March 31
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Events on This Day
1880 - The first electric street lights ever installed by a municipality were turned on in beautiful Wabash, Indiana.1889 - The Eiffel Tower opened in Gay Paree. A beautiful sight, no? Well, not so to writers, Guy deMaupassant and Alexandre Dumas who condemned the Eiffel Tower as a “horrid nightmare.” No pleasing some people, we guess... The Eiffel Tower was named after its designer, architect, Alexandre Gustave Eiffel who built the structure for the Paris Exhibition of 1889.
1917 - The United States took possession of the Virgin Islands, which it had purchased from Denmark for $25 million.
1918 - Daylight saving time went into effect throughout the United States for the first time. Folks would spring ahead an hour allowing for longer early evenings. The time change left enough light for many activities, especially in farming areas. Planting and such could best be done with the sun up an extra hour. And, of course, folks would fall back an hour to standard time in the fall.
1937 - Phil Harris recorded one of his best-known songs in Los Angeles, CA. That’s What I Like About the South was recorded on a 78 RPM disk. Harris would move to TV stardom and continue as a popular vocalist during the 1950s with such hit songs as The Thing. We wonder if he ever got rid of that “boom-ba-boom”...
1943 - The show, Away We Go, was renamed. Never heard of it? We think you may have. The show opened at the St. James Theatre in New York City and, thanks to the talents of stars like Alfred Drake, Joan Roberts and Howard DeSilva, it became an instant hit. The show ran for 2,212 performances -- until 1948. The musical, which has grossed millions of dollars on stage and as a blockbuster movie was initially produced for the sum of $75,000. It is still legendary among musical productions -- especially after it was retitled Oklahoma! -- the first musical written by composer Richard Rodgers and librettist Oscar Hammerstein II.
1945 - Tennessee Williams’ play, The Glass Menagerie, arrived on Broadway in New York City to become what critics and the public called the best play of the year.
1948 - The U.S. House of Representatives followed earlier approval by the Senate and passed a European recovery program (Marshall Aid Act) to rehabilitate war-torn Europe. President Harry S Truman signed the bill into law April 3, 1948.
1949 - Newfoundland entered the confederation as Canada’s tenth province.
1949 - In an address at the MIT Mid-Century Convocation Winston Churchill declared, “It is certain that Europe would have been communized and London under bombardment some time ago but for the deterrent of the Atomic Bomb in the hands of the United States.”
1953 - Cavalcade of America was heard for the final time on network radio. It had been the longest-running show of its kind. Cavalcade of America presented dramatized events in American history for 18 years.
1953 - Stanley Kubrick’s first feature film, a war drama titled Fear and Desire, premiered in New York City.
1955 - Chase National (third largest bank) and the Bank of Manhattan Company (fifteenth largest) merged to form Chase Manhattan. David Rockefeller was appointed an executive vice president in charge of the bank development department.
1959 - The Dalai Lama fleeing the Chinese suppression of a national uprising in Tibet, crossed the border into India. India granted him political asylum.
1960 - Gore Vidal’s The Best Man premiered at Morosco Theatre in New York City.
1963 - The five remaining Los Angeles streetcar lines were discontinued, thus ending all rail mass transit. (A new MTA was created in 1993 -- responsible for more than 2400 metro buses, the light rail lines, and the subway heavy rail line.)
1968 - Tony Jacklin became the first Englishman to win a modern-day U.S. golf tournament when he won the Greater Jacksonville Open.
1968 - U.S. President Lyndon Johnson shocked a radio/TV audience by announcing, “I shall not seek, and I will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your president.”
1970 - A bankruptcy referee granted the owner of the Seattle Pilots permission to sell the major-league baseball franchise to investors in Milwaukee, WI. The Pilots became the Milwaukee Brewers because the Milwaukee Braves had decided to move to Atlanta. Seattle then landed another American League franchise, the Mariners, in 1977.
1971 - William Calley was sentenced to life in prison for the Mi Lai Massacre in Viet Nam. (The sentence was commuted by President Richard M. Nixon in 1974.)
1972 - Swimmer Mark Spitz was presented the Amateur Athletic Union’s coveted Sullivan Award as the outstanding amateur athlete of 1971. Spitz went on to Olympic heroics a few months later, winning seven gold medals.
1973 - Ken Norton defeated Muhammad Ali in a 12-round split decision. Ali had his jaw broken during the fight.
