March 31

Birthdays:

1948 ~ Al Gore (né Albert Arnold Gore, Jr.), 45^th Vice President of the United States.  He served under President Bill Clinton.  He was also the recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.

1948 ~ Rhea Jo Perlman, American actress.  She is best known for her role as Carla on the television sitcom Cheers.

1947 ~ Augustin Banyaga, Rwandan-born mathematician.

1943 ~ Christopher Walken (né Ronald Walken), American actor.

1940 ~ Barney Frank (né Barnett Frank), American politician from Massachusetts.  He was a member of the House of Representatives from January 1981 until January 2013.  He was the first openly gay member of Congress.

1940 ~ Patrick Joseph Leahy, American United States Senator from Vermont.  He assumed office in January 1975.

1936 ~ Marge Piercy, American novelist.

1935 ~ Judith Rossner (d. Aug. 9, 2005), American author, best known for her 1975 novel Looking for Mr. Goodbar.  She died of leukemia and complications from diabetes at age 70.

1935 ~ Herb Alpert, American trumpeter and band leader.

1934 ~ Richard Chamberlain (né George Richard Chamberlain), American actor.

1934 ~ Shirley Mae Jones, American actress and singer.

1934 ~ Carlo Rubbia, Italian physicist and recipient of the 1984 Nobel Prize in Physics.

1932 ~ John William Jakes, American author best known for his North and South trilogy.

1929 ~ Liz Claiborne (née Anne Elizabeth Jane Claiborne, d. June 26, 2007), American fashion designer.  She came from a prominent Louisiana family, whose ancestor was William C.C. Claiborne, Governor of Louisiana during the War of 1812.  She died of cancer at age 78.

1928 ~ Gordie Howe (né Gordon Howe, d. June 10, 2016), Canadian ice hockey player.  He died at age 88.

1927 ~ César Chávez (né César Estrada Chávez, d. Apr. 23, 1993), American labor activist.  He died 23 days after his 66^th birthday.

1927 ~ William David Daniels, American actor.

1926 ~ John Fowles (d. Nov. 5, 2005), British author best known for his novel The French Lieutenant’s Woman.  He died of heart failure at age 79.

1914 ~ Octavio Paz Lozano (d. Apr. 19, 1998), Mexican diplomat and recipient of the 1990 Nobel Prize in Literature.  He died 19 days after his 84^th birthday.

1906 ~ Shin’ichiro Tomonaga (d. July 8, 1979), Japanese physicist and recipient of the 1975 Nobel Prize in Physics.  He died at age 73.

1890 ~ Sir William Lawrence Bragg (d. July 1, 1971), English physicist and recipient of the 1915 Nobel Prize in Physics.  At age 25, he was the youngest person to receive a Nobel Prize.  He shared the Nobel Prize with his father, William Bragg.  He died at age 81.

1885 ~ Pascin (né Julius Mordecai Pincas, d. June 5, 1930), Sephardi Bulgarian-American painter.  He suffered from depression and committed suicide at age 45.

1847 ~ Yegor Ivanovich Zolotarev (d. July 19, 1878), Russian mathematician.  He died of blood poisoning at age 31.

1809 ~ Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol (d. Mar. 4, 1809), Ukrainian-Russian playwright and author.  He died 27 days before his 43^rd birthday

1794 ~ Thomas McKean Thompson McKennan (d. July 9, 1852), 2^nd United States Secretary of the Interior.  He served under President Millard Fillmore, but only for 11 days from August 15 until August 26, 1850, because he found the job too stressful.  He died 2 years later at age 58.

1732 ~ Joseph Haydn (d. May 31, 1809), Austrian composer.  He died at age 77.

1730 ~ Étienne Bézout (d. Sept. 27, 1783), French mathematician.  He died at age 53.

1723 ~ Frederick V of Denmark (d. Jan. 14, 1766).  He died at age 42.

1685 ~ Johann Sebastian Bach (d. July 28, 1750), German composer.  He died at age 65.

1675 ~ Pope Benedict XIV (né Prospero Lorenzo Lambertini, d. May 3, 1758).  He was Pope from 1740 until his death 18 years later.  He died at age 83.

1596 ~ René Descartes (d. Feb. 11, 1650), French philosopher and mathematician.  He died of pneumonia at age 53.

1519 ~ King Henry II of France (d. July 10, 1559).  He was king from March 1547 until his death 12 years later.  He died at age 40 from an injury sustained to his eye during a jousting match.

