Today in history

March 31

1492
Jews Expelled from Spain.
1840
10-hour workday established for federal public works employees.
1927
Cesar Chavez born.
1959
Dalai Lama Begins Exile.
1924
Gandhi begins nonviolent campaign for temple entry, Vykom.
1968
President Lyndon Johnson announces he will not seek reelection, orders partial bombing halt in Vietnam & appoints Averell Harriman to seek negotiated peace talks with North Vietnam.
1970
2,500 UC-Berkeley students turned in their draft cards at the Oakland, California, Induction Center in protest of the Vietnam war.

1985
300,000 demonstrate in peace rallies throughout Australia.

1991
Before dawn on Easter, five Plowshares activists boarded the USS Gettysburg, an Aegis-equipped Cruiser docked at the Bath Iron Works in Bath, Maine. They proceeded to hammer and pour blood on covers for vertical launching systems for cruise missiles. “We witness against the American enslavement to war at the Bath Iron Works, geographically near the President’s home.” They also left an indictment charging President George H. W. Bush, Secretary of Defense Cheney, the National Security Council and the Joint Chiefs of Staff with war crimes and violations of God’s law and international law, including the killing of thousands of Iraqis.

1992
ADAPT (American Disabled for Accessible Public Transport) sit in at Tennessee Health Care Association to fight health cuts, Nashville Tennessee.

1997
Four East Timorese arrested in Warton, at the British Aerospace factory where Indonesian Hawk fighter jets, used in the ongoing occupation & genocide of their homeland, are built.

2004
Air America, intended as a liberal voice in network talk radio, made its debut on five stations.