1976 - The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that 21 year-old Karen Ann Quinlan could be disconnected from the respirator that had keept her alive since April 15, 1975.
1981 - Ordinary People (Ronald L. Schwary, producer) won four Academy Awards at the 53rd Oscar ceremonies. Johnny Carson hosted the show from the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles. Oscars were presented to a lot of ordinary people, like Tess and Melvin and Howard. However, it was the Best Picture, Ordinary People, that also won for Best Director (Robert Redford), Best Supporting Actor (Timothy Hutton) and Best Writing (screenplay based on material from another medium: Alvin Sargent). Best Actor that year was Robert De Niro for Raging Bull and the Best Actress was Sissy Spacek for Coal Miner’s Daughter. The Best Supporting Actress prize went to Mary Steenburgen for Melvin and Howard and Best Music/Song Oscars were awarded to Michael Gore (music) and Dean Pitchford (lyrics) for Fame from, uh, Fame.
1982 - The Doobie Brothers, led by Michael McDonald, broke up after a farewell tour. Their 1978 Minute by Minute sold millions of copies. McDonald began a solo career soon after the breakup. The Doobies would stage the first of several reunions in 1987.
1985 - A reunion of stars lit up Beverly Hills, California, as ABC-TV celebrated the 200th episode of The Love Boat. The network also honored the 1,000th guest star: Lana Turner. She was joined by Mary Martin, who was the 700th guest star to set sail on the show. Ginger Rogers was the 300th, Robert Guillaume #500 and we could go on but we won’t. The Love Boat had as a crew: Captain Merrill Stubing (Gavin MacLeod), Dr. Adam Bricker (Bernie Kopell), Yeoman-Purser Burl ‘Gopher’ Smith (Fred Grandy, who went on to become a U.S. Congressman), Bartender Isaac Washington (Ted Lange) and Photographer Ashley Covington Evans (Ted McGinley). Singer Jack Jones provided the vocal to the opening theme song and Ernie Anderson was the distinctive voice for the millions of network promos before each show.
1986 - O’Kelly Isley of the Isley Brothers died of a heart attack. He was 48 years old. The trio began as a gospel group in the early 1950s, turning to rhythm and blues in the latter half of the decade. The Isley Brothers’ first hit was Shout (1959), followed by the original Twist and Shout (1962), later revived by the Beatles. The Isley Brothers’ biggest hit came in 1969: It’s Your Thing.
1988 - Beloved, the novel by Toni Morrison, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. The Charlotte (North Carolina) Observer won the Pulitzer for public service for reporting on TV evangelist Jim Bakker and his PTL ministry.
1991 - Voters in the Soviet republic of Georgia overwhelmingly endorsed independence.
1991 - This was the final day for the Warsaw Pact as a military alliance.
1992 - The U.N. Security Council voted to ban flights and arms sales to Libya, branding it a terrorist state. The U.N. action came after Libya was found to have shielded six men accused of blowing up Pan Am Flight 103 and a French airliner.
1993 - Mitchell Parish, who wrote the words to Hoagy Carmichael’s Star Dust, died in New York. He was 92. Parish added the lyrics to Star Dust in 1929, two years after Carmichael wrote the music. It became the most-recorded song of all-time, including hit versions by Artie Shaw and Willie Nelson. Among the other standards for which Parish wrote the words were Deep Purple, Moonlight Serenade and Sophisticated Lady.
1993 - Actor Brandon Lee (28) was killed during the filming of a movie in Wilmington, NC. An old bullet in the barrel of a prop gun was propelled by the firing of a blank and hit lee in the abdomen.
1995 - Latin superstar Selena (Selena Quintanilla Perez) was shot in the back and killed by her former personal assistant and fan-club president, who had been dismissed for embezzlement.
1997 - University of Arizona beat the University of Kentucky 84-79 in overtime to win the U.S. men’s NCAA basketball finals.
1997 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the government can force cable TV systems to carry local broadcast stations.
1998 - Former New York Congresswoman Bella Abzug died at 77 years of age.
1999 - First run in the U.S. for these films: The Matrix, with Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving and Joe Pantoliano; and 10 Things I Hate About You, starring Julia Stiles, Heath Ledger, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Larisa Oleynik.