1499 ~ Pope Pius IV (né Giovanni Angelo Medici, d. Dec. 9, 1565).  He was Pope from 1559 until his death 6 years later.  He is best known for presiding over the final session of the Council of Trent.  He was 66 years old at the time of his death.

867 ~ Zhao Zong (d. Sept. 22, 904), Chinese emperor of the Tang Dynasty.  He was Emperor from April 888 until December 900.  He is believed to have been 37 at the time of his death.

Events that Changed the World:

2013 ~ Easter Sunday.

1986 ~ Mexicana Flight 940 en route to Puerto Vallarta crashed into the mountains near Mexico City and killed 167 people aboard.

1966 ~ The Soviet Union launched Luna 10, which later became the first space probe to orbit around the moon.

1959 ~ Tenzin Gyatso (b. 1935), the 14^th Dalai Lama, was granted political asylum after crossing into India.

1931 ~ TWA Flight 599, which was carrying Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne (1888 ~ 1931), crashed in Kansas.

1931 ~ A massive earthquake destroyed Managua, Nicaragua, and about 2,000 people were killed.

1918 ~ Daylight savings time went into effect in the United States for the first time.

1917 ~ The United States purchased the Virgin Islands from Denmark for $25M.

1906 ~ The Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States, which later became the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) was established.  Its function was to establish rules for college sports.

1889 ~ The Eiffel Tower was officially opened.

1866 ~ The Spanish Navy bombed the harbor of Valparaío, Chile.

1492 ~ The Alhambra Decree was issued by King Ferdinand (1452 ~ 1516) and Queen Isabella (1451 ~ 1504) of Spain expelling all Jews and Muslims who refuse to convert to Christianity.  This Decree was not formally revoked until 1968.

Good-Byes:

2017 ~ Gilbert Baker (b. June 2, 1951), American gay activist who created the rainbow flag.  He died at age 65.

2017 ~ Richard Nelson Bolles (b. Mar. 19, 1927), American clergyman who became a job-searching guru.  He was an Episcopal priest who wrote the book, What Color is Your Parachute?  He died 12 days after his 90^th birthday.

2016 ~ Imre Kertéz (b. Nov. 9, 1929), Hungarian writer and recipient of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Literature.  He was a Holocaust survivor and his writings reflect his experiences.  He is best known for his quasi-autobiographical novel, Fatelessness.  He died of Parkinson’s disease at age 86.

2014 ~ Charles Humphrey Keating, Jr. (b. Dec. 4, 1923), American attorney and businessman.  He is best known for his role in the Savings and Loan scandal of the late 1980s.  In 1991, he was charged with 17 counts of fraud, racketeering and conspiracy.  He was given a 10-year prison sentence for his crimes.  He died at age 90.

2011 ~ Gil Chancy (né Gilbert Thomas Chancy, b. May 30, 1922), African-American Hall of Fame Boxer and trainer.  He died at age 88.

2009 ~ Raúl Ricardo Alfonsin (b. Mar. 12, 1927), 46^th Argentine president who championed democracy after years of brutal authoritarian rule.  He died 19 days 83^rd birthday

2005 ~ Terri Schiavo (née Therese Marie Schindler, b. Dec. 3, 1963), American medical patient who was the center of a wrenching right-to-die dispute.  In 1990, she suffered from a cardiac arrest, and suffered irreparable brain damage due to the lack of oxygen to her brain.  She never recovered conscientiousness and was left in a comatose state.  Her husband and her parents found themselves on opposite sides of a dispute when her husband wanted to remove her feeding tube.  After years of legal battling, the feeding tube was removed and she died 13 days later at age 41.

2005 ~ Frank Perdue (né Franklin Parsons Perdue, b. May 9, 1920), American businessman and founder of Perdue Chicken.  He died at age 84.

2003 ~ Harold Scott MacDonald Coxeter (b. Feb. 9, 1907), British-born Canadian mathematician.  He is known for the study of geometry.  He died at age 96.

2001 ~ Clifford Glenwood Shull (b. Sept. 23, 1915), American physicist and recipient of the 1994 Nobel Prize in Physics.  He died in Medford, Massachusetts at age 85.

1998 ~ Bella Savitsky Abzug (b. July 24, 1920), American politician.  She was a member of the United States House of Representatives from New York State.  She was known for wearing big hats.  She died of breast cancer at age 77.

1981 ~ Enid Algerine Bagnold, Lady Jones (b. Oct. 27, 1889), British playwright, best known for her novel, National Velvet.  She died at age 91.

