Did you know
The First Moroccan Crisis occurred between March 31, 1905, and April 7, 1906, and involved multiple European countries.
March 31 in History
1905 — Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany declares his support for Moroccan independence in Tangier, beginning the First Moroccan Crisis
March 31 spans 58 recorded events across recorded history, from 307 to 2023. Below is a curated digest of the most significant moments tied to this date.
By thisDay.info Editorial Team · — Wikipedia
Historical Events
58 events
307 – 2023
Today in history
More major events on March 31
The featured story and these ranked highlights form a quick summary. Every recorded event remains available in the chronology below.
- 1966 The Soviet Union launches Luna 10 which later becomes the first space probe to enter orbit around the Moon. Source
- 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. Source
- 1970 Explorer 1 re-enters the Earth's atmosphere after 12 years in orbit. Source
- 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. Source
Did you know
The Algeciras Conference of 1906 was held to resolve the crisis and resulted in the affirmation of French control over Morocco.
Did you know
Germany's actions during the crisis worsened its relations with both France and Great Britain.
Did you know
The crisis helped enhance the new Anglo-French Entente, a significant diplomatic alliance at the time.
Did you know
The Algeciras Conference was attended by mostly European countries, including Germany, France, and Great Britain.
307
After divorcing his wife Minervina, Constantine marries Fausta, daughter of the retired Roman emperor Maximian.
Wife or concubine of Constantine I
Minervina was either the first wife or concubine of Constantine I, and the mother of his eldest son and future caesar Crispus. Little is known of her life. Her birth and death dates are unknown.
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.
Bernard of Clairvaux, O.Cist., venerated as Saint Bernard, was an abbot, mystic, co-founder of the Knights Templar, and a major leader in the reform of the Benedictines through the nascent Cistercian Order.
1174
A conspiracy against Saladin, aiming to restore the Fatimid Caliphate, is revealed in Cairo, involving senior figures of the former Fatimid regime and the poet Umara al-Yamani.
Modern historians doubt the extent and danger of the conspiracy reported in official sources, but its ringleaders will be publicly executed over the following weeks.
In 1173–1174, a conspiracy took place in Cairo in favour of restoring the Isma'ili Shi'a Fatimid Caliphate, which had been abolished in 1171 by Saladin, the first Ayyubid ruler of Egypt.
1272
Pope Gregory X calls for a General Church Council to discuss reunion of Churches, Crusade to the Holy Land and Church reform.
Head of the Catholic Church from 1271 to 1276
Pope Gregory X was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 1 September 1271 to his death and was a member of the Third Order of St. Francis.
1492
Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile sign the Edict of Expulsion of the Jews from Spain, ordering all Jews in their kingdoms to either convert to Christianity or leave the country.
King of Aragon from 1479 to 1516
Ferdinand II was King of Aragon from 1479 until his death in 1516. As the husband and co-ruler of Queen Isabella I of Castile, he was also King of Castile from 1475 to 1504.
1521
Ferdinand Magellan and fifty of his men came ashore to present-day Limasawa to participate in the first Catholic mass in the Philippines.
Portuguese explorer (1480–1521)
Ferdinand Magellan was a Portuguese explorer best known for planning and leading the 1519–1522 Spanish expedition to the East Indies.
1657
The Long Parliament presents the Humble Petition and Advice offering Oliver Cromwell the British throne, which he eventually declines.
English Parliament from 1640 to 1660
The Long Parliament was an English Parliament which nominally lasted from 1640 until 1660, making it the longest-lasting Parliament in English and British history.
1706
The last session of history of the Catalan Courts, the parliament of the Principality of Catalonia, ends.
Catalonia's constitutional modernisation passed by the Courts aims to improve the guarantee of individual, political and economic rights (such as the secrecy of correspondence).
The Catalan Courts or General Court of Catalonia were the parliamentary body of the Principality of Catalonia from the 13th to the 18th century.
1717
A sermon on "The Nature of the Kingdom of Christ" by Benjamin Hoadly, the Bishop of Bangor, preached in the presence of King George I of Great Britain, provokes the Bangorian Controversy.
English bishop (1676–1761); instigator of the Bangorian controversy
Benjamin Hoadly was an English clergyman, who was successively Bishop of Bangor, of Hereford, of Salisbury, and finally of Winchester. He is best known as the initiator of the Bangorian Controversy.
