March 15

Events

• 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.
• 1493 - Christopher Columbus returns to Spain after his first trip to the Americas.
• 1820 - Maine becomes the 23rd U.S. state
• 1916 - President Woodrow Wilson sends 12,000 United States troops over the U.S.-Mexico border to pursue Pancho Villa.
• 1917 - Czar Nicholas II of Russia abdicates the Russian throne and his brother the Grand Duke becomes Tsar.
• 1922 - After Egypt gains nominal independence from the United Kingdom, Fuad I becomes King of Egypt.
• 1937 - Rally held by Jewish leaders in Madison Square Garden to "Boycott Nazi Germany".
• 1939 - World War II: Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia is established by proclamation issued by Adolf Hitler.
• 1943 - World War II: Third Battle of Kharkov - the Germans retake the city of Kharkov from the Soviet armies in bitter street fighting.
• 1944 - World War II: Battle of Monte Cassino - Allied aircraft bomb the German-held monastery and stage an assault.
• 1961 - South Africa withdraws from the Commonwealth of Nations.

Births

• 938 - Romanos II, Byzantine emperor (d. 963)
• 1767 - Andrew Jackson, 7th President of the United States (d. 1845)
• 1779 - Lord Melbourne, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1848)
• 1905 - Berthold von Stauffenberg, German lawyer and National Socialist opponent (July 20th Plot) (d. 1944)
• 1933 - Ruth Bader Ginsburg, American jurist

Deaths

• 44 BC - Julius Caesar (b. 100 BC)
• 493 - Odoacer, King of Italy (murdered) (b. 435)
• 1920 - Rudolf Berthold, German World War I flying ace (b. 1891)
• 1937 - H. P. Lovecraft, American writer (b. 1890)
• 1975 - Aristotle Onassis, Greek shipping magnate (b. 1900)