Today in History (3.31)

March 31 is the 90th day of the year (91st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar, and there are 275 days left until the end of the year.

12th century

• 1146: Saint Bernard, abbot of the French monastery, gives a speech in Fzele and preaches the need for a Second Crusade to King Louis VII and others.

15th century

• 1492: The Catholic kings Isabella I and Ferdinand II officially decree the expulsion of Jews and Muslims from their territory.

19th century

• 1814: The Sixth Coalition occupies Paris.
• 1854: U.S. Navy Admiral Matthew Perry and the Edo shogunate sign the Treaty of Kanagawa, forcing Japan to open the ports of Shimoda and Hakodate to American merchants.
• 1885: The Battle of Penghu ends when Vice Admiral France captures Taiwan's Penghu Islands alone.
• 1889: The Eiffel Tower, designed by French engineer Gustave Eiffel, is inaugurated at the Champ de Mars in the 7th arrondissement of Paris.

20th century

• 1904: Russo-Japanese War: The Russian Far East Fleet is destroyed in Vladivostok.
• 1917: The Danish government sells its Caribbean colony to the United States for $25 million, becoming what is today the U.S. Virgin Islands.
• 1920: Li Dazhao initiated the Marx Theory Research Association of Peking University.
• 1927: The March 31 Massacre occurs in Chongqing.
• 1937: The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China makes a decision on Zhang Guotao's mistakes.
• 1942: The Republic of China and the United States sign the $500 million Loan Agreement.
• 1953: Dag Hammarskjöld, a Swede, is elected Secretary-General of the United Nations.
• 1954: Vietnamese guerrillas surround the main French forces at Dien Bien Phu.
• 1964: Military coup d'état in Brazil, beginning of military rule.
• 1964: People from all walks of life in Hong Kong bid farewell to Governor Patrick at the Government Stadium.
• 1971: U.S. Army Lieutenant William Kelly, the main perpetrator of the Mei-Lai massacre in the Vietnam War, is sentenced to hard labor for killing civilians by a Georgia military court.
• 1979: Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Begin sign the Camp David Accords, ending the state of war, and the Arab world severed diplomatic relations with Egypt.
• 1984: Elizabeth House, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong Island, reveals the case of the body in the flower pot.
• 1986: Aeromexico Flight 940 crashes out of control shortly after taking off from Mexico City, killing all 167 people on board.
• 1992: The last battleship of the U.S. Navy, USS Missouri, is decommissioned in Long Beach, California.
• 1993: The First Session of the Eighth National People's Congress of China adopted the Basic Law of the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China.
• 1994: A cruise ship carrying Taiwanese tourists on Qiandao Lake in Zhejiang Province, China, was robbed and burned by gangsters, killing 32 people.
• 1996: Phoenix TV was founded.
• 1997: Lai Yuen closed.
• 1998: Weier Steel officially launched on the market.
• 2000: The semi-militarized Rapid Response Unit of the Border Police District of the Hong Kong Police Force was established as a professional department to take over the patrolling of the restricted areas of the Hong Kong Border Zone, which was under the responsibility of the British Forces stationed in Hong Kong before Hong Kong's handover.

21st century

• 2001: Sega ceases Dreamcast, withdraws from the console market, and reorganizes itself as a pure third-party game publisher.
• 2002: A major earthquake struck northern Taiwan, causing the pendant tower of Taipei 101, which was under construction at the time, to collapse, causing many casualties.
• 2006: Part of Chiang Kai-shek's diary deposited at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in California, USA, was officially made public.
• 2008: Hong Kong KMB caught fire in 10 double-decker buses in an open-air car park next to Tin Tsi Estate.
• 2012: Located in Jishou City, Hunan Province, China, the Xiaozhai Bridge on the Yuxiang Expressway was officially completed and opened to traffic, becoming the world's longest cross-canyon suspension bridge.
• 2015: Xinyi Songde Station of Taipei MRT's Tamsui Xinyi Line decided to scrap the station's plans.
• 2016: The Sleepless Nights Occupation movement in France spreads to Belgium, Germany and Spain within days.

