TODAY HISTORY LESSON: MARCH 31
1146 Bernard of Clairvaux preaches his famous sermon in a field at Vézelay, urging the necessity of a Second Crusade. Louis VII and Eleanor of Aquitaine are present and join the Crusade
1282 The great massacre of the French in Sicily The Sicilian Vespers comes to an end.
1492 King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain issued the Alhambra edict expelling Jews who were unwilling to convert to Christianity.
1657 English Parliament makes the Humble Petition to Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell offering him the crown: he declines
1776 Abigail Adams writes to husband John that women are “determined to foment a rebellion” if the new Declaration of Independence fails to guarantee their rights.
1836 The first monthly installment of The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens is published in London.
1870 In Perth Amboy, NJ, Thomas Munday Peterson became the first black to vote in the U.S.
1880 The first electric street lights ever installed by a municipality are turned on in Wabash, Indiana.
1889 The Eiffel Tower is opened
1916 General John Pershing and his army rout Pancho Villa’s army in Mexico.
1917 US purchases Danish West Indies for $25M & renames them Virgin Islands
1918 Daylight Savings Time goes into effect throughout the United States for the first time.
1921 Great Britain declares a state of emergency because of the thousands of coal miners on strike.
1930 The Motion Pictures Production Code is instituted, imposing strict guidelines on the treatment of sex, crime, religion and violence in film for the next 38 years
1933 To relieve rampant unemployment, Congress authorizes the Civilian Conservation Corps .
1948 Congress passes Marshall Aid Act to rehabilitate war-torn Europe
1949 Newfoundland becomes Canada’s 10th province
1953 Department of Health, Education & Welfare established
1959 The Dalai Lama, fleeing Chinese repression of an uprising in Tibet, arrived at the Indian border and was granted political asylum.
1960 The South African government declares a state of emergency after demonstrations lead to the deaths of more than 50 Africans.
1964 Following a coup d’etat, a military dictatorship takes charge in Brazil
1966 An estimated 200,000 anti-war demonstrators march in New York City.
1967 President Lyndon Johnson signs the Consular Treaty, the first bi-lateral pact with the Soviet Union since the Bolshevik Revolution.
1976 The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that Karen Anne Quinlan could be disconnected from a respirator. Quinlan remained comatose until 1985 when she died.
1980 President Jimmy Carter deregulates the banking industry
1985 The first edition of WrestleMania is held in New York
1993 Brandon Lee was killed accidentally while filming a movie.
1994 “Nature” magazine announced that a complete skull of Australppithecus afarensis had been found in Ethiopia. The finding is of humankind’s earliest ancestor.
1999 The film The Matrix is released
2000 In Uganda, officials set the number of deaths linked to a doomsday religious cult, the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments, at more than 900. In Kanungu, a March 17 fire at the cult’s church killed more than 530 and authorities subsequently found mass graves at various sites linked to the cult.
2005 Terry Schiavo died 13 days after her feeding tube was removed.
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
