Today is Thursday, March 31, the 90th day of 2022. There are 275 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History
On March 31, 1991, the Warsaw Pact military alliance came to an end.
On this date
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 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 1931, Notre Dame college football coach Knute Rockne, 43, was killed in the crash of a TWA plane in Bazaar, Kansas.
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 1993, actor Brandon Lee, 28, was accidentally shot to death during the filming of a movie in Wilmington, North Carolina, when he was hit by a bullet fragment that had become lodged inside a prop gun.
In 1995, baseball players agreed to end their 232-day strike after a judge granted a preliminary injunction against club owners.
In 2004, four American civilian contractors were killed in Fallujah, Iraq; frenzied crowds dragged the burned, mutilated bodies and strung two of them from a bridge.
In 2005, Terri Schiavo, 41, died at a hospice in Pinellas Park, Florida, 13 days after her feeding tube was removed in a wrenching 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
Hundreds of world landmarks from Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate to the Great Wall of China went dark as part of Earth Hour, a global effort to highlight climate change. Brittney Griner was named The Associated Press’ women’s college basketball Player of the Year, the first Baylor player to win the award.
Five years ago
President Donald Trump signed a pair of executive orders focused on reducing the U.S. trade deficit; the first order gave the Commerce Department 90 days to assemble a report on the factors behind the trade deficit, while the second sought to increase collection of duties on imports.
One year ago
President Joe Biden outlined a huge $2.3 trillion plan to reengineer the nation’s infrastructure. (Biden would sign a $1 trillion infrastructure measure into law in November 2021.) The Pentagon swept away Trump-era policies that largely banned transgender people from serving in the military. Pfizer announced that its COVID-19 vaccine was safe and strongly protective in kids as young as 12. The government reported that the COVID-19 pandemic pushed total U.S. deaths in 2020 beyond 3.3 million, the nation’s highest annual death toll; the coronavirus was listed as the third leading cause of death in 2020, after heart disease and cancer.
