On this day in History - Mar. 15

• 44 BC - Ides of March: Julius Caesar (b. 100 BC) General of the Roman Republic, is assassinated by a group of Roman senatorsby a group of nobles, among whom were Cassius and Brutus.
• 0076 Hadrian, was born, Roman Emperor (builder of Hadrian's Wall) .
• 0220 - Cao Cao曹操, King of the Kingdom of Wei dies .
• 0493 - Odoacer dies (murdered by Theoderic the Great) (b. 435). King of Italy.
• 0624 - At the Battle of Abdr, Muhammad and his followers defeated an army from Mecca.
• 0752 - Pope Zacharias died.
• 0963 - Romanus II dies at 25. Byzantine emperor (959-63).
• 1147 - Santarém foi tomada aos Mouros, por D. Afonso Henriques.
• 1311 - Battle of Halmyros: The Catalan Company defeats Walter V of Brienne to take control of the Duchy of Athens, a Crusader state in Greece.
• 1416 - Falecimento de João, Duque de Berry .
• 1455 - Pietro Accolti was born (d. 1532). Italian Catholic cardinal.
• 1493 - Christopher Columbus returns to Spain after his first trip to the Americas.
• 1519 - Batalla de Centla o segunda batalla de Tabasco, en la que Hernán Cortés obtiene una victoria decisiva para la conquista de México.
• 1545 - First meeting of the Council of Trent.
• 1575 - Annibale Padovano dies (b. 1527). Italian composer.
• 1591 - Alexandre de Rhodes was born (d. 1660). French Jesuit missionary.
• 1614 - Franciscus Sylvius was born in Hanau. German scientist, whose studies helped shift medical emphasis from mystical speculation to a rational application of the laws of physics
• 1638 - Shunzhi Emperor of China was born.
• 1666 - George Bähr was born (d. 1738). German architect.
• 1672 - Charles II of England issues the Royal Declaration of Indulgence.
• 1673 - Salvator Rosa dies at 57. Italian painter (Baroque), poet, music and actor.
• 1684 - Francesco Durante was born (d. 1755). Italian composer.
• 1713 - Nicolas Louis de Lacaille was born (d. 1762). French astronomer.
• 1738 - Cesare Beccaria was born († 1794) . Italian writer On Crimes and Punishments (1764).
• 1767 - Andrew Jackson was born (d. 1845). 7th President of the United States.
• 1778 - Nootka Sound, Vancouver Island, was discovered by Captain Cook.
• 1779 - Lord Melbourne was born (d. 1848). Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
• 1781 - American Revolutionary War: Battle of Guilford Courthouse - Near present-day Greensboro, North Carolina, 1,900 British troops under General Charles Cornwallis defeat an American force numbering 4,400.
• 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'etat never takes place.
• 1800 - Heinrich von Dechsen was born (d. 1889). German geologist and mineralogist.
• 1801 - George Perkins Marsh was born (d. 23 Jul 1882). American conservationist, whose book Man and Nature, or Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action (1864) was one of the 19th century's classic influences on geography, ecology, and resource management.
• 1804 - Promulgación en Francia del Código Civil, llamado Código de Napoleón.
• 1813 - John Snow was born (d. 16 Jun 1858 ). English obstetrician who was among the first to use anesthesia, but renowned as a pioneering epidemiologist. In On the Mode of Communication of Cholera (1849), Snow suggested that cholera was a contagious disease easily transmitted by contaminated water.
• 1815 - Germain Sommeiller was born (d. 11 Jul 1871). French engineer who built the Mount Cenis (Fréjus) Tunnel (1857-70) in the Alps, the world's first important mountain tunnel, is an 8 miles long double track railway tunnel through the Alps under Mont Cenis, to unite Italian Savoy (north of the mountains) through Switzerland with the rest of Italy to the south.
• 1820 - St Clemens Maria Hofbauer dies (b. 1751). Patron Saint of Vienna.
• 1820 - Maine becomes the 23rd U.S. state.
• 1821 - Josef Loschmidt was born in Putschim (Pocerny), Bohemia (d.1895). Pioneer of 19th-century physics and chemistry.
• 1827 - The University of Toronto is chartered .
• 1830 - Paul von Heyse was born (d. 1914). German writer and winner of the Nobel Prize in literature 1910
• 1835 - Eduard Strauss was born (d. 1916). Austrian composer.