2000 - These movies debuted in the U.S.: High Fidelity, starring John Cusack, Jack Black and Lisa Bonet; Price of Glory, with Jimmy Smits, Jon Seda and Clifton Collins Jr.; the animated The Road to El Dorado, starring the voices of Kevin Kline, Kenneth Branagh, Rosie Perez, Armand Assante and Edward James Olmos; and The Skulls, with Joshua Jackson, Paul Walker, Hill Harper and Craig T. Nelson.
2001 - Riot police laid siege to Slobodan Milošević’s villa in an attempt to bring the former Yugoslav president to justice. But a defiant Milošević rejected a warrant, reportedly telling police he would not “go to jail alive.” (Milošević was arrested -- alive -- early the following morning.)
2002 - The University of Connecticut beat Oklahoma University 82-70 to wrap up its second unbeaten season and a third women’s national championship.
2004 - The U.S. Navy closed Roosevelt Roads Naval Station, its last base in Puerto Rico. The base had been used for six decades to keep watch over the Caribbean.
2004 - Air America Radio went live in three of largest U.S. markets with a round-the-clock, talk format featuring Al Franken and Janeane Garofalo and a newcomer named Rachel Maddow.
2005 - Terri Schiavo died in Florida, 13 days after her feeding tube was removed. Schiavo was the severely brain-damaged woman who spent 15 years connected to the tube in an epic legal and medical battle that went all the way to the White House and Congress.
2006 - New films in U.S. theatres: ATL, starring Tip ‘T.I.’ Harris, Lauren London, Evan Ross, Jackie Long, Big Boi, Albert Daniels, Jason Weaver, Kadijah, Malika, Lonette McKey, with Mykelti Williamson, Keith David; Awesome: I F***in’ Shot That, with Mike D (Michael Diamond), Adam Horovitz (Adrock) and Nathaniel Hornblower (Adam Yauch/MCA); Basic Instinct 2, starring Sharon Stone, David Morrissey, Charlotte Rampling, David Thewlis and Stan Collymore; Ice Age: The Meltdown, featuring the voices of Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Denis Leary, Queen Latifah, Seann William Scott, Josh Peck and Jay Leno; and Slither, with Nathan Fillion, Gregg Henry, Michael Rooker, Elizabeth Banks, Rheagan Wallace and Tania Saulnier.
2006 - Prosecutors in Warsaw filed charges against Poland’s last communist leader, General Wojciech Jaruzelski, because his 1981 imposition of martial law as the Soviet-backed regime tried to crush the Solidarity pro-democracy movement. Martial law was not lifted until July 1983, although Solidarity remained outlawed.
2007 - Psychotherapist Paul Watzlawick died in Palo Alto, CA at 85 years of age. He believed that that people created their own misery by trying to force self-defeating solutions to trivial problems of the ego. Watzlawick wrote 22 books included The Situation Is Hopeless but not Serious: The Pursuit of Unhappiness.
2008 - Hawaii’s Aloha Airlines ended passenger service, after 53 years of flying, due to competition and skyrocketing fuel prices.
2009 - The state government of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil said it was building 7 miles of concrete walls around some of its biggest slums. The walls were part of an effort to halt community expansion that was resulting in deforestation of the jungle surrounding Rio.
2009 - The U.S. Congress passed the Edward Kennedy Serve America Act, a sweeping overhaul of the 1993 national service program. It tripled the size of AmeriCorps from 75,000 positions to 250,000.
2010 - The Last Song opened in U.S theatres. The musical comedy stars Miley Cyrus, Bobby Coleman, Liam Hemsworth, Hallock Beals, Nick Lashaway, Carly Chaikin, Nick Searcy, Kate Vernon, Kelly Preston and Greg Kinnear.
2010 - Flight attendants owed up to nine months’ wages by grounded Spanish airline Air Comet have posed nude for a calendar to draw attention to their plight. The airline had filed for administration in December 2009 after a British court impounded nine of its aircraft at the request of German bank HSH Nordbank.
2010 - The U.S. government and environmental groups reached an agreement to end the ghost fleet of retired ships in Suisun Bay, CA.
2011 - French President Nicolas Sarkozy and U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner called for more flexible exchange rate regimes as G20 nations met in Nanjing, China to discuss global monetary reform.
2011 - South Korea’s Constitutional Court upheld a military law banning homosexual behavior, saying the need to maintain discipline takes precedence over individual sexual freedom.
