THIS DAY IN SPORTS HISTORY: 3/31

1931 – Notre Dame coach Knute Rockne is among eight people killed in a plane crash in Kansas. In his 13-year tenure at Notre Dame, Rockne led the Irish to a 105-12-5 record with three national championships.

1968 – The MLB expansion franchise in Seattle chooses “Pilots” as their name.

1973 – Ken Norton defeats Muhammad Ali in a 12-round split decision to win the NAPF heavyweight title.

1973 – Boston’s Bobby Orr becomes the first player in NHL history to score 100 or more points in four straight seasons.

1975 – UCLA wins their 10th men’s basketball national championship under John Wooden, defeating Kentucky 92-85. It’s the last game as coach for Wooden who announced two days earlier that he would retire.

1994 – The White Sox assigns Michael Jordan to Class AA Birmingham during his minor league baseball career.

1995 – Major League baseball players end their strike.

1996 – For the first time in MLB history, the season begins in March with the Mariners defeating the White Sox 3-2 in 12 innings.

1998 – The Tampa Bay Devil Rays and Arizona Diamondbacks play in their first-ever games, with Tampa losing 11-6 to the Tigers and Arizona falling 9-2 to Colorado.

1998 – The Milwaukee Brewers become the first team since the start of the American League in 1901 to switch leagues as they moved from the AL Central to the NL Central.

2017 – The UCONN women’s basketball team’s 111-game winning streak comes to an end as the Huskies fall to Mississippi State 66-64 in the national semi-finals.