born

• 250: Constantius I, Emperor of the Western Roman Empire. (306 deaths)
• 867: Emperor Zhaozong of Tang Li Ye, emperor of the Tang Dynasty. (904 deaths)
• 1519: Henry II, King of the Valois dynasty, France. (1559 deaths)
• 1596 – René Descartes, French mathematician and philosopher (1650 deaths)
• 1685 – Johann Sebastian Bach, German Baroque composer and musician. (1750 deaths)
• 1718: Marianne Victoria, Queen of Portugal (1781 deaths)
• 1732: Joseph Haydn, Austrian musician (1809 deaths)
• 1811: Robert Wilhelm Bunsen, German chemist (1899 deaths)
• 1865: Anandibhai Josh, one of India's first female doctors. (1887 deaths)
• 1873: Shogoro Yoshiga, Japanese horticulturist. (1931 deaths)
• 1890: William Lawrence Bragg, British physicist (1971 deaths)
• 1927: Edouard Martínez-Somalo, Spanish Catholic cardinal with the priestly level. (2021 deaths)
• 1941: Firth Leach, Australian female freestyler. (2013 deaths)
• 1943: Christopher Walken, American actor
• 1946: Yin Qingfeng, Captain of the Taiwan Navy. (1993 deaths)
• 1948: Al Gore, American politician, 45th Vice President of the United States, Nobel Peace Prize laureate in 2007.
• 1950: Hardar Nag, Indian poet
• 1951: Lena Soderberg, Swedish female model.
• 1957: Pan Weigang, Taiwanese politician and former legislator.
• 1957: Chung Shu Gen, Hong Kong politician.
• 1961: Zheng Yi, Taiwanese female singer and host.
• 1964: Wong Kwan-chung, guitarist for Hong Kong rock band Beyond.
• 1964: Ye Huan, Taiwanese actor
• 1968: Xie Wanwen, a Hong Kong female doctor who died of SARS. (2003 deaths)
• 1968: Yang Lan, Chinese television presenter.
• 1971 - Ewan McGregor, Scottish actor, singer and adventurer
• 1971: Zhao Xueer, Hong Kong singer
• 1972: Evan Williams, American entrepreneur and co-founder of Twitter.
• 1978: Peng Kangyu, Taiwanese actor, singer, former member of the group 5566.
• 1978: Alexander Douglas-Hamilton, Scottish nobleman, 16th Duke of Hamilton.
• 1979: Roh Hong-cheol, South Korean TV presenter.
• 1980: Wang Jianmin, Taiwanese baseball player.
• 1980: Makoto Sakamoto, Japan female voice.
• 1981: Ryoko Shintani, Japan female voice.
• 1982: Lim Jung-eun, South Korean actress
• 1982: Zhao Ting, Chinese director, producer and screenwriter
• 1982: Brian Terry Henry, American actor
• 1983: Jeff Matheis, American baseball player.
• 1984: Fang Siyu, Taiwanese actress.
• 1985: Zhang Ruijia, Taiwanese actor.
• 1985: Huang Ruowei, Taiwanese news anchor.
• 1985: Lee Joon-suk, South Korean entrepreneur and politician.
• 1985: Jessica Szoll, American model and actress
• 1986: Cheng Li Qian, Hong Kong footballer.
• 1986: Ahn Jae-hong, South Korean actor
• 1987: Yoon Jun-sang, South Korean actor.
• 1989: Huang Ziyu, Taiwanese baseball player.
• 1990: Fang Yong-kook, former captain of South Korean boy idol group B.A.P.
• 1990: Liao Ziyu, Malaysian model and actress.
• 1993: Li Yuxi, Taiwanese actor and singer.
• 1994: Cao Zhipeng, Chinese basketball player.
• 1997: Goo Joon-kai, member of the Korean boy idol group iKON.

die

• 528: Yuan Xuan, Emperor Xiaoming of Emperor Suzong of Northern Wei, China. (510 births)
• 1341: Ivan I, Grand Duke of Moscow. (born 1288)
• 1547: François I, King of France (born 1494)
• 1727: Isaac Newton, English physicist (born 1643)
• 1816: Francis Asley, one of the two first governors of the Methodist Church founded in the United States. (born 1745)
• 1837 – John Constable, English landscape painter (born 1776)
• 1855 - Charlotte Brontë, English novelist (born 1816)
• 1869: Karde, publisher of psychic. (born 1804)
• 1913: John Pierpont Morgan, American financier and banker. (born 1837)
• 1917: Emil Adolf von Behring, German physician, bacteriologist and serologist, winner of the 1901 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. (born 1854)
• 1920: Paul Bachmann, German mathematician (born 1837)
• 1927: Kang Youwei, Chinese politician and thinker. (born 1858)
• 1935: Qian Zhuangfei, a famous spy of the Communist Party of China and father of Chinese movie star Li Lili (born 1895)
• 1972 – Mina Gumali, Indian actress and poetess (born 1933)
• 1980: Jesse Owens, African-American track and field athlete and civil rights leader, one of the greatest athletes in modern Olympic history (born 1913)
• 2005: Terri Schavo, American vegetative person. (born 1963)
• 2010: Dina, Hong Kong actress and entrepreneur. (born 1945)
• 2013: Li Po, Chinese film and television actor and voice actor. (born 1928)
• 2014: Erin Fernandez, Malaysian social worker. (born 1946)
• 2015: Kakaki Fujiwara, Japan manga artist, representative work "Fox × SS". (born 1983)
• 2022: Georgi Atanasov, Bulgarian politician, leader of the Bulgarian Communist Party, former Chairman of the Bulgarian Council of Ministers. (born in 1933)

Holidays and customs

• World Backup Day
• International Transgender Appearance Day
• Malta: Freedom Day
• In countries or regions such as Canada, India, Hong Kong, Macau and Japan, the fiscal year (fiscal year) starts on April 1 of the previous year and ends on March 31 of this year.