1761
The 1761 Lisbon earthquake strikes off the Iberian Peninsula with an estimated magnitude of 8.5, six years after another quake destroyed the city.
Earthquake and tsunami in the Atlantic Ocean
The 1761 Lisbon earthquake struck off the coast of the Portugal on 31 March 1761 at 12:05 local time.
1774
American Revolution: The Kingdom of Great Britain orders the port of Boston, Massachusetts closed pursuant to the Boston Port Act.
Founding of the United States
The American Revolution (1765–1789) was a political movement in the Thirteen Colonies of Great Britain.
1814
The Sixth Coalition occupies Paris after Napoleon's Grande Armée capitulates.
1813–1814 conflict during the Napoleonic Wars
The War of the Sixth Coalition, sometimes known in Germany as the Wars of Liberation saw a coalition of Austria, Prussia, Russia, Spain, the United Kingdom, Portugal, Sweden, Sardinia, and a number of German states…
1854
Commodore Matthew Perry signs the Convention of Kanagawa with the Tokugawa Shogunate, opening the ports of Shimoda and Hakodate to American trade.
U.S. naval rank from 1794 to 1985
Commodore was an early title and later a rank in the United States Navy, United States Coast Guard and also has been a rank in the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps and the National Oceanic and…
1885
The United Kingdom establishes the Bechuanaland Protectorate.
Historical sovereign state in Northwestern Europe (1801–1922)
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was established by the Acts of Union in 1801 that united the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland into one unitary and sovereign state.
1889
The Eiffel Tower is officially opened.
Tower in Paris, France
The Eiffel Tower is a lattice tower on the Champ de Mars in Paris, France. It is named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower from 1887 to 1889.
1899
Philippine–American War: Malolos, capital of the First Philippine Republic, is captured by American forces.
Armed Philippine-American conflict (1899–1902)
The Philippine–American War, known alternatively as the Filipino–American War, Philippine Insurrection, or Tagalog Insurgency, emerged in early 1899 following the United States' annexation of the former Spanish colony…
1901
Rusalka by Antonín Dvořák premieres at the National Opera House in Prague.
1901 opera by Antonín Dvořák
Rusalka, Op. 114, is an opera by Antonín Dvořák. His ninth opera (1900–1901), it became his most successful, frequenting the standard repertoire worldwide.
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.
North American athletic organization
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, and 1 in Canada.
1909
Serbia formally withdraws its opposition to Austro-Hungarian actions in the Bosnian Crisis.
Crisis triggered by Austria-Hungary's annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908
The Bosnian Crisis, also known as the Annexation Crisis or the First Balkan Crisis, erupted on 5 October 1908 when Austria-Hungary announced the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, territories formerly within the…
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.
Changes in musical form during the early 20th century
In music, modernism is an aesthetic stance underlying the period of change and development in musical language that occurred around the turn of the 20th century, a period of diverse reactions in challenging and…
1917
According to the terms of the Treaty of the Danish West Indies, the islands become American possessions.
1916 treaty in which the U.S. purchased the Virgin Islands from Denmark
The Treaty of the Danish West Indies, officially the Convention between the United States and Denmark for cession of the Danish West Indies, was a 1916 treaty transferring sovereignty of the Danish West Indies from…
1918
Massacre of ethnic Azerbaijanis is committed by allied armed groups of Armenian Revolutionary Federation and Bolsheviks.
Nearly 12,000 Azerbaijani Muslims are killed.
The March Days or March Events was a period of inter-ethnic strife and clashes which took place between 30 March – 2 April 1918 in the city of Baku and adjacent areas of the Baku Governorate of the Transcaucasian…
1918
Daylight saving time goes into effect in the United States for the first time.
Seasonal change of clock settings
Daylight saving time (DST), also referred to as daylight savings time, daylight time, or summer time, is the practice of advancing clocks to make better use of the longer daylight available during summer by having…
1921
The Royal Australian Air Force is formed.
Air warfare and space branch of the Australian Defence Force
The Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) is the principal aerial warfare force of Australia, a part of the Australian Defence Force (ADF) along with the Royal Australian Navy and the Australian Army.
