March 15

44BC Julius Caesar was killed at the senate house by a republican group during the Ides of March (March 15, 44 BC.) The 60 people involved in the plot included Brutus the son of his mistress. They feared Caesar was going to make himself King of Rome. 23 daggers in total were thrust into Caesar and he struggled until he saw his supposedly faithful friend, Brutus. After the murder Brutus and the other murderers had their homes set on fire by angry crowds.

The Death of Caesar (1798) by Vincenzo Camuccini

44BC Julius Caesar's lover Cleopatra and her entourage were in Rome when Caesar was assassinated on March 15, 44 BC. After her lover's death, Cleopatra returned to Egypt and lived in luxury in one of the smaller palaces in Alexandria with marble statuary.

1649 Following the parliamentary victory in the English Civil War, the puritan writer John Milton was appointed on March 15, 1649 as Secretary for Foreign Tongues by the Council of State at £288 p.a. Milton's main job description was to compose the English Republic's foreign correspondence in Latin, but he also was called upon to produce propaganda for the regime and to serve as a censor. After the death of Oliver Cromwell, Milton lost his job and fortune and returned to poetry.

Portrait of John Milton in National Portrait Gallery, London 

1767 Andrew Jackson, the 7th President of the United States, was born on March 15, 1767 in the Waxhaws region of North and South Carolina, southwest of the Uwharrie Mountains. His parents were Scots-Irish colonists Andrew and Elizabeth Hutchinson Jackson, Presbyterians who had emigrated from Ireland two years earlier. He was the first U.S. President who was not born into a rich family. Jackson was not a wealthy man and did not have a college education.

1813 English physician and epidemiologist John Snow was born on March 15, 1813 in York, England. A pioneer of medical hygiene, Snow traced the source of a cholera outbreak to a public water pump in Broad Street, Soho, London. After the local council disabled the well pump it ended the outbreak. The adoption of Snow's recommended sanitary precautions such as boiling all drinking water eliminated cholera from entire communities in England.

John Snow memorial on Broadwick Street (formerly Broad Street), Soho. Wikipedia

1820 As part of the Missouri Compromise, the exclave of Massachusetts known as Maine was given its own U.S. statehood on March 15, 1820, making it the 23rd state. Maine is both the northernmost state in New England and the largest, accounting for nearly half the region's whole land area. Fun fact: Maine is the only state that borders on only one state. (New Hampshire to the west).

1834 Andrew Jackson, the 7th President of the United States from 1829-1837, was born on March 15, 1767, while William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1834 to 1841, was also born on March 15, 1779. Therefore, from 1834-1837, the US President and UK Prime Minister had the same birthday.

1870 Charles Dickens' lucrative practice of reading publicly from his own work consumed a great deal of his energy for the twelve years of his life. In his lifetime Dickens made more money from his lectures than he did from his novels. He gave his last reading in the UK on March 15, 1870 at St James's Hall, Piccadilly in London. Although in grave health by this time, he read A Christmas Carol and The Trial from The Pickwick Papers.

Charles Dickens public reading Wood engraving from Harper's Weekly 

1877 The first Cricket Test match was played between Australia and England at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) in Melbourne, Australia, on March 15, 1877. The match started at 1:00 pm local time, and the first ball was bowled at 1:05 pm. Charles Bannerman of Australia faced the first ball, which was bowled by England's Alfred Shaw. The match was played over four days, and Australia won by 45 runs. 

1884 The Saint Bernard breed of working dog known was originated by the monks of the Hospice du Grand St. Bernard in the St. Gotthard's Pass to move through snow and rescue trapped people. The hospice was named after St Bernard of Montjoux, the patron saint of skiers. The Swiss St. Bernard Club was founded in Basel on March 15, 1884. The breed standard was approved in 1888 and since then, the St. Bernard has been a Swiss national dog.

St Bernard

1892  Fourteen years after the formation of Everton Football club, Liverpool F.C. was founded. It was formed on March 15, 1892 following a dispute between the Everton committee and John Houlding, club president and owner of the land at Anfield. Liverpool played their first match on against Rotherham Town,winning 7–1. Their team was composed entirely of Scottish players, so they became known as the "team of Macs".

1892 On March 15, 1892, Jesse W. Reno, a graduate of Lehigh University, produced the first working escalator. He installed it alongside the Old Iron Pier at Coney Island, New York City four years later.  It was intended for fun, rather than for practical purposes and was ridden by 75,000 people during the two-week Coney Island exhibition. With a 25 per cent incline rising 7 feet off the ground, the Coney Island escalator had a belt that moved at 22.8 metres (75ft) a minute.

