On this day: March 15

Events on March 15

• 44 BC Julius Caesar , the dictator of the Roman Republic, was stabbed to death by a group of senators led by Marcus Junius Brutus. Wikipedia
• 856 Byzantine emperor Michael III overthrew the regency of his mother Theodora to assume power for himself. Wikipedia
• 1147 Reconquista: Portuguese troops under King Afonso I captured the city of Santarém from the Almoravids. Wikipedia
• 1311 In the Battle of Halmyros, the Catalan Company defeated the forces of Walter V, Count of Brienne, taking control of the Duchy of Athens, a Crusader state in present-day Greece. Wikipedia
• 1783 George Washington delivered a speech to Continental Army officers in Newburgh, New York, asking them to support the supremacy of the Congress of the Confederation, defusing a potential coup. Wikipedia
• 1820 Maine is admitted as the twenty-third U.S. state. Wikipedia
• 1823 American sailor Benjamin Morrell erroneously reported the existence of New South Greenland, a phantom island, near Antarctica. Wikipedia
• 1848 A revolution breaks out in Hungary, and the Habsburg rulers are compelled to meet the demands of the reform party. Wikipedia
• 1874 France and Vietnam signed the Second Treaty of Saigon, further recognizing the full sovereignty of France over Cochinchina. Wikipedia
• 1875 John McCloskey, the Roman Catholic archbishop of New York, was created the first cardinal from the United States. Wikipedia
• 1910 Prospectors drilled into a pressurized deposit within the Midway-Sunset Oil Field in California, resulting in the largest accidental oil spill in history, which eventually released 9 million barrels (1.4 million m3) of crude oil over 18 months. Wikipedia
• 1916 Six days after Pancho Villa and his cross-border raiders attacked Columbus, New Mexico, U.S. general John J. Pershing led a punitive expedition into Mexico to pursue him. Wikipedia
• 1917 Russian Revolution: Tsar Nicholas II was forced to abdicate in the February Revolution, ending three centuries of Romanov rule. Wikipedia
• 1918 Finnish Civil War: The Battle of Tampere started, leading to the capture of approximately 11,000 Red prisoners, and turning the tide of the war in favour of the Whites. Wikipedia
• 1921 Talaat Pasha, the main perpetrator of the Armenian genocide, was assassinated by Soghomon Tehlirian. Wikipedia
• 1927 In rowing, Oxford defeated Cambridge in the inaugural edition of the Women's Boat Race. Wikipedia
• 1931 Sing-Song Girl Red Peony, one of the first sound films produced in China, was released in Shanghai. Wikipedia
• 1943 World War II: German forces recaptured Kharkov after four days of house-to-house fighting against Soviet troops, ending the month-long Third Battle of Kharkov. Wikipedia
• 1943 The deportation of 50,000 Jews from the Greek city of Thessaloniki began. Wikipedia
• 1951 The Iranian oil industry was nationalized in a movement led by Mohammad Mosaddegh. Wikipedia
• 1956 The musical My Fair Lady, based on George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion, debuted at the Mark Hellinger Theatre in New York City. Wikipedia
• 1960 Students from the Atlanta University Center, inspired by similar actions in Greensboro, North Carolina, began occupying lunch counters in Atlanta, Georgia. Wikipedia
• 1974 Transvestism and Transsexualism in Modern Society, the UK's first trans-rights conference, opened with an evening reception in Leeds. Wikipedia
• 1990 Iraqi authorities hanged Iranian freelance reporter Farzad Bazoft on charges of spying for Israel. Wikipedia
• 2019 Fifty-one people are killed in the Christchurch mosque shootings, which remains the deadliest terror attack in New Zealand history. Wikipedia
• 2022 The 2022 Sri Lankan protests begins amidst Sri Lanka's economic collapse. Wikipedia

