messerschmitt Me 262A-1, the world's first operational jet-powered fighter aircraft, to the Americans, the first to fall into Allied hands.
1949

The Dominion of Newfoundland joins the Canadian Confederation and becomes the 10th Province of Canada.
1951

Remington Rand delivers the first UNIVAC I computer to the United States Census Bureau.
1957

Elections to the Territorial Assembly of the French colony Upper Volta are held. After the elections PDU and MDV form a government.
1958

In the Canadian federal election, the Progressive Conservatives, led by John Diefenbaker, win the largest percentage of seats in Canadian history, with 208 seats of 265.
1959

The 14th Dalai Lama, crosses the border into India and is granted political asylum.
1964

A coup d'état in Brazil establishes a military government, under the aegis of general Castelo Branco.
1966

The Soviet Union launches Luna 10 which later becomes the first space probe to enter orbit around the Moon.
1970

Explorer 1 re-enters the Earth's atmosphere after 12 years in orbit.
1980

The Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad operates its final train after being ordered to liquidate its assets because of bankruptcy and debts owed to creditors.
1985

The first WrestleMania, the biggest wrestling event from the WWE (then the WWF), takes place in Madison Square Garden in New York City.
1990

Approximately 200,000 protesters take to the streets of London to protest against the newly introduced Poll Tax.
1991

Georgian independence referendum, 1991: Nearly 99 percent of the voters support the country's independence from the Soviet Union.
1992

The USS Missouri, the last active United States Navy battleship, is decommissioned in Long Beach, California.
1995

Selena is murdered by her fan club's president Yolanda Saldivar at a Days Inn in Corpus Christi, Texas after accusations of Saldivar embezzling money from Selena's fan club.
1998

Netscape releases Mozilla source code under an open source license.
2004

Iraq War in Anbar Province: In Fallujah, Iraq, four American private military contractors working for Blackwater USA, are killed after being ambushed.

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