Holidays and observances
- Christian feast day:
- Constitution Day (Belarus)
- National Day, celebrating the Hungarian Revolution of 1848 (Hungary)
- World Consumer Rights Day (International)
- Youth Day (Palau)
- Buzzards Day
- Dumbstruck Day
- Everything You Think is Wrong Day
- ‘Ides of March
In 474 BC, Roman consul Gnaeus Manlius Vulso celebrates an ovation for concluding the war against Veii and securing a forty years’ truce.
In 44 BC, The assassination of Julius Caesar takes place.
In 493, Odoacer, the first barbarian King of Italy after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, is slain by Theoderic the Great, king of the Ostrogoths, while the two kings were feasting together.
In 856, Michael III, emperor of the Byzantine Empire, overthrows the regency of his mother, empress Theodora (wife of Theophilos) with support of the Byzantine nobility.
In 897, Al-Hadi ila’l-Haqq Yahya enters Sa’dah and founds the Zaydi Imamate of Yemen, which will last until 1962.
In 933, After a ten-year truce, German King Henry the Fowler defeats a Hungarian army at the Battle of Riade near the Unstrut river.
In 1311, Battle of Halmyros: The Catalan Company defeats Walter V, Count of Brienne to take control of the Duchy of Athens, a Crusader state in Greece.
In 1564, Mughal Emperor Akbar abolishes the jizya tax on non-Muslim subjects.
In 1672, King Charles II of England issues the Royal Declaration of Indulgence, granting limited religious freedom to all Christians.
In 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’état never takes place.
In 1848, A revolution breaks out in Hungary. The Habsburg rulers are compelled to meet the demands of the Reform party.
In 1874, France and Vietnam sign the Second Treaty of Saigon, further recognizing the full sovereignty of France over Cochinchina.
In 1875, Archbishop of New York John McCloskey is named the first cardinal in the United States.[3]
In 1877, First ever official cricket test match is played: Australia vs England at the MCG Stadium, in Melbourne, Australia.
In 1878, Restoration of the Scottish Catholic hierarchy, broken off back in 1603.
In 1888, Start of the Anglo-Tibetan War of 1888.
In 1916, United States President Woodrow Wilson sends 4,800 United States troops over the U.S.–Mexico border to pursue Pancho Villa.
In 1917, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia abdicates the Russian throne, ending the 304-year Romanov dynasty.
In 1921, Talaat Pasha, former Grand Vizir of the Ottoman Empire and chief architect of the Armenian Genocide is assassinated in Berlin by a 23-year-old Armenian, Soghomon Tehlirian.
In 1922, After Egypt gains nominal independence from the United Kingdom, Fuad I becomes King of Egypt.
In 1926, The dictator Theodoros Pangalos is elected President of Greece without opposition.
In 1927, The first Women’s Boat Race between the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge takes place on The Isis in Oxford.
In 1931, SS Viking explodes off Newfoundland, killing 27 of the 147 on board.
In 1933, Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss keeps members of the National Council from convening, starting the Austrofascist dictatorship.
In 1939, Germany occupies Czechoslovakia.
In 1939, Carpatho-Ukraine declares itself an independent republic, but is annexed by Hungary the next day.
In 1941, Philippine Airlines enters service, making the airline the first and oldest commercial airline in Asia operating under its original name.
In 1943, World War II: Third Battle of Kharkov: The Germans retake the city of Kharkov from the Soviet armies in bitter street fighting.
In 1945, World War II: Soviet forces begin an offensive to push Germans from Upper Silesia.
In 1951, Iranian oil industry is nationalized.
In 1952, In Cilaos, Réunion, 1870 mm (73 inches) of rain falls in a 24-hour period, setting a new world record (March 15 through March 16).
In 1961, At the 1961 Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ Conference, South Africa announces that it will withdraw from the Commonwealth when the South African Constitution of 1961 comes into effect.
In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson, responding to the Selma crisis, tells U.S. Congress “We shall overcome” while advocating the Voting Rights Act.
In 1974, Fifteen people are killed when Sterling Airways Flight 901, a Sud Aviation Caravelle, catches fire following a landing gear collapse at Mehrabad International Airport in Tehran, Iran.[6]
In 1978, Somalia and Ethiopia signed a truce to end the Ethio-Somali War.
In 1986, Collapse of Hotel New World: Thirty-three people die when the Hotel New World in Singapore collapses.
In 1990, Mikhail Gorbachev is elected as the first President of the Soviet Union.
In 1990, Thomas Dudley Harmon, American football player and sportscaster (b. 1919) dies. Harmon suffered a heart attack at the Amanda Travel Agency in West Los Angeles after winning a golf tournament at Bel Air Country Club. He was taken to UCLA Medical Center, where he died at age 70. He was sometimes known by the nickname “Old 98“, was an American football player, military pilot, actor, and sports broadcaster.
Harmon grew up in Gary, Indiana, and played college football at the halfback position for the University of Michigan from 1938 to 1940. He led the nation in scoring and was a consensus All-American in both 1939 and 1940 and won the Heisman Trophy, the Maxwell Award, and the Associated Press Athlete of the Year award in 1940. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1954.
During World War II, Harmon served as a pilot in the U.S. Army Air Forces. In April 1943, he was the sole survivor of the crash of a bomber he piloted in South America en route to North Africa. Six months later, while flying a P-38 Lightning, he was shot down in a dogfight with Japanese Zeros near Kiukiang in China.
After the war, Harmon played two seasons of professional football for the Los Angeles Rams and had the longest run from scrimmage during the 1946 NFL season. He later pursued a career in sports broadcasting and was the play-by-play announcer for the first televised Rose Bowl in the late 1940s and worked for CBS from 1950 to 1962. He later hosted a 10-minute daily sports show on the ABC radio network in the 1960s and worked as the sports anchor on the KTLA nightly news from 1958 to 1964. He also handled play-by-play responsibility on broadcasts of UCLA football games in the 1960s and 1970s.
In 1991, Cold War: The Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany comes into effect, granting full sovereignty to the Federal Republic of Germany.
In 1998, Benjamin Spock, American pediatrician and author (b. 1903) dies. He was an American pediatrician whose book Baby and Child Care (1946) is one of the best-selling volumes in history. The book’s premise to mothers is that “you know more than you think you do.” Spock was the first pediatrician to study psychoanalysis to try to understand children’s needs and family dynamics. His ideas about childcare influenced several generations of parents to be more flexible and affectionate with their children, and to treat them as individuals. However, his theories were also widely criticized by colleagues for relying too heavily on anecdotal evidence rather than serious academic research.
In 2008, Stockpiles of obsolete ammunition explode at an ex-military ammunition depot in the village of Gërdec, Albania, killing 26 people.
In 2011, Beginning of the Syrian Civil War.
In 2019, Fifty-one people are killed in the Christchurch mosque shootings.
In 2019, Beginning of the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests.
In 2019, Approximately 1.4 million young people in 123 countries go on strike to protest climate change.