TODAY in HISTORY
Today is Saturday, March 31, the 90th day of 2018. There are 275 days left in the year.
307 After divorcing his wife Minervina, Constantine marries Fausta, daughter of the retired Roman Emperor Maximian.
627 Battle of the Trench: Muhammad undergoes a 14- day siege at Medina ( Saudi Arabia) by Meccan forces under Abu Sufyan.
1146 Bernard of Clairvaux preaches his famous sermon in a field at Vézelay. 1492 Queen Isabella of Castile issues the Alhambra Decree, ordering her 150,000 Jewish and Muslim subjects to convert to Christianity or face expulsion.
1717 A sermon on “The Nature of the Kingdom of Christ” by Benjamin Hoadly, the Bishop of Bangor, provokes the Bangorian row.
1774 American Revolutionary War: The Kingdom of Great Britain orders the port of Boston. 1794 Thomas McKean Thompson McKennan, American lawyer and politician, 2nd United States Secretary of the Interior was born.
1822 The massacre of the population of the Greek island of Chios by soldiers of the Ottoman Empire following an attempted rebellion, depicted by the French artist Eugène Delacroix.
1854 Commodore Matthew Perry signs the Convention of Kanagawa with the Tokugawa Shogunate, opening the ports of Shimoda and Hakodate to American trade.
1885 The United Kingdom establishes the Bechuanaland Protectorate. 1889 The Eiffel Tower is officially opened.
1906 The Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States ( later the National Collegiate Athletic Association) is established to set rules for college sports in the United States.
1942 World War II: Japanese forces invade Christmas Island, then a British possession.
1966 The Soviet Union launches Luna 10 which later becomes the first space probe to enter orbit around the Moon.
1980 The Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad operates its final train after being ordered to liquidate its assets because of bankruptcy and debts owed to creditors.
1985 The first WrestleMania, the biggest wrestling event from the WWE ( then the WWF), takes place in Madison Square Garden in New York City.
2004 Iraq war: US soldiers are killed after being ambushed.
2016 Imre Kertész, Nobel Prize laureate, passed away on the day.