2012 - Millions of people switched off their lights for Earth Hour in a global effort to raise awareness of climate change. And this sixth annual Earth Hour was monitored from the International Space Station as the event unfolded around the world.
2013 - A study by the New Delhi-based Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry said the number of foreigners traveling to India had dropped by 25 percent due to sex attacks -- and the number of women tourists had dropped by 35 percent
.2014 - German airline Lufthansa said it would cancel some 3,800 flights because of a three-day strike by the pilots’ union. The stoppage affected more than 425,000 would-be passengers.
2014 - Doctors Without Borders warned that health authorities in Guinea faced an ‘unprecedented epidemic’ of Ebola. The death toll from the disease had reached 78. There had been nearly 14,000 cases worldwide -- nine in the U.S.
2015 - POTUS Barack Obama released the delivery of F-16 aircraft, Harpoon missiles and M1A1 tanks kits to Egypt. And he assured President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi that the U.S. would continue to provide $1.3 billion in annual U.S. military assistance to Egypt. The shipments had been blocked since Sisi’s military allies forcibly ousted elected president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013.
2015 - A reclining statue of a homeless and blanket shrouded Jesus, by Canadian sculptor Timothy Schmalz, was unveiled outside St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral in Buffalo, NY. People soon began leaving money, food and other items for the homeless at the statue. In 2014, plans to put the sculpture in Northern Ireland were met opposition by those who found it ‘insulting’ and ‘demeaning’ to leave Jesus out in the rain.
2016 - POTUS Barack Obama hosted a nuclear security summit of world leaders in Washington. Russia, believed to possess more nuclear weapons than any other country, including the U.S., did not attend.
2016 - An overpass under construction in Kolkata, India collapsed onto vehicles and street vendors below. The crash killed 23 people and injured 100 others.
2017 - New motion pictures in the U.S. included: the animated, The Boss Baby, featuring the voices of Jimmy Kimmel, Lisa Kudrow, Alec Baldwin, Steve Buscemi, Tobey Maguire, ViviAnn Yee, Miles Christopher Bakshi, and Eric Bell Jr.; Ghost in the Shell, starring Scarlett Johansson, Michael Pitt and Rila Fukushima; The Zookeeper’s Wife, with Jessica Chastain, Johan Heldenbergh and Daniel Brühl; and Live Cargo, starring Dree Hemingway, Lakeith Stanfield and Robert Wisdom.
2017 - A federal judge approved an agreement forcing POTUS Donald Trump to pay $25 million to settle lawsuits over his defunct -- and fake -- Trump University. The deal, ending nearly seven years of legal battles, called for Trump to reimburse the students he conned.
2017 - Colombia mudslides claimed 314 lives (200 more were missing) and injured another 400 people following recent torrential rains. The mudslides were caused by the rise of the Mocoa River and three tributaries. On April 7 Colombian officials formally abandoned the search for survivors.
2018 - Protesters in Albania burned down toll boxes and scuffled with police over the country’s first toll road. The 110-kilometer (70-mile) highway links the Albanian town of Milot, near the Adriatic coast, to the Morine border crossing. The people of Kosovo — almost entirely ethnic Albanians — use the highway to cross mountainous terrain and access the seaside they lack at home. Kosovo truck drivers and shopkeepers in the Albanian town of Kukes had protested against the decision, displaying banners reading: “This road should unite Albanians, not divide them.”
2018 - For the first time in his professional career, Britain’s Anthony Joshua had to go all the way to the end of a fight before winning it. Joshua was finally awarded the win on a unanimous points decision in his world heavyweight title unification fight in Cardiff, Wales over Joseph Parker of New Zealand. All 20 of Joshua’s previous wins had come via knockout – and only two had gone beyond seven rounds.
2019 - Police in Medellín, Colombia said they had arrested Thomas Renno of California for offering cash over Facebook to girls as young as 13 in exchange for sexual acts. Renno had used three Facebook profiles to contact girls and offer them up to $100 to accede to his propositions. He also used the social network to share explicit photos and pornographic material.
2019 - Catholic priests in Poland burned books they said were sacrilegious, including tomes from British author J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. (Reverend Rafal Jarosiewicz apologized on April 2, saying the ritual was not intended to condemn specific authors, religions or social groups.)
