January 4 » Utah is admitted as the 45th U.S. state.
February 21 » An Englishman raised in Australia, Bob Fitzsimmons, fought an Irishman, Peter Maher, in an American promoted event which technically took place in Mexico, winning the 1896 World Heavyweight Championship in boxing.
June 2 » Guglielmo Marconi applies for a patent for his wireless telegraph.
December 17 » Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania's Schenley Park Casino, which was the first multi-purpose arena with the technology to create an artificial ice surface in North America, is destroyed in a fire.
December 30 » Canadian ice hockey player Ernie McLea scores the first hat-trick in Stanley Cup play, and the Cup-winning goal as the Montreal Victorias defeat the Winnipeg Victorias 6–5.
December 30 » Filipino patriot and reform advocate José Rizal is executed by a Spanish firing squad in Manila.
Day of death March 31, 1947
The temperature on March 31, 1947 was between 5.0 °C and 14.4 °C and averaged 9.1 °C. There was 8.0 hours of sunshine (62%). The average windspeed was 3 Bft (moderate breeze) and was prevailing from the south-southwest. Source: KNMI
January 1 » Cold War: The American and British occupation zones in Allied-occupied Germany, after World War II, merge to form the Bizone, which later (with the French zone) became part of West Germany.
January 25 » Thomas Goldsmith Jr. files a patent for a "Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device", the first ever electronic game.
March 1 » The International Monetary Fund begins financial operations.
March 25 » An explosion in a coal mine in Centralia, Illinois kills 111.
October 30 » The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the foundation of the World Trade Organization (WTO), is founded.
November 25 » Red Scare: The "Hollywood Ten" are blacklisted by Hollywood movie studios.
When copying data from this family tree, please include a reference to the origin: Hans Pruckmuller, "Family tree Van Willigen", database, Genealogy Online (https://www.genealogieonline.nl/van-willigen-stamboom/I7220.php : accessed January 9, 2026), "Lena Wilhelmina Veerman (1870-1947)".
Copy warning
Genealogical publications are copyright protected. Although data is often retrieved from public archives, the searching, interpreting, collecting, selecting and sorting of the data results in a unique product. Copyright protected work may not simply be copied or republished.
Please stick to the following rules
Request permission to copy data or at least inform the author, chances are that the author gives permission, often the contact also leads to more exchange of data.
Do not use this data until you have checked it, preferably at the source (the archives).
State from whom you have copied the data and ideally also his/her original source.