March 31 is Easter Sunday in 2024.
National Oysters on the Half Shell Day
National Clam Day
Bunsen Burner Day celebrates the birthday of its creator, German chemist, Robert Wilhelm Eberhard von Bunsen, who was born on March 31, 1811.
1492 –The joint Catholic Monarchs of Spain (Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon) issued the Alhambra decree, ordering 150,000 Jewish and Muslim subjects to convert to Christianity or face expulsion.
Birthday of René Descartes (1596), French philosopher. “I think, therefore I am.”
Birthday of Franz Joseph Haydn (March 31, 1732), Austrian composer. An Austrian composer of the Classical period, he was instrumental in the development of chamber music such as the piano trio. His contributions to musical form have earned him the epithets “Father of the Symphony” and “Father of the String Quartet”.
1889 – The Eiffel Tower was opened to the public. It commemorates the French Revolution.
Transfer Day, a holiday in the Virgin Islands commemorating the purchase of the islands by the U.S. from Denmark on March 31, 1917.
1918 – Daylight saving time went into effect in the United States for the first time.
1949 – The Dominion of Newfoundland joined the Canadian Confederation and became the 10th Province of Canada.
1951 – Remington Rand delivers the first UNIVAC I computer to the United States Census Bureau.
Birthday of Cesar Chavez (March 31, 1927), Mexican-American farm worker, labor leader, and activist. Cesar Chavez Day is a state holiday in California, Colorado, and Texas.
Rodgers & Hammerstein’s “Oklahoma! ,” premiered in NYC in 1943. It was their first musical. It was based on a play by Lynn Riggs, Green Grow the Lilacs. Oklahoma! ran for over five years, a Broadway record that “would not be bested until My Fair Lady in 1956. The film adaptation in 1955 starred Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones. Songs from Oklahoma! include: “Oh, what a beautiful morning”; “The Surrey with the Fringe on Top”; “People Will Say We’re in Love”; and, of course, “Oklahoma!”.
2004- In Fallujah, Iraq, 4 American private military contractors working for Blackwater USA, were killed and their bodies mutilated.