2020 - Donald Trump completed a rollback of vehicle emissions standards adopted under his predecessor Barack Obama. The modified regulations required 1.5% annual increases in efficiency through 2026 - far weaker than the 5% increases in the discarded rules.
2020 - COVID-19 news: 1)The U.S., with the most coronavirus infections, reported 185,200 cases and over 3,800 deaths. 2)Two ships carrying passengers and crew from an ill-fated South American cruise pleaded with Florida officials to let them carry off the sick and dead. But Governor Ron DeSantis said Florida’s health care resources were already stretched too thin. As the Zaandam and its sister ship the Rotterdam made for Florida, passengers confined to their rooms were anxious for relief. 3)Southwest Airlines said it was cutting more than 40% of flights amid a sharp decline in travel demand from the coronavirus pandemic. 4)Air Canada laid off nearly half of its employees -- affecting some 15,200 staff and about 1,300 managers -- to reduce activity by 90 percent. 5)The death toll in the northern region of Lombardy, Italy rose by around 381 in a day to some 7,199. The daily deaths marked the lowest daily toll since March 25. 6)The Russian parliament approved an “anti-virus” package of laws including up to seven years in prison for serious violations of quarantine rules. 7) A Saudi official urged more than 1 million Muslims intending to perform the hajj to delay making plans, suggesting the pilgrimage could delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
2021 - Godzilla vs. Kong was released in the U.S. in theaters and for streaming on HBO Max. The American monster film directed by Adam Wingard is a sequel to Godzilla: King of the Monsters and Kong: Skull Island. It’s the 36th film in the Godzilla franchise, the 12th film in the King Kong franchise, and the fourth Godzilla film to be completely produced by a Hollywood studio.
2021 - The Pentagon reversed Trump-era policies that had largely banned transgender people from serving in the military. The new rules offered wider access to medical care -- and assistance with gender transition.
2021 - Pfizer said a clinical trial had showed that its Covid vaccine was 100% effective in 12- to 15-year-olds, with no symptomatic infections among children who received it.
2022 - The Biden administration said Americans will able to choose an X for gender on their passport applications -- and select their sex on Social Security cards.
2022 - Jeff Bezos’ space tourism venture, Blue Origin, completed its fourth flight with a crew. The trip endded successfully in rural west Texas after taking a half dozen passengers for a 10-minute suborbital joyride.
2022 - Britain announced sanctions on 14 more Russian entities and people, including penalties on the state media organizations behind RT and Sputnik and some of their senior figures. The Brits said the sanctions targeted those who endorsed President Vladimir Putin’s “fake news and narratives.”
2023 - Movies opening in the U.S. included: Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, with Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Regé-Jean Page, Justice Smith, Sophia Lillis, Hugh Grant and Chloe Coleman; A Good Person, starring Florence Pugh, Morgan Freeman, Celeste O’Connor and Molly Shannon; and A Thousand and One, with Teyana Taylor, Aaron Kingsley Adetola and Aven Courtney.
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Birthdays on This Day March 31
1596 - René Descartes
‘Father of modern philosophy’: “I think, therefore I am.”; died Feb 11, 16501621 - Andrew Marvell
poet: To His Coy Mistress; died Aug 16, 16781732 - Joseph Haydn
‘Father of the Symphony’: composer: produced music in every genre: symphonies, string quartets, divertimenti, operas, choral works, music for plays; died May 31, 18091809 - Edward Fitzgerald
author: translated Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat; died June 14, 18831809 - Nikolai Gogol
playwright, novelist: Dead Souls; died Mar 4, 18521823 - Mary Chesnut
author: A Diary from Dixie; died Nov 22, 18861908 - Red Norvo (Kenneth Norville)
jazz pioneer: xylophone, marimba, vibraphone; bandleader; died Apr 6, 19991915 - Henry Morgan (Henry Lerner Von Ost, Jr.)