1980 ~ Jesse Owens (né James Cleveland Owens, b. Sept. 12, 1913), American athlete.  He is best known for competing in track in the 1936 Olympics that were held in Berlin, Germany.  He died of lung cancer at age 66.

1978 ~ Charles Herbert Best (b. Feb. 27, 1899), Canadian medical student who co-discovered insulin.  He was born in Maine.  He died about a month after his 79^th birthday.

1976 ~ Spider Sabich (né Vladimir Peter Sabich, Jr., b. Jan. 10, 1945), American alpine ski racer.  He was shot and killed by Claudine Longet (b. 1942), his live-in girlfriend and former wife of Andy Williams, in what she claimed to have been an accident.  She was later convicted of misdemeanor criminal negligence in his death.  He was 31 years old at the time of his death.

1976 ~ Paul Strand (b. Oct. 16, 1890), American photographer.  He died at age 85.

1952 ~ Wallace Humphrey White, Jr. (b. Aug. 6, 1877), United States Senator from the State of Maine.  He died at age 74.

1945 ~ Anne Frank (née Annelies Marie Frank, b. June 12, 1929), German-Jewish girl who wrote a diary while hiding from the Nazis during World War II.  She received a diary for her thirteenth birthday.  She and her family were ultimately caught and sent to the Belsen concentration camp where she died.  The exact date of her death is unknown, but she perished in the concentration camp in either February or March 1945.  She was 15 years old at the time of her death.

1945 ~ Hans Fischer (b. July 27, 1881), German chemist and recipient of the 1930 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.  He committed suicide at age 63.

1935 ~ Prince Georges Vasili Matchabelli (b. July 23, 1885), Georgian-American businessman and founder of Prince Matchabelli perfume company.  He died of pneumonia at age 49.

1931 ~ Knute Kenneth Rockne (b. Mar. 4, 1888), football coach at the University of Notre Dame.  He was killed when the plane he was in crashed in Kansas, while en route to participate in the film, The Spirit of Notre Dame.  He died 27 days after his 43^rd birthday.

1917 ~ Emil Adolf von Behring (b. Mar. 15, 1854), German physician and recipient of the first Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, which was awarded in 1901.  He was awarded the Nobel Prize for his discovery of the diphtheria antitoxin.  He died 16 days after his 63^rd birthday.

1913 ~ J.P. Morgan, Sr. (né John Pierpoint Morgan, b. Apr. 17, 1837), American financier.  He died 17 days before his 76^th birthday.

1907 ~ Galusha Aaron Grow (b. Aug. 31, 1822), 24^th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives.  He was a Representative from Pennsylvania.  He served as Speaker from July 1861 through March 1863.  He died at age 84.

1877 ~ Antoine Augustin Cournot (b. Aug. 28, 1801), French mathematician.  He died at age 75.

1855 ~ Charlotte Brontë (b. Apr. 21, 1816), English author.  She is best known for her novel Jane Eyre.  She died 3 weeks before her 39^th birthday.

1850 ~ John Caldwell Calhoun (d. Mar. 18, 1782), 7^th Vice President of the United States.  He served under President John Quincy Adams from March 1925 until December 1832.  He went on to serve as the 16^th United States Secretary of State during the John Tyler and James Polk administrations, from April 1844 until March 1845.  Before becoming the Vice President, he had served as the 10^th United States Secretary of War under President James Monroe from December 1817 until March 1825.  He died 13 days after his 68^th birthday.

1837 ~ John Constable (d. June 11, 1776), English Romantic painter.  He died at age 60.

1727 ~ Sir Isaac Newton (b. Jan. 4, 1642), English mathematician, astronomer, physicist, philosopher and natural scientist.  He is credited with inventing a branch of mathematics called calculus.  Under the new calendar (the Julian calendar), Newton’s birthdate would fall on December 25, 1642, so that date is sometime listed as his actual birthdate.  He is believed to have been 84 at the time of his death.

1703 ~ Johann Christoph Bach (b. Dec. 6, 1642), German composer.  He died at age 60.

1671 ~ Anne Hyde (b. Mar. 12, 1637), first wife of James II of England.  She converted to Catholicism shortly after her marriage to James II.  She died of breast cancer 19 days after her 34^th birthday.

1631 ~ John Donne (b. Jan. 22, 1573), English writer and cleric in the Church of England.  He died at age 58.

1547 ~ King Francis I of France (b. Sept. 12, 1494).  He reigned from January 1515 until his death 32 years later.  He died at age 52.

1340 ~ Ivan I of Russia (b. 1288).  The exact dates of his birth and death are unknown.  He is believed to have been between 51 and 53 at the time of his death.