TODAY IN HISTORY
On March 31, 1943, “Oklahoma!,” the first musical play by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, opened on Broadway.
Also on this date In 1814,
Paris was occupied by a coalition of Russian, Prussian and Austrian forces; the surrender of the French capital forced the abdication of Emperor Napoleon.
In 1917,
the United States took formal possession of the Virgin Islands from Denmark.
In 1931,
Notre Dame college football coach Knute Rockne, 43, was killed in the plane crash in Bazaar, Kansas.
In 1933,
President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Emergency Conservation Work Act, which created the Civilian Conservation Corps.
In 1968,
at the conclusion of a nationally broadcast address on Vietnam, President Lyndon B. Johnson stunned listeners by declaring, “I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President.”
In 1976,
the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that Karen Ann Quinlan, a young woman in a persistent vegetative state, could be disconnected from her respirator. (Quinlan, who remained unconscious, died in 1985.)
the Warsaw Pact military alliance came to an end.
Mexican-American singer Selena Quintanilla-Perez, 23, was shot to death in Corpus Christi, Texas, by the founder of her fan club, Yolanda Saldivar, who was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison.
In 2005,
Terri Schiavo, 41, died at a hospice in Pinellas Park, Florida, 13 days after her feeding tube was removed in a right-to-die court fight.
In 2009,
Benjamin Netanyahu took office as Israel’s new prime minister after the Knesset approved his government.
In 2019,
Rapper Nipsey Hussle was fatally shot outside the clothing store he had founded to help rebuild his troubled South Los Angeles neighborhood; he was 33.
Ten years ago:
Moammar Gadhafi struck a defiant stance after two high-profile defections from his regime, saying the Western leaders who had decimated his military with airstrikes should resign immediately — not him.
Five years ago:
An overpass collapsed onto a Kolkata, India, neighborhood, killing 26 people.
One year ago:
Britain’s Prince Harry and his wife Meghan officially stepped down from duties as members of the royal family.