On This Day March 3st

 OTD

March 31st is the Ninetieth Day of the year in the Gregorian calendar; 275 days remain until the end of the year.

 

Events

1521 – Ferdinand Magellan and fifty of his men came ashore to present-day Limasawa to participate in the first Catholic mass in the Philippines.

1657 – The Long Parliament presents the Humble Petition and Advice offering Oliver Cromwell the British throne, which he eventually declines.

1761 – The 1761 Lisbon earthquake struck off the Iberian Peninsula with an estimated magnitude of 8.5, six years after another quake destroyed the city.

1774 – American Revolution: The Kingdom of Great Britain ordered the Boston, Massachusetts port to be closed under the Boston Port Act.

1854 – Commodore Matthew Perry signs the Convention of Kanagawa with the Tokugawa Shogunate, opening the ports of Shimoda and Hakodate to American trade.

1889 – The Eiffel Tower is officially opened.

1906—The Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States (later the National Collegiate Athletic Association) was established to set rules for college sports in the United States.

1913 – The Vienna Concert Society rioted during a performance of modernist music by Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg, Alexander von Zemlinsky, and Anton von Webern, causing a premature end to the concert due to violence; this concert became known as the Skandalkonzert.

1930 – The Motion Picture Production Code is instituted, imposing strict guidelines on treating sex, crime, religion, and violence in film in the U.S. for the next thirty-eight years.

1959 – The 14th Dalai Lama crosses the border into India and is granted political asylum.

1991 – The Warsaw Pact formally disbands.

1992 – The USS Missouri, the last active United States Navy battleship, is decommissioned in Long Beach, California.

1998 – Netscape released the Mozilla source code under an open-source license.

 

Birthdays

1596 – René Descartes, French mathematician and philosopher (d. 1650)

1685 – Johann Sebastian Bach (d. 1750)

1823 – Mary Boykin Chesnut, American author (d. 1886)

1878 – Jack Johnson, American boxer (d. 1946)

1928 – Lefty Frizzell, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 1975)

1928 – Gordie Howe, Canadian ice hockey player (d. 2016)

1936 – Walter E. Williams, American economist and academic (d. 2020)

1955 – Angus Young, Scottish-Australian guitarist and songwriter

1971 – Ewan McGregor, Scottish actor

 

Holidays And Observance

The Merrie Monarch Festival

The Merrie Monarch Festival originated in 1963 on Hawai’i Island during a time of economic hardship caused by a tsunami and the decline of the sugar plantations. The County of Hawai’i Chairwoman, Helene Hale, sought to boost the island's economy through tourism. She sent her administrative assistant and promoter of activities to Maui to explore the Lahaina Whaling Spree for inspiration. The following year, the festival featured various events, including a relay race, a barbershop quartet, a King Kalākaua beard lookalike contest, a recreation of King Kalākaua’s coronation, and a Holoku Ball. However, interest in the festival declined between 1968 and 1970. The Executive Director, Dottie Thompson, revived the festival in 1971 by introducing a Miss Hula competition, which expanded to include men in 1976. This resurgence coincided with the Hawaiian Renaissance, a period of cultural pride in Hawaiian culture, language, arts, crafts, music, and voyaging. As interest in the festival grew, it expanded to a week-long event and was televised for the first time in 1981. This allowed elders who couldn't attend physically to enjoy the hula still. In 2013, the festival celebrated its fiftieth anniversary, marking its significance as a celebration and perpetuation of Hawaiian culture beyond its original economic motivation.

 

 

Others Include.

Anesthesia Tech Day

Cesar Chavez Day

Dance Marathon Day

Easter Sunday

Eiffel Tower Day

International Hug a Medievalist Day

International Transgender Day of Visibility

National Baked Ham with Pineapple Day

National Bunsen Burner Day

National Clams on the Half Shell Day

National Crayon Day

National Farm Workers Day

National Prom Day

National She's Funny That Way

Tater Day

Transfer Day - (U.S. Virgin Islands)

World Backup Day

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