March 31 Birthday
March 31, 1968: President Johnson addressed the nation on television and made two announcements. First, he was limiting the bombing of North Vietnam. Second, he was withdrawing from the presidential race. "I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President." The announcement shocked the nation. Johnson had been expected to run again. He was exhausted by the Vietnam War, which had consumed his presidency and destroyed his Great Society programs. The Tet Offensive in January 1968 had revealed that the war was not being won, despite administration assurances. Eugene McCarthy's strong showing in the New Hampshire primary — he won 42% of the vote as an antiwar candidate — demonstrated that Johnson was vulnerable. Robert Kennedy entered the race three days later. Johnson went home to Texas and died four years later, at sixty-four, the day before the last American troops left Vietnam. The Eiffel Tower opened on March 31, 1889, to celebrate the centennial of the French Revolution and the 1889 World's Fair. It was designed by Gustave Eiffel, who also designed the interior framework of the Statue of Liberty. The tower is 1,083 feet tall and was the tallest structure in the world until the Chrysler Building was completed in 1930. It was intended to be temporary — it was to be dismantled after twenty years. It survived because it became a valuable radio transmission tower. The Parisian artistic and intellectual community hated it. Guy de Maupassant ate lunch at the tower's restaurant every day because it was the only place in Paris from which the tower was not visible. The tower has 20,000 lightbulbs and is repainted every seven years with sixty tons of paint. The United States purchased the Virgin Islands from Denmark on March 31, 1917, for $25 million. The islands — St. Thomas, St. John, and St. Croix — had been a Danish colony since the 17th century. The US wanted them for their strategic value — the fear was that Germany might seize them as a submarine base during World War I. The purchase was negotiated during the war but before the US entered it. The islands' population was about 26,000, mostly descendants of enslaved Africans brought to work the sugar plantations. Denmark had abolished slavery in 1848, and the islands had been in economic decline since. The Virgin Islands remain a US territory; residents are US citizens but cannot vote in presidential elections. René Descartes, born this day in 1596, wrote "I think, therefore I am" — cogito, ergo sum. He was lying in bed — he stayed in bed until noon every day — and doubted everything he could doubt. He could doubt his senses, his memories, the physical world. But he could not doubt that he was doubting. The act of thinking proved his existence. Descartes also invented analytic geometry, which connects algebra and geometry through the coordinate system that bears his name. He died in Sweden in 1650, where he had been hired to tutor Queen Christina. The Swedish winter killed him. People born on March 31 fall under the zodiac sign of Aries. The birthstone is Aquamarine and the birth flower is Daffodil. Historical events on March 31 include 1889: Eiffel Tower officially opens in Paris for World's Fair, 1917: US purchases Virgin Islands from Denmark for $25 million, 1968: President Johnson announces he will not seek reelection. Famous people born on March 31 include René Descartes (1596), Franz Joseph Haydn (1732), Al Gore (1948).