Rene Descartes
The following is your daily snapshot of what happened on this day in history: March 31st.
BORN MARCH 31st:
March 31, 205: Constantius Chlorus, Roman Emperor.
March 31, 1304: Philippa of Lancaster, queen of Portugal.
March 31, 1499: Pope Pius IV.
March 31, 1519: King Henry II of France.
March 31, 1596: René Descartes, French philosopher, mathematician.
March 31, 1732: Joseph Haydn, Austrian composer.
March 31, 1878: Jack Johnson, American boxer.
March 31, 1912: William Lederer, American writer.
March 31, 1914: Octavio Paz, Mexican diplomat and writer, Nobel laureate.
March 31, 1924: Charles Guggenheim, American film director and producer.
March 31, 1927: César Chávez, American labor activist.
March 31, 1929: Liz Claiborne, Belgian-born American fashion designer.
March 31, 1939: Volker Schlöndorff, German film director.
March 31, 1940: Barney Frank, American politician.
March 31, 1943: Christopher Walken, American actor.
March 31, 1948: Al Gore, 45th Vice President of the United States and Nobel laureate.
March 31, 1955: Angus Young, Scottish-born Australian guitarist (AC/DC).
March 31, 1968: J.R. Reid, American basketball player.
March 31, 1971: Ewan McGregor, Scottish actor.
DIED MARCH 31st:
March 31, 1074: Regency Yorimichi Fujiwara of Japan.
March 31, 1340: Ivan I of Russia, Prince of Moscow.
March 31, 1547: Francis I of France.
March 31, 1727: Sir Isaac Newton, English mathematician and physicist.
March 31, 1855: Charlotte Brontë, English author.
March 31, 1945: Anne Frank, German-born diarist.
March 31, 1980: Jesse Owens, American athlete.
March 31, 1993: Brandon Lee, American actor.
March 31, 2002: Barry Took, British comedian.
March 31, 2005: Terri Schiavo, American figure in right-to-die case.
March 31, 2010: Shirley Mills, American actress.
MEMORABLE MARCH 31st EVENTS:
March 31, 307: After divorcing his wife Minervina, Constantine marries Fausta, the daughter of the retired Roman Emperor Maximian.
March 31, 1492: Queen Isabella of Castille issues the Alhambra decree, ordering her 150,000 Jewish subjects to convert to Christianity or face expulsion.
March 31, 1866: The Spanish Navy bombs the harbor of Valparaíso, Chile.
March 31, 1889: The Eiffel Tower is inaugurated.
March 31, 1903: Richard Pearse allegedly makes a powered flight in an early aircraft.
March 31, 1909: Serbia accepts Austrian control over Bosnia and Herzegovina.
March 31, 1917: The United States takes possession of the Danish West Indies after paying $25 million to Denmark, and renames the territory the US Virgin Islands.
March 31, 1918: Daylight saving time goes into effect in the United States for the first time.
March 31, 1931: An earthquake destroys Managua, Nicaragua, killing 2,000.
March 31, 1942: World War II: Japanese forces invade Christmas Island, then a British possession.
March 31, 1959: The 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, crosses the border into India and is granted political asylum.
March 31, 1964: A coup d’état in Brazil establishes the Brazilian military government, under the aegis of general Castello Branco.
March 31, 1966: The Soviet Union launches Luna 10 which later becomes the first space probe to enter orbit around the Moon.
March 31, 1970: Explorer 1 re-enters the Earth’s atmosphere after 12 years in orbit.
March 31, 1979: The last British soldier leaves the Maltese Islands. Malta declares its Freedom Day (Jum il-Helsien).
March 31, 1990: 200,000 protesters take to the streets of London to protest against the newly introduced Poll Tax.
March 31, 1991: The Islamic Constitutional Movement, or Hadas, is established in Kuwait.
March 31, 1992: The USS Missouri, the last active United States Navy battleship, is decommissioned in Long Beach, California.
March 31, 1994: Human evolution: The journal Nature reports the finding in Ethiopia of the first complete Australopithecus afarensis skull.
March 31, 2004: In Fallujah, Iraq, 4 American private military contractors working for Blackwater USA, are killed after being ambushed.
MEMORABLE QUOTES:
“Divide each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and necessary to resolve it.” (René Descartes, French philosopher and mathematician).
