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March 31
March 31 is the 31st day in March.
Events[edit]
297 — Diocletianʼs edict against the Manicheans.
1135 — Moses Maimonides lives.
1492 — Expulsion of Jews from Spain.
1596 — René Descartes (1596 — 1650) lives, La Haye. French philosopher, scientist and mathematician, whose philosophical conclusion "Cogito ergo sum" — I think therefore I am — is the best known quotation in all philosophy and revolutionized the ways of thinking. Although Catholic, Descartes opposed scholasticism and argued one can doubt all, but not oneʼs own existence as a thinking being. He concluded God must exist and because God cannot be a deceiver, the significance on sensory data must be evaluated by reason. Descartesʼs conceptions influenced European culture and thinking. Even his opponents, Blaise Pascal, or, later, those like Voltaire, largely followed him in his emphasis on analysis and in rejection of tradition.
1621 — The great English Metaphysical poet, Andrew Marvellis, lives, Winestead, Yorkshire. Wrote "An Horatian Ode upon Cromwellʼs Return from Ireland"; "To His Coy Mistress".
1631 — John Donne dies, London, England, after having his portrait painted in a funeral shroud (to provide the sculptor of his monument with a design from which to work.) [1]
1809 — Nikolai Gogol lives (1809 — 1852), Ukraine. Great Russian novelist, dramatist, satirist and founder of the so-called critical realism in Russian literature, best known for his novel Dead Souls. Daily Bleed Saint 2004-2005 March 20. [2] [3]
1814 — United States of America: Fidel? Wartime economy is in such dire straits that President James Madison recommends repeal of the "Non-Importation and Embargo Acts," a measure permitting merchants to trade with the enemy. Congress saw no alternative (surprise), and within two weeks, both houses passed Madisonʼs new bill by overwhelming majorities.
1836 — The first monthly part of Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, Charles Dickens' first novel, is published. By the 15th part the printing has ballooned from 400 copies to 40,000.
1840 — United States of America: 10-hour workday established for federal public works employees.
1855 — Author Charlotte Bronte dies, age 38 and pregnant, Haworth, Yorkshire.
1871 — France: Commune of Narbonne falls, as incarnated by Emile Digeon. Digeon (1822 — 1894) was a revolutionary journalist who headed the Commune, proclaimed in conjunction with Paris Commune. In 1883 Digeon was "an anarchist candidate"(!) in the Narbonne elections and in 1885 published La Commune de Paris devant les anarchistes. "Je regarde comme nuisible à l'Humanité tous les individus qui aspirent à gouverner les autres sous une forme quelconque et surtout ceux qui causent la misère des travailleurs en accaparant les richesses que ces derniers produisent."
1873 — Henry James writes, after meeting Matthew Arnold: "He is not as handsome as his photographs — or as his poetry." [4]
1883 — Emily Dickinson is asked to submit a book of poems for publication two months before her death. [5]
1889 — France: Eiffel Tower completed.
1898 — United States of America: Emma Goldman lectures on "The Inquisition of Our Postal Service" to the Progressive Bohemian Labor Organization, addressing recent censorship cases, including the conviction of the "Firebrand" editors. The organization votes unanimously to adopt a resolution protesting postal censorship.
1898 — United States of America: Robert Reitzel dies, in Detroit.
1907 — Germany: First German Anarchist Congress, in Offenbach, with representatives from the whole country. Participants included Friedrich Kniestedt.
1914 — Octavio Paz, poet/critic/diplomat lives (1914 — 1998), Mexico City. Wrote The Other Mexico; The Bow and the Lyre. Received the 1990 Nobel Prize for Literature.
1914 — Maria Lang (1914 — 1991) lives. Prolific Swedish mystery writer. Langʼs best known characters are Puck Ekstedt and Christer Wijk, who are considered classical figures in Swedish mystery novels. Her own alter ego is the author Almi Graan, who started to appear in her stories from the 1960s. Lang also wrote childrenʼs books and short stories. [6]
1915 — Italy: A Milano viene repressa una dimostrazione contro la guerra guidata dal direttore dell'Avanti Giacinto Menotti Serrati che viene arrestato con altre 235 persone. Nello stesso giorno si svolge senza intervento repressivo della polizia una manifestazione a favore della guerra guidata da Benito Mussolini. Lo stato si è schierato, come sempre, dalla parte dei violenti e dei guerrafondai. [Source: Crimini e Misfatti]
1918 — United States of America: Daylight Savings Time is instituted.
1919 — United States of America: Emma Goldman is interviewed by Winthrop Lane for an independent investigation of federal prisons slated for publication in the research magazine "Survey."
1919 — Spain: Following the triumph of the CNT in the recent "Canadian strike," the Civil Governor, in collusion with the employerʼs association, determined to use any method to crush the union. Constitutional guarantees were suspended and again the cenetistas were persecuted and jailed. Thus, too, is Miguel Burgos murdered.
1924 — India: Gandhi begins nonviolent campaign for temple entry, Vykom.
1926 — French Lieutenant's Woman, lives, Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, England.
1927 — United States of America: Migrant farm workers organizer, nonviolent activist Cesar Chavez lives, near Yuma, Arizona. [7]
1933 — United States of America: Civilian Conservation Corps established to help alleviate suffering of the depression.
