This Day in History

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March 15

44 BC – Julius Caesar, Dictator of the Roman Republic, is stabbed to death by Marcus Junius Brutus, Gaius Cassius Longinus, Decimus Junius Brutus, and several other Roman senators on the Ides of March.

493 – Odoacer, the first barbarian King of Italy after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, is slain by Theoderic the Great, king of the Ostrogoths, while the two kings were feasting together.

1493 – Christopher Columbus returns to Spain after his first trip to the Americas.

1783 – In an emotional speech in Newburgh, New York, George Washington asks his officers not to support the Newburgh Conspiracy. The plea is successful and the threatened coup d'état never takes place.

1819 – French physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel wins a contest at the Academie des Sciences in Paris by proving that light behaves like a wave. The Fresnel integrals, still used to calculate wave patterns, silence skeptics who had backed the particle theory of Isaac Newton.

1820 – Maine becomes the 23rd U.S. state.

1906 – Rolls-Royce Limited is incorporated.

1917 – Tsar Nicholas II of Russia abdicates the Russian throne ending the 304-year Romanov dynasty.

1931 – SS Viking explodes off Newfoundland, killing 27 of the 147 on board.

1952 – In Cilaos, Réunion, 1870 mm (73 inches) of rain falls in a 24-hour period, setting a new world record (March 15 through March 16).

1985 – The first Internet domain name is registered (symbolics.com).

1990 – Mikhail Gorbachev is elected as the first President of the Soviet Union.

2011 – Beginning of the Syrian Civil War.

Births

270 – Saint Nicholas (no, not that one), 1767 – Andrew Jackson, 1887 – Marjorie Merriweather Post, 1911 – Lightnin' Hopkins, 1913 – Macdonald Carey, 1933 – Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 1935 – Judd Hirsch, 1935 – Jimmy Swaggart, 1940 – Phil Lesh, 1941 – Mike Love, 1943 – David Cronenberg, 1943 – Sly Stone, 1947 – Ry Cooder, 1955 – Dee Snider, 1956 – Clay Matthews, Jr., 1959 – Fabio, 1962 – Terence Trent D'Arby, 1963 – Bret Michaels, 1964 – Rockwell, 1968 – Mark McGrath, 1969 – Kim Raver, 1972 – Mike Tomlin, 1975 – will.i.am, 1975 – Eva Longoria, 1985 – Kellan Lutz

Deaths

44 BC – Julius Caesar, 220 – Cao Cao, 493 – Odoacer, 1898 – Henry Bessemer, 1937 – H. P. Lovecraft, 1975 – Aristotle Onassis, 1997 – Gail Davis, 1998 – Benjamin Spock, 2001 – Ann Sothern, 2007 – Bowie Kuhn, 2009 – Ron Silver, 2014 – David Brenner, 2015 – Mike Porcaro

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March 16

1621 – Samoset, a Mohegan, visited the settlers of Plymouth Colony and greets them, in English, "Welcome, Englishmen! My name is Samoset."

1802 – The Army Corps of Engineers is established to found and operate the United States Military Academy at West Point.

1870 – The first version of the overture fantasy Romeo and Juliet by Tchaikovsky receives its première performance.

1916 – The 7th and 10th US cavalry regiments under John J. Pershing cross the US–Mexico border to join the hunt for Pancho Villa.

1926 – History of Rocketry: Robert Goddard launches the first liquid-fueled rocket, at Auburn, Massachusetts.

1936 – Warmer-than-normal temperatures rapidly melt snow and ice on the upper Allegheny and Monongahela rivers, leading to a major flood in Pittsburgh.

1945 – World War II: The Battle of Iwo Jima ended, but small pockets of Japanese resistance persisted.

1945 – Ninety percent of Würzburg, Germany is destroyed in only 20 minutes by British bombers, resulting in around 5,000 deaths.

1958 – The Ford Motor Company produces its 50 millionth automobile, the Thunderbird, averaging almost a million cars a year since the company's founding.

1968 – General Motors produces its 100 millionth automobile, an Oldsmobile Toronado.

1978 – Supertanker Amoco Cadiz splits in two after running aground on the Portsall Rocks, three miles off the coast of Brittany, resulting in the largest oil spill in history at that time.

1984 – William Buckley, the CIA station chief in Beirut, Lebanon, is kidnapped by Islamic fundamentalists. (He later dies in captivity.)

