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March 31: Mawlid in Sunni Islam (2007); César Chávez Day in various U.S. states, Freedom Day in Malta.

• 1854 - Commodore Matthew Perry of the U.S. Navy signed the Treaty of Kanagawa, forcing the opening of Japanese ports to American trade.
• 1889 - The Eiffel Tower (pictured) was inaugurated in Paris.
• 1903 - New Zealand inventor Richard Pearse reportedly flew in one of the first flying machines.
• 1917 - The Danish West Indies became the U.S. Virgin Islands after the United States paid Denmark US$25 million for the Caribbean islands.
• 1930 - Hollywood movie studios instituted the Production Code to avoid government censorship.

• Recent days: March 30 – March 29 – March 28

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• Australian Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks is the first to receive a sentence from the Guantanamo military commission, and the first conviction in a US war crimes trial since World War II.
• Following a provincial general election that saw no party win more than 39% of the seats, the Liberal Party retains power in Quebec (flag pictured) as the province's first minority government in 129 years.
• Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi is declared the winner of the Mauritanian presidential election.
• In Northern Ireland, members of the DUP and Sinn Féin, led respectively by Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams, meet face-to-face for the first time, and agree on a timetable for implementing the St Andrews Agreement.
• Iran's Revolutionary Guards detain fifteen British Royal Navy personnel assigned to HMS Cornwall, alleging they illegally entered Iranian waters.
• Jamaican police are treating the death of Pakistan cricket team coach Bob Woolmer during the ongoing Cricket World Cup as a case of murder.
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The New Carissa was a freighter that ran aground on a beach near Coos Bay, Oregon, United States, during a storm in February 1999 and subsequently broke apart. An attempt to tow the bow section of the ship out to sea failed when the tow line broke, and the bow was grounded again. Eventually, the bow was successfully towed out to sea and sunk. The stern section remains on the beach near Coos Bay. Fuel on board the ship was burned off in situ, but a significant amount was also spilled from the wreckage, causing ecological damage to the coastline. The United States Coast Guard performed an investigation and found that captain's error was the main cause of the wreck; however, no criminal liability was established and the captain and crew were not charged. There were significant legal and financial consequences for the ship's owners and insurer. There are plans in place to dismantle the stern section at its current site and remove it from the beach. (more...)

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From Wikipedia's newest articles:

• ...that the Royal Fort (pictured) in Bristol was built with façades in Baroque, Palladian and Rococo styles because it was a compromise between the designs of three different architects?
• ...that the French Military Mission to Japan played a key role in the establishment of the nascent Imperial Japanese Army?
• ...that a power struggle between Thomas Benolt and Thomas Wriothesley in 1530 almost brought an end to the College of Arms?
• ...that in 2002, 72% of Swiss voters voted in favour of making abortion in Switzerland legal on demand in the first trimester of a pregnancy?
• ...that on April 29, 1899, trade unionists in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho killed two men by steering an explosives-laden train to the site of a mill, in order to protest the firing of fellow union members?
• ...that the British Member of Parliament Dr Donald Johnson was interested by the connotations of the Macmillan government's 69-vote win over the Profumo sex scandal?
• ...that Hersey Kyota has represented Palau at the United Nations Millennium Summit, even though he is not Palau's ambassador to the U.N.?
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