Template:On this day - March 31

Octavio Paz

• 1258 – In the Collegiate Church of Santa María of Valladolid (Spain), the marriage of the Infante Philip of Castile to Princess Christina of Norway is celebrated.
• 1373 – Birth of Catherine of Lancaster, queen consort of Castile through her marriage to King Henry III of Castile (d. 1418).
• 1492 – In Granada (Spain), the Catholic Monarchs sign the Edict of Granada, by which the Jewish people were urged to choose between conversion or expulsion from the Crown of Castile and the Crown of Aragon.
• 1493 – Death of Martín Alonso Pinzón, Spanish navigator and explorer (b. 1441).
• 1578 – In Spain, Juan de Escobedo, secretary of John of Austria, is murdered (b. 1530).
• 1561 – In the New Kingdom of Granada (present-day Venezuela), the Spanish soldier Juan Maldonado founds the town of San Cristóbal (Venezuela).
• 1592 – Birth of Benito Daza de Valdés, Spanish optometrist (d. 1634).
• 1621 – Death of Philip III, King of Spain (b. 1578).
• 1622 – Death of Gonzalo Méndez de Cancio, Spanish naval officer, governor of Florida and alcalde mayor of Castropol (b. circa 1554).
• 1650 – In the Viceroyalty of Peru, an earthquake destroys the city of Cuzco, leaving 5000 dead.
• 1678 – In Spain, King Charles II issues a Royal Cédula adopting the Coat of arms of Medellín (in present-day Colombia).
• 1818 – In the Argentine town of San Carlos, during the Luso-Brazilian invasion, the first of the four days of the Battle of San Carlos is fought, in which the Portuguese (led by the Carioca Francisco das Chagas Santos) defeat the Argentines (led by the Guaraní Andresito Guasurarí y Artigas).
• 1839 – In the present-day Entre Ríos Province (Argentina), the unitarians clash with the federalists at the Battle of Pago Largo.
• 1847 – In the state of Veracruz (Mexico) (during the Mexican–American War), the port of Alvarado capitulates.
• 1866 – In Chile (during the Spanish–South American War), the Spanish Navy bombards the port of Valparaíso.
• 1914 – Birth of Octavio Paz, Mexican poet, essayist and diplomat, awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1990 (d. 1998).
• 1931 – In Managua (capital of Nicaragua), at 10:23 a.m. local time, a magnitude 6.0 earthquake on the Richter seismological scale destroys the city, causing more than 2000 deaths.
• 1983 – In Colombia, an earthquake destroys the city of Popayán.
• 1990 – The Cuban singer-songwriter Silvio Rodríguez gives a concert before 75,000 people at the National Stadium of Santiago de Chile, after having been banned from entering the country for 17 years during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.
• 2017 – In Colombia, an avalanche caused by the overflowing of three rivers sweeps away 17 neighborhoods of the city of Mocoa, Putumayo Department, leaving more than 200 dead.