1146 On March 31, 1146 at the command of the pope, Bernard of Clairvaux preached a sermon at Vézelay, promoting a second Crusade that aroused enthusiasm throughout Western Europe. Louis VII, the King of France was persuaded to join the Crusade and recruits from northern France, Flanders and Germany were soon signing up.
1492 The anti-Semitic Alhambra Decree was issued on March 31, 1492, by Ferdinand and Isabella ordering the expulsion of practicing Jews from the Kingdoms of Castile and Aragon and its territories and possessions by July 31st of that year. The departure of their Jewish population brought great economic distress to Spain for in turning out their most talented and industrious citizens, Spain became speedily crippled economically.
1547 Francis I of France suffered from intestinal problems in his last years. A Jewish doctor from Constantinople treated him with yogurt, which at the time was little known in western Europe. He died on March 31, 1547 aged 52 at the Château de Rambouillet. There were rumors that his cause of death was syphilis. Francis is buried in the Saint Denis Basilica, along with his first wife, Claude, Duchess of Brittany. He was succeeded by his son, Henry II.
1596 Influential French mathematician and 'father of modern philosophy' René Descartes was born at the farmhouse of his great grandma on March 31, 1596. It was located in La Haye en Touraine, a small town in the Indre-et-Loire, now named after him – Descartes. His father Joachim Descartes, was a prominent councillor in the parliament of Rennes. He belonged to a family that had produced a number of learned men.
1631 Two months before his death, English lawyer, poet and dean John Donne preached his legendary “Death’s Duell,” his so-called funeral sermon."We celebrate our own funeral with cries, even at our birth," preached the poet, who was seemingly obsessed with the subject for his entire life.
John Donne died on March 31, 1631, most likely of stomach cancer, He was buried in old St Paul's Cathedral.
1671 Anne Hyde married the future James II of England on September 3, 1660, following the restoration of the monarchy. James and Anne had eight children, but six died in early childhood. The two who survived to adulthood were Lady Mary and Lady Anne. Anne never recovered from eighth child, Catherine's birth in early 1671. Ill with breast cancer, she died on March 31, 1671 aged 34. Her daughters succeeded as Queens regnant.
1732 The German composer Franz Joseph Haydn was born on March 31, 1732, in Rohrau, Austria. His father was Mathias Haydn, a wheelwright who also served as "Marktrichter", an office akin to village mayor When he was 7 Joseph entered the choir school of St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna. He had no formal musical training until his late teens, when he worked with the Italian Niccolo Porpora.
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| Bernard of Clairvaux, true effigy by Georg Andreas Wasshuber |
1492 The anti-Semitic Alhambra Decree was issued on March 31, 1492, by Ferdinand and Isabella ordering the expulsion of practicing Jews from the Kingdoms of Castile and Aragon and its territories and possessions by July 31st of that year. The departure of their Jewish population brought great economic distress to Spain for in turning out their most talented and industrious citizens, Spain became speedily crippled economically.
1547 Francis I of France suffered from intestinal problems in his last years. A Jewish doctor from Constantinople treated him with yogurt, which at the time was little known in western Europe. He died on March 31, 1547 aged 52 at the Château de Rambouillet. There were rumors that his cause of death was syphilis. Francis is buried in the Saint Denis Basilica, along with his first wife, Claude, Duchess of Brittany. He was succeeded by his son, Henry II.
1596 Influential French mathematician and 'father of modern philosophy' René Descartes was born at the farmhouse of his great grandma on March 31, 1596. It was located in La Haye en Touraine, a small town in the Indre-et-Loire, now named after him – Descartes. His father Joachim Descartes, was a prominent councillor in the parliament of Rennes. He belonged to a family that had produced a number of learned men.
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| The house where Descartes was born in La Haye en Touraine |
1631 Two months before his death, English lawyer, poet and dean John Donne preached his legendary “Death’s Duell,” his so-called funeral sermon."We celebrate our own funeral with cries, even at our birth," preached the poet, who was seemingly obsessed with the subject for his entire life.
John Donne died on March 31, 1631, most likely of stomach cancer, He was buried in old St Paul's Cathedral.
1671 Anne Hyde married the future James II of England on September 3, 1660, following the restoration of the monarchy. James and Anne had eight children, but six died in early childhood. The two who survived to adulthood were Lady Mary and Lady Anne. Anne never recovered from eighth child, Catherine's birth in early 1671. Ill with breast cancer, she died on March 31, 1671 aged 34. Her daughters succeeded as Queens regnant.
1732 The German composer Franz Joseph Haydn was born on March 31, 1732, in Rohrau, Austria. His father was Mathias Haydn, a wheelwright who also served as "Marktrichter", an office akin to village mayor When he was 7 Joseph entered the choir school of St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna. He had no formal musical training until his late teens, when he worked with the Italian Niccolo Porpora.
1736 Bellevue Hospital was founded on March 31, 1736, as a smallpox hospital in a New York City almshouse. It is considered the oldest public hospital in the United States and has a rich history of providing healthcare services to the community. Today, Bellevue is a major academic medical center affiliated with the New York University School of Medicine and continues to provide high-quality healthcare services to the people of New York City.
