Beware the Ides of March

Even though a soothsayer warned Julius Caesar to “Beware the Ides of March,” all he meant was March 15.

March, July, October, May:   the Ides fall on the fifteenth day.                                                                           

In every other month of the Roman calendar, the Ides fell on the 13th day of the month.

But Caesar’s assassination isn’t the only bad thing to happen on March 15 (yes, this is a historical fact, not just a line from Shakespeare).

According to the Smithsonian:

In 1360, a French raiding party began a 48-hour spree of rape, pillage and murder in southern England.
In 1889 a cyclone in Samoa wrecked three US warships and three German warships, killing over 200 sailors.
Czar Nicolas II of Russia abdicated his throne in 1917.
Nazi Germany began its occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1939.
Over 60 people were killed in the US and Canada as a deadly blizzard plummeted the Great Plains in 1941.
World record rainfall hit the Indian Ocean island of La Réunion in 1952–73.62 inches in 24 hours.
CBS cancelled The Ed Sullivan Show in 1971.
In 1988, NASA reported the ozone layer was depleting three times faster than predicted.
In 2003, the World Health Organization identified SARS–(Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome.

Have a great day!