Today in history: March 31

1999: Lagos State Governor Bola Tinubu and his entourage escape attack by suspected  members of the militant Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC).

1991: Seat of government officially moved from Lagos to Abuja.

1991: Albania offers a multi-party election for the first time in 50 years.

1987: Local Government elections are held in the 301 Local Government councils in the country.

1980: American track-and-field legend Jesse Owens died in Phoenix, Arizona.

1980: President Jimmy Carter deregulates the banking industry.

1967: President Lyndon Johnson signs the Consular Treaty, the first bi-lateral pact with the Soviet Union since the Bolshevik Revolution.

1960: The South African government declares a state of emergency after demonstrations lead to the deaths of more than 50 Africans.

1954: The siege of Dien Bien Phu, the last French outpost in Vietnam, begins after the Viet Minh realize it cannot be taken by direct assault.

1949: Winston Churchill declares that the A-bomb was the only thing that kept the Soviet Union from taking over Europe.

1966: An estimated 200,000 anti-war demonstrators march in New York City.

1970: U.S. forces in Vietnam down a MIG-21, the first since September 1968.

1948: The Soviet Union begins controlling the Western trains headed toward Berlin.

1945: The United States and Britain bar a Soviet supported provisional regime in Warsaw from entering the U.N. meeting in San Francisco.

1941: Germany begins a counter offensive in North Africa.

1940: La Guardia airport in New York officially opens to the public.

1939: Britain and France agree to support Poland if Germany threatens to invade.

1933: To relieve rampant unemployment, Congress authorizes the Civilian Conservation Corps.

1921: Great Britain declares a state of emergency because of the thousands of coal miners on strike.

1918: Clocks in the United States were set one hour ahead as daylight saving time went into operation for the first time.

1918: Daylight Savings Time goes into effect throughout the United States for the first time.

1917: The United States purchases the Virgin Islands from Denmark for $25 million.

1916: General John Pershing and his army rout Pancho Villa's army in Mexico.

1889: The 984-foot (300-metre) Eiffel Tower, a wrought iron technological masterpiece created by Gustave Eiffel to commemorate the French Revolution, was opened to the public at the Centennial Exposition in Paris this day in 1889.

1880: The first electric street lights ever installed by a municipality are turned on in Wabash, Indiana.

1870: Thomas Peterson-Mundy of Perth Amboy, New Jersey, became the first African American to vote under the Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

1862: Skirmishing between Rebels and Union forces takes place at Island 10 on the Mississippi River.

1854: U.S. Commodore Matthew Perry signed the Treaty of Kanagawa in Japan, ending that country's period of seclusion.

1836: The first monthly installment of The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens is published in London.

1790: In Paris, France, Maximilien Robespierre is elected president of the Jacobin Club.

1779: Russia and Turkey sign a treaty by which they promise to take no military action in the Crimea.

1776: Abigail Adams writes to husband John that women are "determined to foment a rebellion" if the new Declaration of Independence fails to guarantee their rights.

1732: Composer Joseph Haydn was born in Rohrau, Austria.

1547: In France, Francis–king since 1515–dies and is succeeded by his son Henry II.

1521: The first Roman Catholic mass in the Philippines was celebrated on the island of Limasawa.

1282: The great massacre of the French in Sicily The Sicilian Vespers comes to an end.