On This Day
31 March
- 🇮🇳 In India
- 1504 Guru Angad, second of the ten Sikh gurus of Sikhism, was born.
- 1843 Annasaheb Kirloskar, Marathi playwright, was born.
- 1867 Prarthana Samaj, a movement for religious and social reform, was established by Ranade, Bhandarkar and others at Bombay (now Mumbai).
- 1911 Foundation stone for the Gateway of India was laid by George Sydenham Clarke, Governor of Bombay Presidency.
- 1934 Kamala Surayya (popularly known by her one-time pen name Madhavikutty and married name Kamala Das), poet in English as well as an author in Malayalam, was born in Punnyurkulam, Thrissur.
- 1990 Bharat Ratna was given to Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar posthumously.
- 1994 The Supreme Court ordered closure of 11 chemical/hazardous industrial units around Taj Mahal as they were a major source of damage to the monument.
- 2008 Kadammanitta Ramakrishnan (M R Ramakrishna Panikkar), Malayalam poet, died. His childhood experiences, especially the Patayani songs, had a strong influence on his literary work.
- 2011 Provisional census figures said the population of India jumped to 1.21 billion in 2011 from 1.02 billion in 2001, making it more populous than Indonesia, the United States, Brazil, Pakistan and Bangladesh combined. The nation's cultural preference for male children continued to shape the population as child sex ratio in the country declined to 914 females to 1,000 males, the lowest figures since 1947.
- 🌎 Elsewhere
- 1596 René Descartes, French philosopher, mathematician and scientist, was born in Descartes, France. He invented analytic geometry, linking the previously separate fields of geometry and algebra. He is perhaps best known for the famous phrase “I think, therefore I am.”
- 1836 The first monthly installment of The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens was published in London.
- 1855 Charlotte Brontë, English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Brontë sisters who survived into adulthood and whose novels became classics of English literature, died in Haworth, United Kingdom.
- 1889 The Eiffel Tower is opened with the French engineer Alexandre Gustave Eiffel unfurling a French flag from the top of the tower, which has since become the most iconic landmark of Paris. Built for the Exposition Universelle (a world's fair held in Paris), at 300m high the tower retained the record for the tallest man made structure for 41 years.
- 1918 Daylight saving time, the practice of advancing clocks during warmer months so that darkness falls at a later clock time, went into effect in the United States.
- 1939 Britain and France agree to support Poland if Germany threatens to invade.
- 1953 UN Security Council nominates Dag Hammarskjöld for Secretary-General.
- 1964 Following a coup d'etat, that led to the overthrow of President João Goulart, a military dictatorship under the members of the Brazilian Armed Forces takes charge in Brazil, supported by the United States government.
- 1980 Jesse Owens, American track and field athlete, died. He won four gold medals at the 1936 Olympic Games. Owens specialized in the sprints and the long jump and was recognized in his lifetime as "perhaps the greatest and most famous athlete in track and field history".
- 1998 Netscape releases Mozilla source code under an open source license.
Select another date and know its important events:
View all important days of this month
What’s New
Top 20 Today
- Independence Day Quiz #2 (2)
- R K Narayan Quiz (1)
- प्रेमचंद प्रश्नोत्तरी (1)
- Best Quotes for the Morning Assembly (1)
- How to open eBooks in an eBook Reader? (1)
- Identify the Author Quiz (1)
- GK Quiz #2 (1)
- Important Days of this Month (1)
- INTERPOL Quiz (1)
- Brand Logo Quiz #2 (1)
- How to Beat Stress (1)
- रामधारी सिंह दिनकर प्रश्नोत्तरी (1)
Top 20 All Time
- National Science Day Quiz (36,761)
- KVS Quiz (25,661)
- Best Quotes for the Morning Assembly (17,497)
- The Home-coming: Short Story by Rabindranath Tagore (13,624)
- Millets Quiz (12,789)
- International Women’s Day Quiz (12,471)
- Indian National Flag Quiz (11,901)
- Swami Vivekananda Quiz (10,563)
- General Knowledge Quiz (10,506)
- Constitution Day Quiz (9,734)
- Brand Logo Quiz #1 (7,496)
- Photo Gallery (7,193)
- Audio Library: Swami Vivekananda’s Chicago Speech (6,297)
- Word Quiz (5,700)
- Environment Day Quiz (5,122)
- Scouts and Guides Quiz (5,038)
- Veer Gatha Project Quiz (4,895)
- Books Recommended for Reading During Summer Vacation (4,376)
- R K Narayan Quiz (4,263)
- INTERPOL Quiz (4,221)
Quick Links
Digital Repository KVS Ernakulam Region
List of all Kendriya Vidyalayas in KVS Ernakulam Region
National Digital Library of India
Class X CBSE Past Question Papers 2015-25
Class XII CBSE Past Question Papers 2015-25
Class X CBSE Sample Question Papers 2021-2022
CBSE Sample Question Papers 2021-2022
Books for Middle-Grade Readers
Recent Comments @bookends
- Nisha Dhakad on Ruskin Bond Quiz: “Question are very important exam oriented” July 3, 2025
- on Swami Vivekananda Quiz: “It was a great quiz I acquired some knowledge from this tq” January 11, 2025
Views: Today 1 | Total 20,057