1985 – Associated Press newsman Terry Anderson is taken hostage in Beirut. He is released on December 4, 1991.

1988 – Iran–Contra affair: Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North and Vice Admiral John Poindexter are indicted on charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States.

1988 – Halabja chemical attack: The Kurdish town of Halabja in Iraq is attacked with a mix of poison gas and nerve agents on the orders of Saddam Hussein, killing 5000 people and injuring about 10000 people.

1995 – Mississippi formally ratifies the Thirteenth Amendment, becoming the last state to approve the abolition of slavery. The Thirteenth Amendment was officially ratified in 1865.

Births

1751 – James Madison, 1822 – Rosa Bonheur, 1906 – Henny Youngman, 1911 – Josef Mengele, 1916 – Mercedes McCambridge, 1926 – Jerry Lewis, 1927 – Daniel Patrick Moynihan, 1940 – Bernardo Bertolucci, 1941 – Chuck Woolery, 1942 – Jerry Jeff Walker, 1949 – Erik Estrada, 1949 – Victor Garber, 1950 – Kate Nelligan, 1951 – Ray Benson, 1954 – Nancy Wilson, 1956 – Clifton Powell, 1959 – Flavor Flaaaaav, 1961 – Todd McFarlane, 1964 – Gore Verbinski, 1967 – Ronnie McCoury

Deaths

37 – Tiberius, 455 – Valentinian III, 1903 – Judge Roy Bean, 1971 – Bebe Daniels, 1971 – Thomas E. Dewey, 1975 – T-Bone Walker, 1983 – Arthur Godfrey, 1988 – Mickey Thompson, 2013 – Frank Thornton, 2014 – Gary Bettenhausen, 2016 – Frank Sinatra, Jr.

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March 17

45 BC – In his last victory, Julius Caesar defeats the Pompeian forces of Titus Labienus and Pompey the Younger in the Battle of Munda.

180 – Marcus Aurelius dies leaving Commodus the sole emperor of the Roman Empire.

1337 – Edward, the Black Prince is made Duke of Cornwall, the first Duchy in England.

1776 – American Revolution: British forces evacuate Boston, ending the Siege of Boston, after George Washington and Henry Knox place artillery in positions overlooking the city.

1780 – American Revolution: George Washington grants the Continental Army a holiday "as an act of solidarity with the Irish in their fight for independence".

1891 – SS Utopia collides with HMS Anson in the Bay of Gibraltar and sinks, killing 562 of the 880 passengers on board.

1941 – In Washington, D.C., the National Gallery of Art is officially opened by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

1942 – Holocaust: The first Jews from the Lvov Ghetto are gassed at the Belzec death camp in what is today eastern Poland.

1947 – First flight of the B-45 Tornado strategic bomber.

1948 – Belgium, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom sign the Treaty of Brussels, a precursor to the North Atlantic Treaty establishing NATO.

1960 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the National Security Council directive on the anti-Cuban covert action program that will ultimately lead to the Bay of Pigs Invasion.

1966 – Off the coast of Spain in the Mediterranean, the DSV Alvin submarine finds a missing American hydrogen bomb.

1968 – As a result of nerve gas testing in Skull Valley, Utah, over 6,000 sheep are found dead.

1973 – The Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph Burst of Joy is taken, depicting a former prisoner of war being reunited with his family, which came to symbolize the end of United States involvement in the Vietnam War.

1985 – Serial killer Richard Ramirez, aka the "Night Stalker", commits the first two murders in his Los Angeles murder spree.

2000 – Five hundred thirty members of the Ugandan cult Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God die in a fire, considered to be a mass murder or suicide orchestrated by leaders of the cult. Elsewhere another 248 members are later found dead.

Births

1804 – Jim Bridger, 1834 – Gottlieb Daimler, 1902 – Bobby Jones, 1919 – Nat King Cole, 1938 – Rudolf Nureyev, 1941 – Paul Kantner, 1944 – Pattie Boyd, 1944 – John Sebastian, 1949 – Patrick Duffy, 1951 – Kurt Russell, 1954 – Lesley-Anne Down, 1955 – Paul Overstreet, 1955 – Gary Sinise, 1959 – Danny Ainge, 1960 – Arye Gross, 1960 – Vicki Lewis, 1961 – Sam Bowie, 1961 – Casey Siemaszko, 1964 – Rob Lowe, 1967 – Billy Corgan, 1969 – Alexander McQueen, 1972 – Mia Hamm

Deaths

180 – Marcus Aurelius, 1853 – Christian Doppler, 1956 – Fred Allen, 1974 – Louis Kahn, 1990 – Capucine, 1993 – Helen Hayes, 1994 – Mai Zetterling, 1996 – Terry Stafford, 2006 – Oleg Cassini

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March 18

37 – The Roman Senate annuls Tiberius's will and proclaims Caligula emperor.

1834 – Six farm labourers from Tolpuddle, Dorset, England are sentenced to be transported to Australia for forming a trade union.

1850 – American Express is founded by Henry Wells and William Fargo.

1865 – American Civil War: The Congress of the Confederate States adjourns for the last time.

1874 – Hawaii signs a treaty with the United States granting exclusive trade rights.

1892 – Former Governor General Lord Stanley pledges to donate a silver challenge cup, later named after him, as an award for the best hockey team in Canada the Stanley Cup.

1915 – World War I: During the Battle of Gallipoli, three battleships are sunk during a failed British and French naval attack on the Dardanelles.

1922 – In India, Mohandas Gandhi is sentenced to six years in prison for civil disobedience, of which he serves only two.

1925 – The Tri-State Tornado hits the Midwestern states of Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana, killing 695 people.

1937 – The New London School explosion in New London, Texas, kills 300 people, mostly children.

1938 – Mexico creates Pemex by expropriating all foreign-owned oil reserves and facilities.

1942 – The War Relocation Authority is established in the United States to take Japanese Americans into custody.

1944 – The eruption of Mount Vesuvius in Italy kills 26 people and causes thousands to flee their homes.

1965 – Cosmonaut Alexey Leonov, leaving his spacecraft Voskhod 2 for 12 minutes, becomes the first person to walk in space.

1967 – The supertanker Torrey Canyon runs aground off the Cornish coast.

1968 – Gold standard: The U.S. Congress repeals the requirement for a gold reserve to back US currency.

1990 – In the largest art theft in US history, 12 paintings, collectively worth around $300 million, are stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston.

1997 – The tail of a Russian Antonov An-24 charter plane breaks off while en route to Turkey causing the plane to crash and killing all 50 people on board.

Births

1496 – Mary Tudor, Queen of France, 1782 – John C. Calhoun, 1837 – Grover Cleveland (22nd & 24th POTUS), 1858 – Rudolf Diesel, 1869 – Neville Chamberlain, 1877 – Edgar Cayce, 1909 – Ernest Gallo, 1911 – Smiley Burnette♪ ♫, 1915 – Richard Condon, 1923 – Andy Granatelli, 1926 – Peter Graves (Mission: Impossible, Airplane! movie series, The Ballad of Josie), 1927 – George Plimpton, 1932 – John Updike, 1936 – F. W. de Klerk, 1937 – Mark Donohue, 1938 – Charley Pride♪ ♫, 1941 – Wilson Pickett♪ ♫, 1943 – Kevin Dobson, 1947 – B. J. Wilson(Procol Harum), 1950 – Brad Dourif, 1951 – Ben Cohen (co-founded Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream), 1959 – Luc Besson, 1962 – Irene Cara♪ ♫, 1962 – Thomas Ian Griffith, 1963 – Jeff LaBar(Cinderella), 1963 – Vanessa L. Williams, 1964 – Bonnie Blair, 1966 – Jerry Cantrell(Alice In Chains), 1970 – Queen Latifah, 1972 – Dane Cook (attempted American comedian), 1979 – Adam Levine♪ ♫(Maroon 5, judge on The Voice), 1992 – Ryan Truex

Deaths

1845 – Johnny Appleseed, 1947 – William C. Durant (co-founded General Motors and Chevrolet), 2001 – John Phillips♪ ♫(The Mamas & The Papas), 2003 – Adam Osborne (founded the Osborne Computer Corporation), 2009 – Natasha Richardson, 2011 – Warren Christopher

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March 21

Today is observed as Education Freedom Day, and, no, that does not mean free education, nor freedom from education, ya wingnut.

Our Aussie friends are celebrating Harmony Day today.

This date also marks International Color Day, International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, International Day of Forests, World Down Syndrome Day, World Poetry Day, as well as World Puppetry Day.


Events

630 – Emperor Heraclius returns the True Cross, one of the holiest Christian relics, to Jerusalem.

1152 – Annulment of the marriage of King Louis VII of France and Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine.