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.
U.S. film studio self-censorship rules (1930–1967)
The Motion Picture Production Code was a set of industry guidelines for the self-censorship of content that was applied to most motion pictures released by major studios in the United States from 1934 to 1968.
1931
An earthquake in Nicaragua destroys Managua; killing 2,000.
March 1931 earthquake in Nicaragua
The 1931 Nicaragua earthquake devastated Nicaragua's capital city of Managua on 31 March 1931. It had a moment magnitude of 6.1 and a maximum MSK intensity of VI (Strong). Between 1,000 and 2,450 people were killed.
1931
A Transcontinental & Western Air airliner crashes near Bazaar, Kansas, killing eight, including University of Notre Dame head football coach Knute Rockne.
1931 aircraft crash in Kansas, US
On March 31, 1931, a Fokker F-10 belonging to Transcontinental and Western Air crashed near Bazaar, Kansas, after taking off from Kansas City Municipal Airport in Kansas City, Missouri.
1933
The Civilian Conservation Corps is established with the mission of relieving rampant unemployment in the United States.
US voluntary public work relief program, 1933–42
The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a government work relief program that ran from 1933 to 1942 in the United States for unemployed, unmarried men ages 18–25 and eventually expanded to ages 17–28, who volunteered…
1939
Events preceding World War II in Europe: Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain pledges British military support to the Second Polish Republic in the event of an invasion by Nazi Germany.
The events preceding World War II in Europe are closely tied to the bellicosity of Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, Francoist Spain, Imperial Japan, and the Soviet Union, as well as the Great Depression.
1942
World War II: Japanese forces invade Christmas Island, then a British possession.
Global conflict (1939–1945)
World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers.
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.
German state from 1933 to 1945
Nazi Germany, officially the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian…
1949
The Dominion of Newfoundland joins the Canadian Confederation and becomes the 10th Province of Canada.
British dominion in North America from 1907 to 1949
The Dominion of Newfoundland, or simply Newfoundland, was a British Dominion in eastern North America, today the modern Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador.
1951
Remington Rand delivers the first UNIVAC I computer to the United States Census Bureau.
American manufacturing company (1927–1955)
Remington Rand, Inc., was an early American business machine manufacturer, originally a typewriter manufacturer and in a later incarnation the manufacturer of the UNIVAC line of mainframe computers.
1957
Elections to the Territorial Assembly of the French colony Upper Volta are held.
After the elections PDU and MDV form a government.
Territorial Assembly elections were held in French Upper Volta on 31 March 1957. The result was a victory for the Unified Democratic Party, which won 33 of the 68 seats in the Assembly.
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.
The 1958 Canadian federal election was held to elect members of the House of Commons of Canada of the 24th Parliament of Canada on March 31, 1958, just nine months after the 23rd election.
1959
The 14th Dalai Lama crosses the border into India and is granted political asylum.
Spiritual leader of Tibet since 1940
The 14th Dalai Lama is the incumbent Dalai Lama, the highest spiritual leader and head of Tibetan Buddhism.
1964
Brazilian General Olímpio Mourão Filho orders his troops to move towards Rio de Janeiro, beginning the coup d'état and 21 years of military dictatorship.
20th-century Brazilian general and Integralist; leader in the 1964 coup
Olímpio Mourão Filho was a Brazilian military officer known as the author of the Cohen Plan, a forged document used to justify the Estado Novo coup in 1937, and, as head of the 4th Military Region/Infantry Division, as…
1966
The Soviet Union launches Luna 10 which later becomes the first space probe to enter orbit around the Moon.
Country in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991
The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from its formation in 1922 until its dissolution in 1991.
1966
The Labour Party under Harold Wilson wins the 1966 United Kingdom general election.
Political party in the United Kingdom
The Labour Party, commonly Labour, is a political party in the United Kingdom.
1968
American President Lyndon B.
Johnson speaks to the nation of "Steps to Limit the War in Vietnam" in a television address. At the conclusion of his speech, he announces: "I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President."
The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States.
1970
Explorer 1 re-enters the Earth's atmosphere after 12 years in orbit.
First satellite launched by the United States (1958)
Explorer 1 was the first satellite launched by the United States and was part of the U.S. participation in the International Geophysical Year (IGY).