Born on March 15

• 1638 Shunzhi Emperor of China (died 1661) Wikipedia
• 1767 Andrew Jackson, American general, judge, and politician, 7th President of the United States (died 1845) Wikipedia
• 1779 William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, English politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (died 1848) Wikipedia
• 1813 John Snow, English physician and epidemiologist (died 1858) Wikipedia
• 1830 Paul Heyse, German author, poet, and playwright, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1914) Wikipedia
• 1830 Élisée Reclus, French geographer and anarchist (died 1905) Wikipedia
• 1852 Augusta, Lady Gregory, Anglo-Irish landowner, playwright, and translator (died 1932) Wikipedia
• 1854 Emil von Behring, German physiologist and physician, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1917) Wikipedia
• 1857 Christian Michelsen, Norwegian businessman and politician, 1st Prime Minister of Norway (died 1925) Wikipedia
• 1878 Reza Shah, Iranian Shah (died 1944) Wikipedia
• 1920 E. Donnall Thomas, American physician and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2012) Wikipedia
• 1930 Zhores Alferov, Belarusian-Russian physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2019) Wikipedia
• 1932 Alan Bean, American astronaut and pilot (died 2018) Wikipedia
• 1933 Ruth Bader Ginsburg, American lawyer and judge (died 2020) Wikipedia
• 1943 David Cronenberg, Canadian actor, director, and screenwriter Wikipedia
• 1959 Ben Okri, Nigerian poet and author Wikipedia
• 1975 Eva Longoria, American actress Wikipedia
• 1975 will.i.am, American rapper, producer, and actor Wikipedia
• 1977 Joe Hahn, American musician, DJ, director, and visual artist Wikipedia
• 1985 Kellan Lutz, American actor and model Wikipedia
• 1993 Alia Bhatt, British actress Wikipedia
• 1993 Paul Pogba, French footballer Wikipedia

Died on March 15

• 44 BC Julius Caesar, Roman general and statesman (born 100 BC) Wikipedia
• 220 Cao Cao, Chinese general, warlord and statesman Wikipedia
• 493 Odoacer, first king of Italy after the fall of the Western Roman Empire (born 433) Wikipedia
• 1842 Luigi Cherubini, Italian composer and theorist (born 1760) Wikipedia
• 1897 James Joseph Sylvester, English mathematician and academic (born 1814) Wikipedia
• 1921 Talaat Pasha, Ottoman politician, Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire (born 1874) Wikipedia
• 1937 H. P. Lovecraft, American short story writer, editor, and novelist (born 1890) Wikipedia
• 1962 Arthur Compton, American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1892) Wikipedia
• 1975 Aristotle Onassis, Greek-Argentinian businessman (born 1906) Wikipedia
• 1981 René Clair, French director and screenwriter (born 1898) Wikipedia
• 1983 Rebecca West, English author and critic (born 1892) Wikipedia
• 1997 Victor Vasarely, Hungarian-French painter (born 1906) Wikipedia
• 1998 Benjamin Spock, American pediatrician and author (born 1903) Wikipedia
• 2004 John Pople, English-American chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1925) Wikipedia

Holidays and observances

• Ancient Roman religious observance: Ides of March Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Aristobulus of Britannia (Roman Catholic Church) Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Artémides Zatti Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Clement Mary Hofbauer Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Leocritia Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Saint Longinus Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Louise de Marillac Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Blessed William Hart Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: March 15 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics) Wikipedia
• Constitution Day (Belarus) Wikipedia
• International Day To Combat Islamophobia Wikipedia
• Joseph Jenkins Roberts' Birthday (Liberia) Wikipedia
• National Day, celebrating the Hungarian Revolution of 1848 (Hungary) Wikipedia
• World Consumer Rights Day (International) Wikipedia
• Youth Day (Palau) Wikipedia

Sources

• Wikipedia — “March 15” — events, births, deaths and observances (text under CC BY-SA 4.0) (checked 2026-10-15)
• Wikipedia — “Selected anniversaries/March 15” — the anniversaries editors chose for the date and the article each one is about (checked 2026-10-15)
• Wikidata — in how many language editions each entry's own article exists, used to fill the lists (CC0) (checked 2026-10-15)
• vacanza/holidays (open-source holiday rules, MIT licence) — holiday rules used to build the lists (checked 2026-10-15)

The events, births, deaths and observances above are from the English Wikipedia article “March 15” and the articles it links to (authors and history), retrieved 2026-10-15 through the Wikimedia “On this day” feed. They are licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0; this selection is shared under the same licence. Every anniversary that Wikipedia's editors selected for March 15 stays on the list; the remaining places, up to 26 events, 22 births and 14 deaths, go to the entries whose own article — about the event itself, or else the person or thing it is about — appears in the most language editions (counted from Wikidata); an article about a person or thing, which covers far more than one day, counts half. An entry with no article of its own counts, also at half, by the least covered article it links, and one that links only places counts for nothing. Each list runs by year, and the wording is unchanged apart from removing references to pictures, audio and video.