50+ Lifestyles

Beware the Ides of March

By Eloise Graham

In 44 BC on March 15, Roman Emperor Julius Caesar was assassinated.

Here are some other events that have happened on March 15 throughout history.

On this day in 1781, American Revolutionaries won a strategic victory over the British at the Battle of Guilford Courthouse in North Carolina.

It was in 1875 that Pope Pius IX appointed John McCloskey the first American cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church.

During the first phase of the Russian Revolution, Tsar Nicholas II was forced to abdicate in 1917. This was the end of the rule of the Romanov Dynasty.

Following a highly publicized affair, American actress Elizabeth Taylor married British actor Richard Burton in Montreal, Canada on March 15, 1964. Elizabeth and Richard fell in love while filming Cleopatra. Elizabeth and Richard divorced in 1974 and briefly remarried in 1975 – 1976.

On March 15,1965, about one week after a civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery was halted due to violent opposition, U. S. President Lyndon B. Johnson delivered his We Shall Overcome speech. In the speech he introduced voting rights legislation that was passed later that year.

In 1972 The Godfather, an epic drama about organized crime, premiered to universal acclaim. This Academy Award winning film was directed by Francis Ford Coppola and starred Al Pacino and Marlon Brando.

The Congress of People’s Deputies of the U.S.S.R. elected Mikhail Gorbachev to the newly created post of President 0f the Soviet Union. The year was 1990.

In 2003, Hu Jintao succeeded Jiang Zemin as President of China. Hu Jintao was President for 10 years.

March 15, 2011 saw many antigovernment protests being held in several cities across Syria. This was considered the beginning of the country’s civil war.

In 2019, more than 1.5 million students participated in climate change protests around the world as part of Friday’s for Future. This was a movement started by Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg.