31 – 1st Easter, according to calendar-maker Dionysius Exiguus
421 – Venice is founded at twelve o’clock noon, according to legend.
708 – Constantine begins his reign as Catholic Pope
1150 – Tichborne family of Hampshire England start tradition of giving gallon of flour to residents to keep deathbed promise
1199 – Richard I, Lion Heart, King o f England, is wounded by a crossbow bolt while fighting France which leads to his death on April 6.
1306 – Robert the Bruce crowned Robert I, King of Scots, having killed his rival John Comyn, Lord of Badenoch
1409 – Council of Pisa opens (The cardinals considered it their indisputable right to convene a general council to put an end to the schism. The principle behind this was “Salus populi suprema lex esto”, i.e. that the safety of and unity of the Church superseded any legal considerations.)
1584 – Sir Walter Raleigh is granted a patent to colonize Virginia.
1609 – Henry Hudson embarks on an exploration for Dutch East India Co
1668 – 1st horse race in America takes place
1669 – Mount Etna in Sicily erupts, destroying Nicolosi, killing 20,000
1753 – Voltaire leaves the court of Frederik II of Prussia
1807 – The Slave Trade Act becomes law, abolishing the slave trade in the British Empire.
1811 – Percy Bysshe Shelley is expelled from the University of Oxford for his publication of the pamphlet The Necessity of Atheism.
1814 – Netherlands Bank established
1817 – Tsar Alexander I recommends formation of “Society of Israeli Christians”
1820 – Greece freedom revolt against anti Ottoman attack
1821 – Greece gains independence from Turkey (National Day) / (Julian Calendar) Traditional date of the start of the Greek War of Independence. The war had actually begun on 23 February 1821. The date was chosen in the early years of the Greek state so that it falls on the day of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, strengthening the ties between the Greek Orthodox Church and the newly founded state.
1857 – Frederick Laggenheim takes 1st photo of a solar eclipse
1865 – American Civil War: In Virginia, Confederate forces temporarily capture Fort Stedman from the Union.
1894 – Coxey’s Army, the first significant American protest march, departs Massillon, Ohio for Washington D.C.
1895 – Italian troops invade Abyssinia (Ethiopia)
1896 – Modern Olympics began in Athens, Greece [NS=Apr 6]
1902 – In Russia, 567 students are tried for rioting and ‘political disaffection’ are found guilty; 95 are banished to Siberia
1905 – Confederate battle flags captured during the American Civil War are returned to South
1911 – In New York City, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire kills 146 garment workers.
1911 – Jack Ruby, killer of Lee Harvey Oswald, birthed in Chicago, Illinois
1917 – The Georgian Orthodox Church restores its autocephaly abolished by Imperial Russia in 1811.
1918 – Howard Cosell, Winston-Salem NC, sportscaster (Monday Night Football) Born
1918 – Claude Debussy, French composer (Iberia/La Mer), dies in Paris at 55
1919 – Woodrow Wilson’s dream (Rothschild directive) of a League of Nations becomes a reality after the League Covenant is adopted at the Paris Peace Conference
1931 – The Scottsboro Boys are arrested in Alabama and charged with rape.
1934 – 1st Golf Masters Championship: Horton Smith wins, shooting a 284
1934 – Gloria Steinem, Toledo Ohio, US feminist/publisher (Ms Magazine) Birthed
1934 – Johnny Burnette, American singer-songwriter (The Rock and Roll Trio) (d. 1964) was born.
1942 – Aretha Franklin, Soul Sister #1/singer (Respect), born in Memphis, Tennessee
1942 – Jacqueline Lichtenberg, US, sci-fi author (Star Trek Lives!, Dreamspy) Born
1942 – Paul Michael Glaser, Cambridge Massachusetts, actor (Starsky-Starsky & Hutch) Born
1942 – Richard O’Brien, English actor and writer (Rocky Horror Show) Born
1944 – RAF Flight Sgt Nicholas Alkemade survives a jump from his Lancaster bomber from 18,000 feet over Germany without a parachute; his fall was broken by pine trees and soft snow, and he suffered only a sprained leg.
1947 – Elton John, English singer-songwriter, pianist, producer, and actor was born.
1949 – Hanns A Rauter, German SS-commandant in Netherland, executed at 54
1949 – The extensive deportation campaign known as March deportation is conducted in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to force collectivisation by way of terror. The Soviet authorities deport more than 92,000 people from the Baltics to remote areas of the Soviet Union.
1957 – United States Customs seizes copies of Allen Ginsberg’s poem “Howl” on obscenity grounds.
1957 – The European Economic Community is established with West Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg as the first members.
1958 – Canada’s Avro Arrow makes its first flight.
1960 – DH Lawrence’s “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” ruled not obscene (NYC)
1960 – 1st guided missile launched from nuclear powered sub (Halibut)
1962 – Auguste Piccard, Swiss explorer/balloonist, dies at 78
1965 – Civil rights activists led by Martin Luther King, Jr. successfully complete their 4-day 50-mile march from Selma to the capitol in Montgomery, Alabama.
1966 – US Supreme court rules “poll tax” unconstitutional
1966 – Beatles pose with mutilated dolls & butchered meat for the cover of the “Yesterday & Today” album, It is later pulled
1966 – Jeff Healey, Canadian singer-songwriter and guitarist (The Jeff Healey Band) (d. 2008) was born.
1966 – Frank Ferrer, American musician ( fake Guns and Roses) was born.
1967 – Doug Stanhope, American comedian… Social Critic, Born
1968 – Members of the Derry Housing Action Committee (DHAC) disrupt a meeting of Londonderry Corporation to protest at the lack of housing provision in the city, Northern Ireland
1969 – During their honeymoon, John Lennon and Yoko Ono hold their first Bed-In for Peace at the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel (until March 31).
1971 – European council accepts Mansholt plan laying off 5 million farmers
1979 – The first fully functional space shuttle orbiter, Columbia, is delivered to the John F. Kennedy Space Center to be prepared for its first launch.
1986 – Supreme Court rules Air Force could ban wearing of yarmulkes
1987 – Affirmative Action: Supreme Court rules women/minorities may get jobs if less qualified
1988 – Robin Givens demands full access to husband Mike Tyson’s money
1989 – Chicken Kentucky, 1st partial birth in space (chicken) Birthed
1993 – Warrington Bomb victim Tim Parry dies five days after an IRA bomb detonated in Warrington, Cheshire on 20 March 1993 in the second of the Warrington bomb attacks.
1995 – Boxer Mike Tyson released from jail after serving 3 years
1996 – The European Union’s Veterinarian Committee bans the export of British beef and its by-products as a result of mad cow disease (Bovine spongiform encephalopathy).
1996 – US issues newly-redesigned $100 bill
2006 – Buck Owens, American singer and television personality (b. 1929) Passes
2006 – Capitol Hill massacre: A gunman kills six people before taking his own life at a party in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood.
2006 – Protesters demanding a re-election in Belarus following the rigged Belarusian presidential election, 2006 clash with riot police. Opposition leader Aleksander Kozulin is among several protesters arrested.
2012 – Bert Sugar, American sports writer, dies from a cardiac arrest at 74
2012 – Larry Stevenson [Richard], American skateboard innovator, dies from pneumonia and Alzheimer’s disease at 81
2012 – Peter Cruddas, treasurer of Britain’s Conservative Party, resigns after being caught on film selling access to British Prime Minister David Cameron