• 1838 - Alice Cunningham Fletcher was born (d. 6 Apr 1923). American anthropologist whose stature as a social scientist, notably for her pioneer study of Indian music, has overshadowed her influence on federal government Indian policies that later were considered to be unfortunate.
• 1839 - Venezuela y Gran Bretaña firman un tratado sobre la abolición del tráfico de esclavos.
• 1842 - Luigi Cherubini dies. Composer.
• 1848 - Revolution breaks out in Pest. The Habsburg rulers are compelled to meet the demands of the Reform party.
• 1849 - Giuseppe Caspar Mezzofanti dies. Cardinal and linguist.
• 1851 - Carolina Michaelis de Vasconcelos was born (d. 1925). German-born Portuguese philologist and historian of literature.
• 1851 - Nascimento de Francisco Maria Victor Cordon, explorador do continente africano, que procedeu à ocupação do território entre Quelimane e o Zumbo, em Moçambique .
• 1854 - Emil Adolf von Behring was born. German bacteriologist who is considered the founder of the science of immunology. He received in 1901 the first Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on serum therapy, especially its application against diphtheria.
• 1855 - Sir Charles Vernon Boys was born (d. 30 March 1944). English physicist and inventor of sensitive instruments. He graduated in mining and metallurgy, self-taught in a wide knowledge of geometrical methods.
• 1858 - Revolución en Venezuela. El Presidente José Tades Monagas dimite y se pone bajo la protección del cuerpo diplomático.
• 1858 - Liberty Hyde Bailey was born (d. 25 Dec 1954). American horticulturist who helped create the science of horticulture, made systematic studies of cultivated plants, and advanced knowledge in hybridization, plant pathology, and agriculture.
• 1863 - España reconoce la independencia de Honduras.
• 1865 - Johan Halvorsen was born. Norwegian composer .
• 1873 - En la Guerra de Cuba comienza la batalla de las Guásimas.
• 1875 - Pope Pius IX appointed John McCloskey the first American cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church.
• 1877 - The first Test cricket match, between England and Australia .
• 1882 - Jim Lightbody was born (d. 1882). American middle-distance runner .
• 1886 - Sergei Kirov was born († 1886) . Soviet revolucionary.
• 1890 - Boris Nikolaevich Delaunay was born (d. 1980). Russian mathematician .
• 1891 - Sir Joseph Bazalgette dies (b. 1819). Civil engineer.
• 1892 - José María Reina Barrios comienza su gobierno en la República de Guatemala.
• 1897 - Jackson Scholz was born (d. 1986). American sprinter .
• 1898 - Henry Bessemer dies (b. 1813). English metallurgist.
• 1900 - Gilberto Freyre was born (d. 1987). Brazilian writer.
• 1905 - Berthold Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg was born (d. 1944). German lawyer and Nazi opponent.
• 1906 - Rolls-Royce Ltd. is registered, founded by Britten Rolls and Royce Johnson.
• 1907 - Zarah Leander was born (d. 1981). Swedish actress and singer.
• 1907 - Finland is 1st European country to give women the right to vote .
• 1909 - Selfridges department store opens in London.
• 1912 - Lightnin' Hopkins was born (d. 1982). Ameroican musician.
• 1912 - Yuan Shih-kai succeeded Sun Yat-sen as President of the Republic of China.
• 1913 - MacDonald Carey was born (d. 1994). American actor.
• 1913 - Lew Wasserman was born (d. 2002). American Hollywood agent and studio executive.
• 1914 - Aniello Dellacroce was born (d. 1985). American gangster.
• 1915 - Joe E. Ross was born (d. 1982). American actor and comedian.
• 1916 - Harry James was born (d. 1983). American musician and band leader.
• 1916 - Blas de Otero was born in Bilbao, Vizcaya (d. 1979). Spanish poet.
• 1916 - President Woodrow Wilson sends 12,000 United States troops over the Mexican border to pursue Pancho Villa.
• 1917 - Tsar Nicholas II of Russia abdicates himself and his son from the Russian throne and his brother the Grand Duke becomes Tsar.
• 1918 - Brasil: Rodrigues Alves vence pela segunda vez a eleição presidencial do País mas, vem a morrer o ano seguinte, antes de ter tomado posse.
• 1918 - Richard Ellmann was born (d. 1987). American biographer.
• 1919 - The American Legion forms in Paris.
• 1919 - Lawrence Tierney was born (d. 2002). American actor.