1935 — Herb 'tijuana brass' Alpert lives. [Source: Calendar Riots]
1936 — England: Emma Goldman lectures on her book, Living My Life, at Conway Hall, in London.
1936 — Marge Piercy lives, Detroit, Michigan. American poet, novelist, and social activist. Author of 17 volumes of poems, numerous novels including Woman on the Edge of Time (explores a global utopian society organised on broadly anarchist lines), winner of the Arthur C. Clarke for her cyber-fiction novel She, He and It. [8]
1937 — England: Emma Goldman lectures on Spain at a meeting in East London.
1941 — United States of America: Attacks by Wisconsin state trooper fail to break the Allis-Chalmers strike in Milwaukee. Union-hating company president Max Babb is fighting against a closed-shop demand from United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 248, a militant Communist-led union. But today, 76 days into the strike, the troopers fail to get scabs across the picket lines. The plant remains closed until the government negotiates a compromise.
1945 — The Glass Menagerie, by Tennessee Williams, opens at the playhouse Theatre in New York.
1949 — Canada: Last great strike of the Canadian Seaman's Union.
1957 — Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Obie Wheeler, and Glen Douglas open a tour of the South in Little Rock, Arkansas.
1959 — The Dalai Lama flees Tibet to India.
1959 — England: Sir Winston Churchillʼs home burgled to the tune of £10,000. [Source: Calendar Riots]
1960 — Pope John XXIII makes the Bishop of Rutabo the Catholic Churchʼs first black African cardinal.
1960 — Italy: Viene ucciso il commissario della polizia di stato Cataldo Tandoy. Nel 1963 emergeranno le collusioni del commissario con la mafia locale e il carattere mafioso del delitto. [Source: Crimini e Misfatti]
1963 — United States of America: Los Angeles ends streetcar service after nearly 90 years.
1964 — Brazil: Right-wing coup topples the government of President João Goulart. Years of military repression follow. [9]
1966 — United States of America: Two-day boycott of Seattle, Washington schools begins, protesting de facto segregation.
1967 — Guitarist Jimi Hendrix sets his guitar ablaze on stage for the first time. This happens at Finsbury Park, London. [10]
1967 — United States of America: San Francisco Mime Troupe appears at Fluxfest at Longshoremen's Hall. The Mime Troups is collectively owned and operated by its workers. Wacky Ed Holmes argues Anarcho-Syndicalism in his stylish Tie-Dyed Tee, but Elliot Kaveeʼs rhetorical fuming is accentuated by his neat Black Crinkle Tee. Who will win? [11] [12]
1968 — United States of America: Under continuing attack by protesters and upheavals all over the nation, President Hey Hey! LBJ! announces he will not seek reelection, orders a partial bombing halt in Vietnam and appoints Averell Harriman to seek negotiated peace talks with North Vietnam. President Lyndon Johnson delivers his Address to the Nation Announcing Steps To Limit the War in Vietnam and Reporting His Decision Not To Seek Reelection. The speech announces the first in a series of limitations on US bombing, promising to halt these activities above the 20th parallel. [Source: WholeWorld is Watching]
1970 — United States of America: Oakland (California) Induction Center is site of spring Vietnam War protests; 2500 Berkeley students turn in draft cards — typical, notes historian Todd Gitlin notes, of protests across the US (before Cambodian protests even start).
1976 — Paul Strand, renowned American photographer, dies. [13] [14] [15]
1977 — Philippines: Planning to rob all 38 passengers and crew, charter pilot Ernesto Abuloc leaves the cockpit and opens fire in the cabin, but can only kill seven before passengers overpower him, Zamboanga.
1985 — Australia: 300,000 demonstrate in peace rallies countrywide.
1986 — United States of America: Following a 12-year campaign, a New York City Gay Rights ordinance is signed.
1986 — O'Kelly Isley, 48, of the Isley Brothers dies of a cerebral hemorrhage.
1990 — England: Trafalgar Square poll tax riot; simultaneously, Strangeways explodes with a riot that will become the longest rooftop protest in British history - until April 25. [Source: Calendar Riots]
1991 — United States of America: Five Plowshares activists hammer missile launching cones on nuclear Navy ship, Milwaukee.
1992 — United States of America: New York state cancels contract to buy power from controversial James Bay II hydroelectric project. The project, a massive series of dams that would have wiped out tens of thousands of square miles of Cree and Inuit land, is eventually cancelled as a result.
1995 — Latino superstar Selena is shot and killed by her former personal assistant and former president of her fan club, who was fired for embezzlement.
1997 — England: Four East Timorese arrested in Warton, at the British Aerospace factory where Indonesian Hawk fighter jets, used in the ongoing occupation and genocide of their homeland, are built.
1999 — Second Blue Moon of the year. Celebrated by many as a sign of "The End Times" at the Blue Moon Tavern. [16] [17] [18]
2002 — United States of America: 2002 Bay Area Anarchist Conference convenes, following yesterdayʼs Annual Bay Area Anarchist Book Fair.
2003 — Iraq: The Bush Regimeʼs war against the Hussein Regime continues.
2003 — United States of America: NBC fires journalist Peter Arnett, saying it was wrong for him to give an interview with state-run Iraqi TV in which he he said the American-led coalitionʼs initial plan for the war had failed because of Iraqʼs resistance. Arnett called the interview a "misjudgment" and apologized, but added "I said over the weekend what we all know about the war."