1556 – In Oxford, Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer is burned at the stake.

1871 – Journalist Henry Morton Stanley begins his trek to find the missionary and explorer David Livingstone.

1913 – Over 360 are killed and 20,000 homes destroyed in the Great Dayton Flood in Dayton, Ohio. Ohio's worst natural disaster to date.

1925 – The Butler Act prohibits the teaching of human evolution in Tennessee.

1928 – Charles Lindbergh is presented with the Medal of Honor for the first solo trans-Atlantic flight.

1935 – Shah of Iran Reza Shah Pahlavi formally asks the international community to call Persia by its native name, Iran.

1943 – Wehrmacht officer Rudolf von Gersdorff plots to assassinate Adolf Hitler by using a suicide bomb, but the plan falls through; von Gersdorff is able to defuse the bomb in time and avoid suspicion.

1946 – The Los Angeles Rams sign Kenny Washington, making him the first African American player in American football since 1933.

1952 – Alan Freed presents the Moondog Coronation Ball, the first rock and roll concert, in Cleveland, Ohio.

1963 – Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary closes.

1965 – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. leads 3,200 people on the start of the third and finally successful civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.

1980 – US President Jimmy Carter announces a United States boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow to protest the Soviet war in Afghanistan.

1983 – The first cases of the 1983 West Bank fainting epidemic begin; Israelis and Palestinians accuse each other of poison gas, but the cause is later determined mostly to be psychosomatic.

1986 – Debi Thomas became the first African American to win the World Figure Skating Championship.

1999 – Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones (no, not that one) become the first to circumnavigate the Earth in a hot air balloon.

2000 – Pope John Paul II makes his first ever pontifical visit to Israel.

2004 - Ozzy Osbourne was named the nation's favorite ambassador to welcome aliens to planet earth. The 55-year-old singer came out on top of a poll as the face people want to represent them to alien life. The poll of internet users was carried out following the discovery of signs of water on Mars. Ozzy won 26 per cent of the vote. A spokesman for Yahoo! News said: "As the world waits desperately for signs of alien life, we decided to ask our users who they thought was best suited for this most auspicious of roles. Ozzy is a great choice but I'm not sure what the Martians would make of his individual approach to the English language."

2006 – The social media site Twitter is founded. Perhaps you've heard of it?

2009 – Four police officers are shot and killed and a fifth is wounded in two shootings at Oakland, California.

Births

1867 – Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr. (of the Ziegfeld Follies), 1880 – Broncho Billy Anderson, 1902 – Son House, 1904 – Forrest Mars, Sr. (created M&M's and Mars bar, PBUH), 1910 – Julio Gallo, 1922 – Russ Meyer, 1930 – James Coco, 1940 – Solomon Burke♪ ♫, 1945 – Rose Stone(Sly & The Family Stone), 1946 – Timothy Dalton, 1949 – Eddie Money♪ ♫, 1951 – Conrad Lozano(Los Lobos), 1958 – Brad Hall, 1958 – Gary Oldman, 1962 – Matthew Broderick, 1962 – Rosie O'Donnell(American mouth), 1976 – Rachael MacFarlane (voice of 'Hayley' on American Dad!, Seth MacFarlane's sister), 1990 – Mandy Capristo♪ ♫

Deaths

1556 – Thomas Cranmer, 1891 – Joseph E. Johnston, 1985 – Michael Redgrave, 1987 – Robert Preston, 1991 – Leo Fender♪ ♫, 1992 – John Ireland, 1994 – Macdonald Carey, 1997 – Wilbert Awdry (created Thomas the Tank Engine), 2011 – Pinetop Perkins♪ ♫, 2014 – James Rebhorn (that guy who was in that thing)

[xoxoxoBruce]

2004 - Ozzy Osbourne was named the nation's favorite ambassador to welcome aliens to planet earth. The 55-year-old singer came out on top of a poll as the face people want to represent them to alien life. The poll of internet users was carried out following the discovery of signs of water on Mars. Ozzy won 26 per cent of the vote. A spokesman for Yahoo! News said: "As the world waits desperately for signs of alien life, we decided to ask our users who they thought was best suited for this most auspicious of roles. Ozzy is a great choice but I'm not sure what the Martians would make of his individual approach to the English language."

Certainly, after he bit the head off a bat, and got down on the sidewalk to snort a line of live ants, those aliens would leave so fast they'd leave skid marks.