March 31

307 – After divorcing his wife Minervina, Constantine marries Fausta, daughter of the retired Roman emperor Maximian. 1146 – Bernard of Clairvaux preaches his famous sermon in a field at Vézelay, urging the necessity of a Second Crusade. Louis VII is present, and joins the Crusade. 1492 – Queen Isabella of Castile issues the Alhambra Decree, ordering her 150,000 Jewish and Muslim subjects to convert to Christianity or face expulsion. 1521 – Ferdinand Magellan and fifty of his men came ashore to present-day Limasawa to participate in the first Catholic mass in the Philippines. 1657 – The Long Parliament presents the Humble Petition and Advice offering Oliver Cromwell the British throne, which he eventually declines. 1717 – A sermon on "The Nature of the Kingdom of Christ" by Benjamin Hoadly, the Bishop of Bangor, preached in the presence of King George I of Great Britain, provokes the Bangorian Controversy. 1761 – The 1761 Lisbon earthquake strikes off the Iberian Peninsula with an estimated magnitude of 8.5, six years after another quake destroyed the city. 1774 – American Revolution: The Kingdom of Great Britain orders the port of Boston, Massachusetts closed pursuant to the Boston Port Act. 1814 – The Sixth Coalition occupies Paris after Napoleon's Grande Armée capitulates. 1854 – Commodore Matthew Perry signs the Convention of Kanagawa with the Tokugawa Shogunate, opening the ports of Shimoda and Hakodate to American trade. 1885 – The United Kingdom establishes the Bechuanaland Protectorate. 1889 – The Eiffel Tower is officially opened. 1899 – Malolos, capital of the First Philippine Republic, is captured by American forces. 1901 – Rusalka by Antonín Dvořák premieres at the National Opera House in Prague. 1905 – Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany declares his support for Moroccan independence in Tangier, beginning the First Moroccan Crisis. 1906 – The Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States (later the National Collegiate Athletic Association) is established to set rules for college sports in the United States.