comedian: TV panel shows: I’ve Got a Secret; died May 19, 19941918 - Tommy Bolt
golf champ: U.S. Open [1958]; died Aug 30, 20081921 - Peggy Rea
actress: Grace Under Fire, Devil in a Blue Dress, Kansas, Made in America, In Country, The Cracker Factory, Kate Bliss and the Ticker Tape Kid, Step by Step, The Dukes of Hazzard, The Waltons; died Feb 4, 2011
1922 - Richard (Paul) Kiley
Emmy Award-winning actor: The Thorn Birds [1983]; Blackboard Jungle, The Bad Seed, Looking for Mr. Goodbar; died Mar 5, 19991927 - César Chávez
labor leader: started the National Farm Workers Association, organizing migrant farm workers; died Apr 23, 19931927 - William Daniels
Emmy Award-winning actor: St. Elsewhere; voice of Kitt on Knight Rider, The Graduate, Oh God!, Reds1928 - Gordie (Gordon) Howe
Hockey Hall of Famer: NHL: Detroit Red Wings [Hart Memorial Trophy: 1952, 1953, 1957, 1958, 1960, 1963], Hartford Whalers; died Jun 10, 20161928 - Lefty (William Orville) Frizzell
Country Music Hall of Fame singer: If You’ve Got the Money, I’ve Got the Time, Always Late, Saginaw Michigan; died July 19, 19751929 - Liz Claiborne
fashion designer; died Jun 26, 20071931 - Miller Barber
golf champ: holds record for most wins in the Senior PGA Tour [24] from 1981 to 1992; died Jun 11, 20131932 - John Jakes
author: California Gold, In the Big Country; died Mar 11, 20231933 - Anita Carter
musician: bass, singer: Down the Trail of Achin’ Hearts, Blue Bird Island, I Got on You, I’m Gonna Leave You, Love Me Now; member of the famed Carter Family singers; died Jul 29, 19991934 - Richard Chamberlain
actor: Dr. Kildare, The Thorn Birds; Centennial, Shogun, The Towering Inferno, Julius Caesar, The Madwoman of Chaillot, The Bourne Identity, King Solomon’s Mines; environmentalist in Hawaii1934 - Shirley Jones
singer, actress: Carousel, The Music Man, Oklahoma!, Elmer Gantry, The Partridge Family1934 - John D. Loudermilk
songwriter: A Rose and a Baby Ruth, Sittin’ in the Balcony, Norman, Ebony Eyes, Aboline, Indian Reservation, Tobacco Road, This Little Bird, Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye; died Sep 21, 20161935 - Herb Alpert
bandleader: Tijuana Brass: The Lonely Bull, Taste of Honey, The Work Song, This Guy’s in Love with You, Rise; record company executive: the "A" of A&M Records1935 - Diane Jergens
actress: The Teenage Millionaire, Daniel Boone, Island of Lost Women, Desk Set, Teenage Rebel, The Bob Mathias Story; died Oct 9, 20181935 - Judith Rossner
author: Looking for Mr. Goodbar, To the Precipice, Any Minute I Can Split, Emmeline, Perfidia; died Aug 9, 20051938 - Bill Hicke
hockey: NHL: Montreal Canadiens, NY Rangers, Minnesota Rangers, Baltimore Clippers, Oakland Seals, California Golden Seals, Pittsburgh Penguins1938 - Jimmy Johnson
Pro Football Hall of Famer [cornerback, safety]: UCLA; NFL: San Francisco 49ers: 47 interceptions for 615 yards (49ers records; played in five Pro Bowls
1940 - Barney Frank
politician: member [from Massachusetts] of U.S. House of Representatives [1981-2013]1943 - Christopher Walken (Ronald Walken)
actor: The Deerhunter, Batman Returns, Wayne’s World 2, Pulp Fiction, Stand Up Guys1944 - Rod Allen (Rodney Bainbridge)
musician: bass, singer: group: The Fortunes: You’ve Got Your Troubles; died Jan 10, 20081944 - Mick Ralphs
musician: guitar: groups: Mott The Hoople: All the Young Dudes, Bad Company: Can’t Get Enough, Ready for Love, Feel like Makin’ Love1945 - Gabe (Gabriel) Kaplan
actor, comedian: Welcome Back Kotter, The Hoboken Chicken Emergency, Nobody’s Perfekt1946 - Al Nichol
musician: guitar, keyboards: group: The Turtles: It Ain’t Me Babe, Let Me Be, You Baby, Happy Together, She’d Rather Be with Me, Elenore, You Showed Me1947 - Willie Leacox
musician: drums: group: America: A Horse With No Name, Sandman, I Need You, Ventura Highway1948 - Dwight David Eisenhower II
lawyer, author: Eisenhower at War; grandson of 34th U.S. President [Dwight D. Eisenhower]; married Julie Nixon, daughter of 37th U.S. President [Richard Nixon]1948 - Al Gore (Albert Arnold Gore Jr.)
