Today in History: March 31, LBJ announces he won’t run for reelection
Today is Monday, March 31, the 90th day of 2025. There are 275 days left in the year.
Today in history:
On March 31, 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.”
Also on this date:
In 1492, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain issued the Alhambra Decree, an edict expelling Jews from Spanish soil, except those willing to convert to Christianity.
In 1854, Japan and the United States signed the Treaty of Kanagawa, which opened two Japanese ports to American vessels and marked the beginning of Japan’s transition away from isolationism.
In 1918, the United States first observed daylight saving time, moving clocks ahead one hour.
In 1931, Notre Dame college football coach Knute Rockne, 43, was killed in the crash of a TWA plane near Bazaar, Kansas.
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, Tejano music star Selena, 23, died after being shot by Yolanda Saldívar, the president of Selena’s fan club, who was found to have been embezzling money from the singer.
In 2004, four U.S. civilian contractors were killed by Iraqi insurgents in Fallujah, Iraq; frenzied crowds then dragged the burned, mutilated bodies and hanged two of them from a bridge.
In 2005, Terri Schiavo (SHY’-voh), 41, died at a hospice in Pinellas Park, Florida, 13 days after her feeding tube was removed in a wrenching right-to-die court battle that began in 1998.
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