• 1920 - Lawrence Sanders was born (d. 1998). American novelist.
• 1920 - E. Donnall Thomas was born. American physician who in 1990 was corecipient (with Joseph E. Murray) of the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his work in transplanting bone marrow from one person to another - an achievement related to the cure of patients with acute leukemia and other blood cancers or blood diseases.
• 1922 - After Egypt gains nominal independence from the United Kingdom, Fuad I becomes King of Egypt.
• 1922 - El Partido Comunista de España celebra su primer congreso, donde se elige como secretario general a Antonio García Quejido.
• 1924 - Walter Gotell was born (d. 1997). German actor.
• 1926 - Norm Van Brocklin was born (d. 1983). American football star .
• 1927 - Stanislaw Kania was born. Polish politician.
• 1927 - Carl Smith was born. American singer.
• 1930 - Zhores Ivanovich Alferov was born. Russian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
• 1932 - Alan Bean was born. Astronaut
• 1933 - Ruth Bader Ginsburg was born. Associate justice of the United States Supreme Court .
• 1933 - Roy Clark was born. Country musician .
• 1935 - Jimmy Swaggart was born. American televangelist .
• 1935 - Judd Hirsch was born. American actor .
• 1937 - H. P. Lovecraft dies (b. 1890). Horror writer.
• 1938 - Just one day after the Nazi occupation of Austria began, Sigmund Freud's home in Vienna was taken over by German soldiers who destroyed his private library. Later they would also publicly burn any books of his found in the Vienna public library.
• 1939 - World War II: Nazi troops occupy the remaining part of Bohemia and Moravia; Czechoslovakia ceases to exist.
• 1940 - Phil Lesh was born. American musician ( The Grateful Dead).
• 1941 - Alexej von Jawlensky dies (b. 1864). Russian impressionist painter.
• 1941 - Mike Love was born. Musician ("The Beach Boys").
• 1942 - Alexander van Zemlinsky dies at 70. Austrian-US composer (African Dance).
• 1943 - World War II: Third Battle of Kharkov - the Germans retook the city of Kharkov from the Soviet armies in bitter street fighting.
• 1943 - David Cronenberg was born. Canadian film director .
• 1944 - Sly Stone was born. American musician .
• 1944 - Elisabeth Plessen was born. Writer .
• 1944 - World War II: Battle of Monte Cassino - Allied aircraft bomb the Nazi-held monastery and stage an assault.
• 1945 - Mark J. Green was born. Lawyer, author and public official .
• 1945 - Best of 1944 Oscar Awards. Co-hosts for the big show were actor/director John Cromwell (first half) and actor/comedian Bob Hope (second half). The Oscar for Best Picture went to the musical comedy, Going My Way. Best Director was Leo McCarey, who also wrote (Oscar: Best Writing/Original Story) and produced the Bing Crosby (Best Actor)/Barry Fitzgerald (nominated for Best Actor/winner of Best Supporting Actor) . Going My Way also scored an Academy Award for music (James Van Heusen), lyrics (Johnny Burke) for the song Swinging on a Star (a hit for Crosby, as was Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ra, also from the film) and Best Writing/Screenplay (Frank Butler, Frank Cavett). Best Actress Oscar was given to Ingrid Bergman for Gaslight and Best Supporting Actress was Ethel Barrymore for None But the Lonely Heart.
• 1946 - Bobby Bonds was born (d. 2003). Baseball player (d. 2003)
• 1946 - Howard Scott was born. Vocalist and guitarist of War.
• 1947 - Ry [Ryland] Cooder was born. American guitarist.
• 1948 - Sérgio Vieira de Mello was born (d. 2003). Brazilian diplomat.
• 1951 - O Irão nacionalizou a indústria petrolífera .
• 1952 - In Cilaos, Réunion, 73 inches (1,870mm) of rain falls in one day, setting a new world record.
• 1953 - World contact day
• 1954 - Craig Wasson was born. American actor
• 1955 - Dee Snider was born. American singer.
• 1956 - Nascimento de Júlio Prestes (Júlio Prestes de Albuquerque), 16° Presidente do Brasil (1930 - eleito, proclamado mas não empossado devido à revolução de 30), em Itapetininga-SP, no ano de 1882.
• 1956 - Nascimento de Oswaldo Montenegro (Oswaldo Viveiros Montenegro), cantor da MPB, no Rio de Janeiro-RJ, em 1956;
• 1956 - Clay Matthews was born. American football player .
