more events on March 31
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1991
Albania offers a multi-party election for the first time in 50 years.
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1980
President Jimmy Carter deregulates the banking industry.
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1970
U.S. forces in Vietnam down a MIG-21, the first since September 1968.
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1967
President Lyndon Johnson signs the Consular Treaty, the first bi-lateral pact with the Soviet Union since the Bolshevik Revolution.
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1966
An estimated 200,000 anti-war demonstrators march in New York City.
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1960
The South African government declares a state of emergency after demonstrations lead to the deaths of more than 50 Africans.
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1954
The siege of Dien Bien Phu, the last French outpost in Vietnam, begins after the Viet Minh realize it cannot be taken by direct assault.
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1949
Winston Churchill declares that the A-bomb was the only thing that kept the Soviet Union from taking over Europe.
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1948
Al Gore, Vice President to President William J. Clinton (1993-2001).
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The Soviet Union begins controlling the Western trains headed toward Berlin.
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1945
The United States and Britain bar a Soviet supported provisional regime in Warsaw from entering the U.N. meeting in San Francisco.
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1941
Germany begins a counter offensive in North Africa.
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1940
La Guardia airport in New York officially opens to the public.
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1939
Britain and France agree to support Poland if Germany threatens to invade.
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1936
Marge Piercy, poet and novelist.
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1933
To relieve rampant unemployment, Congress authorizes the Civilian Conservation Corps .
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1926
John Fowles, English novelist (The Collector, The French Lieutenant’s Woman).
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1921
Great Britain declares a state of emergency because of the thousands of coal miners on strike.
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1918
Daylight Savings Time goes into effect throughout the United States for the first time.
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1917
The United States purchases the Virgin Islands from Denmark for $25 million.
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1916
General John Pershing and his army rout Pancho Villa‘s army in Mexico.
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1915
Henry Morgan, comedian, radio performer.
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1914
Octavio Paz, Mexican diplomat and Nobel Prize-winning writer.
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1889
The Eiffel Tower in Paris officially opens on the Left Bank as part of the Exhibition of 1889.
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1880
The first electric street lights ever installed by a municipality are turned on in Wabash, Indiana.
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1878
Jack Johnson, first Africa-American boxer to become the world heavyweight champion.
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1862
Skirmishing between Rebels and Union forces takes place at Island 10 on the Mississippi River.
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1854
Sir Dugald Clerk, inventor of the two-stroke motorcycle engine.
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1836
The first monthly installment of The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens is published in London.
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1811
Robert Wilhelm Bunsen, chemist, inventor of the Bunsen burner.
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1809
Nikolai V. Gogol, Russian writer (The Inspector General, Dead Souls).
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Edward Fitzgerald, American writer.
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1790
In Paris, France, Maximilien Robespierre is elected president of the Jacobin Club.
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1779
Russia and Turkey sign a treaty by which they promise to take no military action in the Crimea.
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1776
Abigail Adams writes to husband John that women are “determined to foment a rebellion” if the new Declaration of Independence fails to guarantee their rights.
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1732
Franz Joseph Haydn, Austrian composer.
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1693
John Harrison, Englishman who invented the chronometer.
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1621
Andrew Marvell, English poet and politician.
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1596
René Descartes, French philosopher and scientist.
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1547
In France, Francis–king since 1515–dies and is succeeded by his son Henry II.
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1282
The great massacre of the French in Sicily The Sicilian Vespers comes to an end.