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.
Defunct American Class I railway
The original Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad was an American Class I railroad. It was also known as the Rock Island Line, or, in its final years, The Rock.
1986
Mexicana de Aviación Flight 940 crashes into the Sierra Madre Oriental mountain range near the Mexican town of Maravatío, killing 167.
1986 aviation accident in Mexico
Mexicana de Aviación Flight 940 was a scheduled international flight from Mexico City to Los Angeles with stopovers in Puerto Vallarta and Mazatlán.
1990
Approximately 200,000 protesters take to the streets of London to protest against the newly introduced Poll Tax.
Series of protests in Great Britain (1990s)
The poll tax riots were a series of riots in British towns and cities during protests against the Community Charge, introduced by the Conservative government of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
1991
Georgian independence referendum: Nearly 99 percent of the voters support the country's independence from the Soviet Union.
An independence referendum was held in the Republic of Georgia on 31 March 1991. It was approved by 99.5% of voters.
1991
The Warsaw Pact formally disbands.
Eastern European military alliance (1955–1991)
The Warsaw Pact (WP), formally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance (TFCMA), was a collective defence treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland, between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc…
1992
The USS Missouri, the last active United States Navy battleship, is decommissioned in Long Beach, California.
Iowa-class battleship of the U.S. Navy
USS Missouri (BB-63) is an Iowa-class battleship built for the United States Navy (USN) in the 1940s and is now a museum ship. Completed in 1944, she is the last battleship commissioned by the United States.
1992
The Treaty of Federation is signed in Moscow.
1992 anti-secession agreement between Russia and most of its regions
The Treaty of Federation was a treaty signed on 31 March 1992 in Moscow between the Russian government and 86 of 89 federal subjects of Russia.
1993
The Macao Basic Law is adopted by the Eighth National People's Congress of China to take effect December 20, 1999.
Resumption by China of the Exercise of Sovereignty over Macao
The Basic Law of the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China is the organic law that establishes the Macau Special Administrative Region, replacing the Organic Statute of Macau.
1995
Selena is murdered by her fan club president Yolanda Saldívar at a Days Inn in Corpus Christi, Texas.
American singer-songwriter (1971–1995)
Selena Quintanilla-Pérez, known mononymously as Selena, was an American singer-songwriter, fashion designer and business owner.
1995
TAROM Flight 371, an Airbus A310-300, crashes near Balotesti, Romania, killing all 60 people on board.
1995 aviation accident in Romania
TAROM Flight 371 was a scheduled international passenger flight from Otopeni International Airport in Romania's capital Bucharest to Brussels Airport in Belgium.
1998
Netscape releases Mozilla source code under an open source license.
American computer services company
Netscape Communications Corporation was an American independent computer services company with headquarters in Mountain View, California, and then Dulles, Virginia.
2004
Iraq War in Anbar Province: In Fallujah, Iraq, four American private military contractors working for Blackwater USA, are killed after being ambushed.
Campaign during the Iraq War
The Anbar campaign consisted of fighting between the United States military, together with Iraqi security forces, and Sunni insurgents in the western Iraqi governorate of Al Anbar.
2005
The dwarf planet Makemake is discovered by a team led by astronomer Michael E.
Brown at the Palomar Observatory.
A dwarf planet is a small planetary-mass object that is in direct orbit around the Sun, massive enough to be gravitationally rounded, but insufficient to achieve orbital dominance like the eight classical planets of the…
2016
NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and Roscosmos cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko return to Earth after a yearlong mission at the International Space Station.
American space and aeronautics agency
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government responsible for the United States' civil space program, as well as research in aeronautics and space.
2018
Start of the 2018 Armenian revolution.
Protests that led to Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan's resignation
The 2018 Armenian Revolution, most commonly known in Armenia as #MerzhirSerzhin, was a series of anti-government protests in Armenia from April to May 2018 staged by various political and civil groups led by a member of…
2023
A historic tornado outbreak occurs in the American Midwest and South.
2023 tornado outbreak in the Midwestern and Southern United States
A widespread, deadly, and historic tornado outbreak affected large portions of the Midwestern, Southern and Eastern United States on March 31 and April 1, 2023, the result of an extratropical cyclone that also produced…