politician: U.S. Senator from Tennessee [1985-1993]; 45th U.S. Vice President [under Bill Clinton 1993-2000]; advocate for change in environmental policies, narrated the Academy Award-winning film An Inconvenient Truth.1948 - Rhea Perlman
Emmy Award-winning actress: Cheers [1983-1984, 1984-1985, 1985-1986, 1988-1989]; Pearl, Carwash, Ratings Game, Class Act, Ted & Venus, Intimate Strangers1950 - Ed Marinaro
football: Minnesota Vikings running back: Super Bowl VIII, IX; actor: Hill Street Blues, Sisters, Dancing with Danger1951 - Frank Morelli
musician: bassoon: first bassoonist awarded doctorate by Juilliard School; 120 recordings: Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante for Winds and Orchestra; TV soundtracks, commercials, film scores; principal bassoonist: NY City Opera Orchestra, Orpheus, Brooklyn Philharmonic, American Composers Orchestra; faculty: Juilliard School, Yale School of Music, Manhattan School of Music1952 - Vanessa Del Rio
actress [1975-1999]: X-rated films: The Horny Landlady, Daughters of Discipline, Hollywood Goes Hard, Babylon Pink, Swedish Erotica series, Oriental Madam, Electric Blue series, Maid in Manhattan, The Devil in Miss Jones 3: A New Beginning, Backdoor Bonanza 141953 - Sean Hopper
musician: keyboards, singer: groups: Clover; Huey Lewis and The News: Do You Believe in Love, Heart and Soul, I Want a New Drug, The Heart of Rock & Roll, Walking on a Thin Line, Bad is Bad, If This is It, Power of Love, Trouble in Paradise1955 - Angus Young
musician: guitar: group: AC/DC: Highway to Hell, Wall All Over You, Shot Down in Flames, Get It Hot, Dirty Deeds Done Cheap, Rocker, Problem Child1957 - Marc McClure
actor: Superman film series, Freaky Friday, Back to the Future, Back to the Future III, Apollo 13, That Thing You Do!1958 - Tony Cox
actor: Bad Santa, Me, Myself and Irene, Date Movie, Epic Movie, Disaster Movie, Willow, Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, Beetlejuice1965 - Tom Barrasso
hockey [goalie]: Buffalo Sabres, Pittsburgh Penguins, Ottawa Senators, Carolina Hurricanes, Toronto Maple Leafs, St. Louis Blues1965 - William McNamara
actor: Nightmares and Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King, American Black Beauty, The Kings of Brooklyn, The Calling1968 - J.R. Reid
basketball [forward, center]: Univ of North Carolina; NBA: Charlotte Hornets, San Antonio Spurs, New York Knicks, Los Angeles Lakers, Milwaukee Bucks, Cleveland Cavaliers1971 - Ewan McGregor
actor: Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones, Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith, Shallow Grave, The Pillow Book, Trainspotting, Black Hawk Down, Moulin Rouge!, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen1972 - Andrew Bowen
actor: Marines, Evolution, The Haven, The Haunting of Hell House, Operation, Fox Hunt, Mad TV1976 - Tyrone Carter
football [defensive back, safety]: Univ of Minnesota; NFL: Minnesota Vikings [2000–2002]; New York Jets [2003]; Pittsburgh Steelers [2004–2009]; San Diego Chargers [2010]1980 - Christine Barger
actress, ventriloquist: Along Came Polly Party Down, Made of Honor, Killer Pad; more1983 - Melissa Ordway
actress: Hollywood Heights, In Time, The Last Song, 17 Again, Privileged, The Young and the Restless1984 - Jack Antonoff
songwriter; musician: guitar: group: fun.: We Are Young, Some Nights1985 - Jessica Szohr
actress: Gossip Girl, Piranha 3D, I Don’t Know How She Does It, CSI: Miami, What About Brian, Tower Heist, Love Bite, Owned1996 - Liza Koshy
YouTube creator: 17 million subscribers; has won Streamy Awards, Teen Choice Awards, Kids’ Choice Award
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Hit Music on This Day March 31
1948Now Is the Hour (facts) - Bing Crosby
I’m Looking Over a Four Leaf Clover (facts) - The Art Mooney Orchestra
1957
1966
1975
1984
1993
2002
2011
2020
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Those were the days, my friend. We thought they’d never end...
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