On This Day: March 31st

The 1761 Lisbon earthquake strikes off the Iberian Peninsula with an estimated magnitude of 8.5, six years after another quake destroyed the city.

A sermon on "The Nature of the Kingdom of Christ" by Benjamin Hoadly, the Bishop of Bangor, preached in the presence of King George I of Great Britain, provokes the Bangorian Controversy.

The last session of history of the Catalan Courts, the parliament of the Principality of Catalonia, ends. Catalonia's constitutional modernisation passed by the Courts aims to improve the guarantee of individual, political and economic rights (such as the secrecy of correspondence).

The Long Parliament presents the Humble Petition and Advice offering Oliver Cromwell the British throne, which he eventually declines.

Ferdinand Magellan and fifty of his men came ashore to present-day Limasawa to participate in the first Catholic mass in the Philippines.

Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile sign the Edict of Expulsion of the Jews from Spain, ordering all Jews in their kingdoms to either convert to Christianity or leave the country.

Pope Gregory X calls for a General Church Council to discuss reunion of Churches, Crusade to the Holy Land and Church reform.

A conspiracy against Saladin, aiming to restore the Fatimid Caliphate, is revealed in Cairo, involving senior figures of the former Fatimid regime and the poet Umara al-Yamani. Modern historians doubt the extent and danger of the conspiracy reported in official sources, but its ringleaders will be publicly executed over the following weeks.

Bernard of Clairvaux preaches his famous sermon in a field at Vézelay, urging the necessity of a Second Crusade. Louis VII is present, and joins the Crusade.

After divorcing his wife Minervina, Constantine marries Fausta, daughter of the retired Roman emperor Maximian.