TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS SUNDAY, MARCH 31, the 90th day of 2019. There are 275 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY: On this date in 2005, Terri Schiavo, 41, died at a hospice in Pinellas Park, Fla., 13 days after her feeding tube was removed in a wrenching right-to-die court fight.
In 1492, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain issued an edict expelling Jews from Spanish soil, except those willing to convert to Christianity.
In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Emergency Conservation Work Act, creating the Civilian Conservation Corps.
In 1943, “Oklahoma!,” the first musical play by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, opened on Broadway.
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 1975, “Gunsmoke” closed out 20 seasons on CBS with its final first-run episode, “The Sharecroppers.”
In 1986, 167 people died when a Mexicana Airlines Boeing 727 crashed in a remote mountainous region of Mexico.
In 1991, the Warsaw Pact was formally dissolved.
In 1993, actor Brandon Lee, 28, was accidentally shot to death during the filming of a movie in Wilmington, N.C., when he was hit by a bullet fragment that had become lodged inside a prop gun.
In 1995, 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 2004, Four American civilian contractors were killed in Fallujah, Iraq; frenzied crowds dragged the burned, mutilated bodies and hung two of them from a bridge.
In 2008, HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson announced his resignation amid the wreckage of the national housing crisis.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Actor William Daniels is 92. Actor Richard Chamberlain and actress Shirley Jones are 85. Musician Herb Alpert is 84. Actor Christopher Walken is 76. Comedian Gabe Kaplan and rock musician Mick Ralphs (Bad Company; Mott the Hoople) are 75. Author David Eisenhower and Actress Rhea Perlman are 71. Actors Robbie Coltrane and Ed Marinaro are 69. Rock musician Angus Young (AC/DC) is 64. Actor Marc McClure is 62. Actor Ewan McGregor is 48. Actor Brian Tyree Henry is 37. Actress Melissa Ordway and jazz musician Christian Scott are 36. Pop musician Jack Antonoff (fun.) is 35. Actress Jessica Szohr is 34.