1903 St Patrick's Day became a public holiday in Ireland in 1903 thanks to an Irish MP James O'Mara. The first St Patrick's Day parade in Ireland was also held in 1903. The week of St Patrick's Day 1903 had been declared Irish Language Week by the Gaelic League and in Waterford they opted to have a procession on Sunday March 15.

1906 The rich aristocratic Honorable Charles Stewart Rolls was an early car seller and repairer. He first met the self-taught electrical engineer and automobile builder Frederick Henry Royce in 1904. During their meeting the pair signed a deal and the first Rolls-Royce car, the two-cylinder Rolls-Royce 10 hp, was unveiled  later in the year. Rolls-Royce Limited was incorporated on March 15, 1906 as a vehicle for the partners' ownership of their Rolls-Royce business.

A 1905 model Rolls Royce 10 hp. By Terry Whalebone - Flickr. 

1909 London’s first large department store, Selfridges, was opened by American retail showman Harry Gordon Selfridge on March 15, 1909. He tried to make shopping fun and a form of leisure rather than a chore and introduced the phrase, ‘the customer is always right’.

1917 Following mass demonstrations and violent armed clashes with police and gendarmes, Nicholas II of Russia chose to abdicate at 3 o'clock in the afternoon of March 15, 1917, ending three centuries of Romanov rule. Nicholas desperately wanted to go into exile in the United Kingdom following his abdication. However  the British government declined to accept the Romanovs and instead Nicholas and his family were held as prisoners. Sixteen months later they were executed by a firing squad.

1921 Between 1915–16 up to 1.5 million Armenians were massacred or deported by the Turks. 

Talaat Pasha, mastermind of Armenian Genocide, was assassinated by Armenian revolutionary and genocide survivor Soghomon Tehlirian on March 15, 1921. Despite the assassination occurring in broad daylight, and with Soghomon Tehlirian pleading guilty, the assassin was acquitted by reason of temporary insanity. Soghomon Tehlirian is a national hero in Armenia.

1935 Percy Shaw founded his company Reflecting Roadstuds Limited on March 15, 1935 to make cat's eyes. The "cat's eye" is the trade name of the glass reflectors, in resilient rubber pads, which are set into the surface of a highway to provide safe markings at night. They were designed in 1934 by Percy Shaw (1890–1976), and were inspired by his difficulties in driving along dark Yorkshire roads.

1958 On March 15, 1958, Elvis Presley performed a show at Memphis' Russwood Park. Nine days later, Presley was drafted into the U.S. Army as a private at Fort Chaffee, near Fort Smith, Arkansas. He went through regular training and then served as a truck driver in West Germany. Aside from two benefit shows in 1961, this would be the last Presley concert until 1969.

Presley being sworn into the U.S. Army at Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, March 24, 1958

1964 Elizabeth Taylor's marriages to Richard Burton lasted from March 15, 1964 to June 26, 1974 and from October 10, 1975 to July 29, 1976. Their first wedding was at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Montreal. Taylor made 11 films with Richard Burton, plus one made-for-TV movie in 1973 entitled Divorce His, Divorce Hers, about a couple whose marriage had ended. Just a year after that film's release, the real-life couple of Taylor and Burton got divorced for the first time.

1965 On March 15, 1965 three-year-old Barack Obama's divorced mother Ann Dunham married Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian graduate student. Barack was reared by a "Christian-turned-secular mother" and was the son of a "Muslim-turned-atheist African father" and a stepfather with a "unique brand of Islam." They divorced in 1980.

1970 Boston Bruin ice hockey star Bobby Orr used his ice skating speed, scoring, and play-making abilities to revolutionize the position of defenseman. He became the first defenseman in NHL history to score 100 points in a season on March 15, 1970.

1985 The Internet's Domain Name System was created in 1985. The first domain ever registered was Symbolics.com on March 15, 1985.  It was registered by the Symbolics Computer Corporation in Massachusetts. The symbolics.com domain was purchased by XF.com in 2009.

2011 The Syrian Civil War began on March 15, 2011, with demonstrations in Damascus and Aleppo  demanding the resignation of President Bashar al-Assad. The protests continued in Syria and the following month the Syrian Army fired on demonstrators across the country. After months of military battles, the protests turned into an armed rebellion.

April 2011 demonstration in Homs against the Syrian Government. By Bo yaser Wikipedia

2022 The record for the most cinema productions attended for the same film is held by Ramiro Alanis from the United States. He achieved this feat by watching Spider-Man: No Way Home a staggering 292 times between December 16, 2021, and March 15, 2022. This wasn't his first time holding the record. In 2019, he also held the title for watching Avengers: Endgame 191 times.