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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.