• 1956 - The Broadway musical My Fair Lady opens in New York City.
• 1957 - Joaquim de Almeida was born in Lisbon. Portuguese actor.
• 1959 - Lester Young was born (d. 1909). American jazz musician.
• 1959 - Harold Baines was born. Former Major League Baseball player .
• 1959 - Fabio Lanzoni was born. Italian model
• 1960 - Enrique Urquijo was born. Spanish musician.
• 1961 - Ervin Nemeth was born. Hungarian educator, author, translator.
• 1961 - South Africa withdraws from the British Commonwealth .
• 1962 - Arthur Compton was born. American physician, Nobel Prize in Physics in 1927.
• 1962 - Terence Trent D'Arby was born. Singer .
• 1963 - Edward F. Williams, Jr. was born. Program Management Specialist, DJ .
• 1963 - Victor Feguer, a Federal prisoner, is put to death at the Fort Madison, Iowa prison. This would be the last execution of a Federal prisoner until the execution of Timothy McVeigh in 2001
• 1964 - Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton got married. The couple wed in secret ceremonies in Montreal, Canada.
• 1965 - Nasser was re-elected Egyptian President.
• 1966 - 8th Grammy Awards: Taste of Honey, Tom Jones, Sintra & Streisand.
• 1967 - Naoko Takeuchi was born. Japanese artist .
• 1968 - Sabrina Salerno was born. Italian showgirl .
• 1969 - A violent Chinese-Russian border dispute left hundreds dead.
• 1970 - The Expo '70 world's fair opens in Osaka, Japan.
• 1971 - Mark McGrath was born. Musician ("Sugar Ray") .
• 1972 - Mark Hoppus was born. Musician ("Blink 182") .
• 1974 - Brazil: General Geisel is elected President / No Brasil, o General Geisel foi eleito presidente após a resignação do Presidente Garastazu Médici.
• 1975 - Eva Longoria was born. American actress (The Young and the Restless, Desperate Housewives) .
• 1975 - Veselin Topalov was born. Bulgarian chess player
• 1975 - Aristotle Onassis dies (b. 1906). Shipping magnate.
• 1976 - Rock group KISS releases the legendary album Destroyer.
• 1976 - Jennifer 8. Lee was born. Journalist .
• 1979 - Bernardo Verbitsky dies. Argentine writer and joournalist.
• 1980 - Manuel Kayode Williams was born. Inventor, aeronautic, mathematician, entrepreneur .
• 1981 - Na Síria, mais de 140 reféns a bordo de um avião da Pakistan Airways, seqüestrado pela organização militante Al Zulfiqar, são libertados após 13 dias. Em troca, os paquistaneses libertaram 55 prisioneiros políticos.
• 1981 - René Clair dies.Film director
• 1983 - Josep Lluis Sert, arquitecto español.
• 1983 - Rebecca West, writer, (b. 1892) .
• 1984 - 10th People's Choice Awards: Brooke Shields .
• 1984 - Tanzania adopts constitution .
• 1985 - Two decades of military rule in Brazil ended with the installation of a civilian government. Tancredo Neves became ill on the eve of taking his oath and vice president José Sarney assumed as acting president. / Tancredo Neves não pode assumir a Presidencia do Brasil (por enfermidade). O vicepresidente, José Sarney, toma posse como presidente interino.
• 1985 - Antti Autti was born. Finnish snowboarder
• 1986 - La nave espacial soviética Soyuz T-15 se acopla a la estación orbital Mir.
• 1987 - 13th People's Choice Awards: Bill Cosby .
• 1988 - Wilson Ferreira Aldunate dies. Uruguyan politician.
• 1988 - Publication of Marvin Minsky's Society of Mind theory .
• 1988 - The Halabja poison gas attack of the Iran-Iraq War begins.
• 1989 - The United States Department of Veterans Affairs is established.
• 1989 - Caitlin Wachs was born. American actress (Air Bud) .
• 1990 - Gulf War: Iraq hangs British journalist Farzad Bazoft for spying.
• 1990 - Mikhail Gorbachev is elected as the first executive president of the Soviet Union.
• 1990 - The Soviet Union announces that Lithuania's declaration of independence is invalid.
• 1990 - The ethnic clashes of Targu Mures begin on the anniversary of the Revolutions of 1848 in the Habsburg areas.
