On This Day: March 15

This is the 74th day of the year.

Fact of the Day: Ides of March

In the Roman calendar, the days of the month were not numbered sequentially. Instead, each month had three division days: kalends, nones, and ides. Days were numbered from these divisions: e.g., IV Nones or III Ides. The ides occurred on the 15th day of the month (or on the 13th in months than had less than 31 days). Julius Caesar was assassinated on this day in 44 BC. This calendar system was used into Renaissance times.

Holidays

Feast day of St. Longinus, St. Louise de Marillac, St. Zacharias, pope, St. Lucretia, St. Matrona, and St. Clement Mary Hofbauer.

Hungary: Anniversary of the Revolution of 1848.

Belarus: Constitution Day.

Ides of March.

Liberia: J.J. Roberts Day (first president).

Events

1820 - Maine became the 23rd state.

1892 - American inventor Jesse Reno patented the first escalator.

1913 - President Woodrow Wilson held the first open presidential news conference.

1917 - During the February Revolution, Czar Nicholas II, ruler of Russia since 1894, was forced to abdicate the throne by the Petrograd insurgents.

1919 - The American Legion was founded, in Paris.

1937 - The first blood bank was established, in Chicago's Cook County Hospital.

1964 - Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor married (each other) for the first time.

1965 - President Lyndon Johnson called for new legislation to guarantee every American's right to vote.

2002 - Andrea Yates of Houston, Texas, was sentenced to life in prison for drowning her five children in the bathtub.

Births

1767 - Andrew Jackson, 7th President of the United States of American (1829-1837).

1933 - Ruth Bader Ginsberg, U.S. Supreme Court Justice.

Deaths

44 B.C.E. - Roman dictator Julius Caesar, assassinated by a group of 60 conspirators that included Brutus and Cassius.