1816 The powerful Methodist preacher Francis Asbury died on March 31, 1816. He arrived from England in 1771 and started touring the colonies and the Mississippi territory and developed the system of circuit riding for the frontier ministry. By covering thousands of miles each year as a circuit rider, Francis Asbury established Methodism as one of the leading American denominations. He saw the new denomination grow from under 500 members to over 200,000 by the time of his death .
1836 The first edition of Charles Dickens' debut novel, Pickwick Papers appeared on March 31, 1836. Dickens received 14 guineas for each monthly installment of Pickwick Papers. It only took off when he introduced the character of Sam Weller. The Pickwick Papers was the first novel to attempt a rendering of street talk. Not very accurately, for instance Sam Weller's indiscriminate swapping of "w" for "v" was not very realistic.
1837 English landscape painter John Constable died on the night of March 31, 1837 of heart failure, in the attic of his studio at 76 Charlotte Street, London. He was buried with his wife Maria in the graveyard of St John-at-Hampstead, London. Constable only sold twenty paintings in England during his lifetime and was not elected to the Royal Academy until he was 52, just eight years before his death.
1855 Charlotte Brontë, author of Jane Eyre, wed the Reverend Arthur Nicholls in June 1854. She fell pregnant soon after her marriage, and it was felt she would have a difficult pregnancy due to previous ill-health. Despite this, her husband insisted on her accompanying him to visiting the Brontë waterfall in the rain. Charlotte caught a chill, leading to pneumonia. She died on March 31, 1855 at Haworth House and was buried at St Michael's Church there.
1889 In 1886 the French government held a competition to design an “iron tower” to be erected at the entrance to the exhibition on the Champ-de-Mars, partly to create an impressive experience for visitors. One hundred and seven plans were submitted, and the winner was one by the engineer Gustav Eiffel. The Eiffel Tower, which took two years to build, opened to the public on March 31, 1889.
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| Eiffel Tower in 1888. |
1921 The oldest independent air force in the world was founded on April 1, 1918 when The Royal Flying Corps and Royal Naval Air Services amalgamated and established a separate service as the Royal Air Force (RAF). The Australian Air Board chose March 31, 1921 rather than April 1st as the founding date of the Royal Australian Air Force to avoid being called "April Fools".
1921 There have been six sinkings in the history of the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race. On March 31, 1921, during the 73rd Boat Race. Both boats sank due to rough conditions on the Thames River, and the race had to be held again the next day, on April 1. This was the first time in the history of the race that it had to be rescheduled due to a sinking.
1930 German polyglot Emil Krebs died on March 31, 1930. He mastered 68 languages in speech and writing - including Mandarin and all those spoken in today’s European Union - and studied 120 other languages. His private library contained the Bible in 61 different languages.
1945 Mother Maria Skobtsova was a Russian Orthodox nun, theologian, and humanitarian. She was arrested by the Gestapo in 1943 for her work in helping Jews and other persecuted groups in Nazi-occupied France. She was eventually sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp in Germany, where she passed through the gas chambers on March 31, 1945 never to be seen again. Mother Maria Skobtsova was canonized a saint on January 16, 2004.
1967 Jimi Hendrix set fire to his guitar for the first time at a March 31, 1967 gig at the Astoria Theatre in London. He went to the hospital after the show with minor burns. During the rest of the tour, Hendrix made a habit of play his guitar with his teeth, and he ignited his axe several more times.
1979 Malta achieved its independence from the United Kingdom in 1964. A defense agreement signed soon after independence (and re-negotiated in 1972) expired on March 31, 1979. The last British soldier left the island on that day. For the first time in a millennium, Malta was no longer a military base of a foreign power. Freedom Day (Maltese: Jum il-Ħelsien) is a Maltese national holiday celebrated annually on March 31st.
1980 American sprinter and long jumper Jessie Owens achieved international fame by winning four gold medals at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany. After his Olympic triumph, Owens found various jobs to support his family, including racing against dogs or horses during the half-time intermission of local soccer and baseball games. He also worked for a number of years for the Illinois Athletic Commission. He died of lung cancer in Phoenix, Arizona, on March 31, 1980.
1991 When the Georgian independence referendum took place on March 31, 1991, nearly 99 percent of the voters supported the country's independence from the Soviet Union. Ten days later, shortly before the collapse of the Soviet Union, Georgia declared independence.
2003 The world's first commercial nuclear power plant, Calder Hall, opened near Sellafield in Cumbria, England in 1956. The first power station to generate electricity on an industrial scale (four 60 MWe reactors) from nuclear energy, in its early years, the main task of Calder Hall was to produce weapons-grade plutonium. Generating electricity was a secondary task. Calder Hall was closed on March 31, 2003 after 47 years in use.
2014 The High Roller opened as the world’s tallest Ferris wheel on the Las Vegas Strip on March 31, 2014. At 550-foot tall (167.6 m), the High Roller, which takes 30 minutes to rotate once, is 9 ft (2.7 m) taller than its predecessor, the 541-foot (165 m) Singapore Flyer, which had held the record from 2008. Since October 2021 it is the world's second tallest Ferris wheel after Ain Dubai.
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