March 31

1146 – During a council convoked by French King Louis VII at Vézelay, France, the Benedictine monk Bernard of Clairvaux preaches a sermon urging a Second Crusade due to the fall of the crusader state of Edessa in southern Turkey, causing the entire assembly to take up the pilgrim cross.

1492 – Queen Isabella of Castile issues the Alhambra Decree, ordering her 150,000 Jewish and Muslim subjects to convert to Christianity or face expulsion.

1685 – Johann Sebastian Bach is born in Eisenach, Thuringia, Duchy of Saxe-Eisenach in modern Germany.

1774 – In response to the ‘Boston Tea Party’, the British parliament passes the Boston Port Act, the first of the Intolerable Acts closing down the port of Boston on June 1st.

1854 – Commodore Matthew Perry signs the Convention of Kanagawa with the Japanese Tokugawa Shogunate, opening the ports of Shimoda and Hakodate to American trade.

1889 – The Eiffel Tower is officially opened.

1899 – During  the Phillipine-American War, 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 – NCAA) is established to set rules for college sports in the U.S.

1917 – By the terms of the Treaty of the Danish West Indies, The Virgin Islands are sold to the U.S. for $25 million in gold.

1918 – Daylight saving time goes into effect in the U.S. for the first time.

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.

1931 – A Transcontinental & Western Air Fokker F-10 airliner crashes near Bazaar, Kansas, killing all 8 passengers and crew aboard, including University of Notre Dame head football coach, Knute Rockne.

1933 – The Civilian Conservation Corps, a voluntary public work relief program, is established with the mission of relieving rampant unemployment in the United States.

1951 – Remington Rand delivers the first UNIVAC I computer to the United States Census Bureau.

1959 – Fleeing Chinese communist persecution in Tibet, the 14th Dalai Lama crosses the border into India and is granted political asylum.

1968 – During a televised speech on “Steps to Limit the War in Vietnam” President Lyndon B. Johnson concludes by announcing “I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President.”

1992 – BB-63, USS Missouri, the last active U.S. Navy battleship, is decommissioned in Long Beach, California.

1995 – Singer Selena Quintanilla-Pérez is murdered by her fan club’s president Yolanda Saldívar at a Days Inn motel in Corpus Christi, Texas

1998 – Netscape releases Mozilla source code under an open source license.