• 1990 - Fernando Collor de Mello presta juramento como presidente do Brasil.
• 1990 - El Vaticano y la URSS establecen relaciones oficiales permanentes tras 73 años sin ellas.
• 1990 - Farzad Bazoft, Iranian-born journalist working for the Observer, hanged as a spy in Iraq.
• 1990 - Tom Harmon, American football star, broadcaster .
• 1990 - Orlando Pelayo, pintor de la Escuela Española de París.
• 1991 - Four Los Angeles, California police officers are indicted for the videotaped March 3, 1991 beating of motorist Rodney King during an arrest.
• 1991 - Germany formally regains complete independence after the four post-World War II occupying powers (Frane, the United Kingdom, the United States and the Soviet Union) relinquish all remaining rights.
• 1991 - Sergei Bubka pole vaults record during an international meet in San Sebastian, Spain.
• 1994 - Estados Unidos y Rusia llegan a un acuerdo para permitir la supervisión mutua del desmantelamiento de su armamento nuclear.
• 1994 - Mai Zetterling dies (b. 1925). Swedish actress and director.
• 1994 - 8th Soul Train Music Awards: Toni Braxton, Whitney Houston win .
• 1995 - Carlos Menem (hijo del presidente argentino) y el automovilista Silvio Oltra mueren al caer su helicóptero en Ramallo.
• 1996 - Teodoro Obiang, presidente de Guinea Ecuatorial, es investido Jefe de Estado.
• 1996 - Helen Chadwick dies at 42. British artist.
• 1998 - Tim Maia, querido e talentoso cantor e compositor brasileiro, falece aos 55 anos de idade.
• 1998 - Benjamin Spock dies in San Diego at 94 (b. 1903). Pediatrician, writer, Olympic gold-medal. He was the author of the 1946 "Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care."
• 1999 - Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney, Billy Joel and Dusty Springfield were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
• 1999 - In Bourbonnais, Illinois, the "City of New Orleans" Amtrak train derailed after hitting a truck loaded with steel. The truck was driven by John Stokes and 11 people were killed and 119 injured.
• 1999 - In Indonesia the government closed 38 banks, took over 7, and agreed to bail out 9 in an attempt to revitalize the financial system.
• 1999 - Yehudi Menuhin dies. American conductor.
• 2000 - Paleontologist Daniel Gebo announced the discovery of bones from 2 tiny primates, the size of a human thumb, that lived 42 million years ago in Shanghuang, China.
• 2000 - Darrell Keith Rich (45), serial killer, was executed at San Quentin, Ca. His was the 8th execution in the state since the reinstitution of the death penalty.
• 2001 - Chechen rebels hijacked a Russian plane with 174 people after it left Turkey. They forced a landing in Medina.
• 2001 - Ann Sothern dies (b. 1909). American actress.
• In Brazil a Petrobras oil-platform explosion killed 1 worker and left 9 missing at the 40-story offshore facility. The platform was in danger of sinking.
• 2002 - Sylvester Weaver dies. Television executive .
• 2002 - William Scholl (81), creator of Dr. Scholl's sandal, died on the Isle of Man. The family shoe business was begun by his uncle, an American physician, in 1906.
• 2002 - Rudolf Hell, inventor de los precursores del fax, el escáner y otros ingenios para la transmisión electrónica de textos e imágenes, falleció a los 100 años en Kiel (Alemania).
• 2003 - Hu Jintao succeeded Jiang Zemin as the president of China.
• 2003 - Dame Thora Hird dies (b. 1911). British actress.
• 2004 - Sir William Pickering dies (b. 1910). New-Zealand born space scientist, head of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
• 2004 - John Pople dies (b. 31 Oct 1925). British mathematician and chemist who, (with Walter Kohn), received the 1998 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on computational methodology to study the quantum mechanics of molecules, their properties and how they act together in chemical reactions. See Autobiographical page on Nobel site.
• 2004 - Announcement of the Discovery of 90377 Sedna, the farthest natural object in the Solar system so far observed.
• 2004 - The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted Prince, Bob Seger, Jackson Browne and George Harrison along with ZZ Top, Traffic and the Dells.
• 2004 - The Bill Gates Foundation donated $47 million to private agencies carrying out AIDS prevention programs in India.Links: India, AIDS, Donation
• Dia Mundial dos Direitos do Consumidor (no Brasil, Lei 8.078).
• International Day Against Police Brutality