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March 15: Today in History – Historical Events
Early Centuries – March 15 Historic Events – Before the 1700s
1. 15th March 1493: Christopher Columbus returned to Spain after he voyaged to the New World.
18th Century – What Happened on March 15 – The 1700s
2. 15th March 1778: The Frenchman la Perouse sailed east of Botany Bay with two frigates under his command for the last lap of his voyage around the world.
19th Century – March 15 This Day That Year – The 1800s
3. 15th March 1827: the University of Toronto was chartered today.
4. 15th March 1855: Louisiana today established the first health board to regulate quarantine.
5. 15th March 1867: Michigan started levying tax on property to support the university. It became the first state to tax property.
6. 15th March 1875: John McCloskey, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of New York was named the first American Cardinal.
7. 15th March 1892: The new automatic ballot machine was unveiled today in New York State.
8. 15th March 1892: The Reno Inclined Elevator, the first escalator, was today patented by Jesse W Reno.
20th Century – Important Events On This Day March 15th – The 1900s
9. 15th March 1901: The German Chancellor von Bulow today announced that an agreement between Russia and China over Manchuria would violate the Anglo-German accord of October 1900.
10. 15th March 1901: Horse racing was banned in San Francisco and the last race was to be held on 16th March.
11. 15th March 1902: After a weeklong strike 10,000 freight handlers went back to work in Boston today.
12. 15th March 1903: The British today completed the conquest of Nigeria, which placed 500,000 square miles under British control.
13. 15th March 1904: Japanese shelling of Port Arthur in Korea killed at least 300 Russians.
14. 15th March 1906: Britons Rolls and Royce & Johnson today formed Rolls Royce Ltd.
15. 15th March 1907: In the Finnish parliament, women won their first seats in Finland. They took their seats on 23rd May.
16. 15th March 1910: Otto Hahn today offered $ 500,000 to the Dutch artist Frans Hals for a family portrait. He had outbid JP Morgan.
17. 15th March 1913: The first open presidential news conference was held today by President Woodrow Wilson.
18. 15th March 1913: Cleveland today established the first small claims court.
19. 15th March 1916: In the hope of capturing Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa, American president Woodrow Wilson today dispatched thousands of American soldiers into Mexico.
20. 15th March 1916: A German submarine torpedoed a Dutch merchant ship sinking it in the North Sea.
21. 15th March 1917: The Russian Czar Nicolas II who ruled Russia from 1894 was forced to abdicate.
22. 15th March 1919: The American Legion had its first meeting today in Paris with 1,000 officers and enlisted men to decide the name of the organization.
23. 15th March 1920: In a fire in Texas the entire Texas town had gone up in flames. About 1,000 people were left homeless. Fortunately, there was no loss of life.
24. 15th March 1922: After Egypt gained nominal independence from Britain Fuad I was today assumed the title King of Egypt.
25. 15th March 1922: France which had insisted on currency for repatriation payments of World War I from Germany till now, started accepting raw materials towards payment.
26. 15th March 1928: Italian dictator Benito Mussolini today modified the electoral system in Italy, abolishing the right to choose.
27. 15th March 1929: Following the formation of Free Ireland, people of Scotland who believed that they should have the same rights formed the Scottish National Party. The candidates of this party will fight the next British Parliamentary Elections and demand a free Scotland run by Scots.
28. 15th March 1930: The US Navy today launched its first streamlined submarine, USS Nautilus.
29. 15th March 934: Today marks the opening of the US information service.
30. 15th March 1934: The $ 5-a-day wage was today restored by Henry Ford.
31. 15th March 1935: Four German newspapers were banned today by Joseph Goebbels, the German Minister of Propaganda.
32. 15th March 1937: The first bold bank by preserved blood by refrigeration for purposes of transfusion was today established at the Cook County Hospital in Chicago.
33. 15th March 1938: On the same day of one of Hitler’s addresses to seven million people after his return from Austria, it was declared in Germany that Jews would not be allowed to vote.
34. 15th March 1938: Oil was discovered in Saudi Arabia.
35. 15th March 1941: A blizzard in North Dakota left 151 people dead.
36. 15th March 1944: The Italian town of Cassino was destroyed in an Allied bombing.
37. 15th March 1945: The Catholic University Nijmegen reopened today.
38. 15th March 1946: Today British Prime Minister Clement Atlee agreed with India’s right to independence.
39. 15th March 1947: John Lee was appointed as a commissioned officer of the US Navy. He was the first black to be appointed by the US Navy.
40. 15th March 1948: It was recorded that Britain was preparing to withdraw from Palestine even as the Jews and Arabs were still fighting profusely.
41. 15th March 1949: After nearly four years after the end of World War II, cloth rationing in England ended today.
42. 15th March 1951: The Persian Parliament today voted for the nationalization of the oil industry.
43. 15th March 1955: The self-guided missile was today unveiled by the US Air Force.
44. 15th March 1955: Dutch 2nd Chamber requires TV licenses.
45. 15th March 1957: A search for the most photogenic girl, who would represent the Golden Gate Bridge during the 20th Anniversary celebrations, took place in nine countries.
46. 15th March 1957: Today Great Britain became the third nation to explode a nuclear bomb.
47. 15th March 1958: The USSR today performed an atmospheric nuclear test.
48. 15th March 1959: Robert Foster stayed underwater for 13 minutes and 42.5 seconds and created a world record.
49. 15th March 1960: The first underwater park was today established as Key Largo Coral Reef Preserve.
50. 15th March 1960: Today the National Observatory at Kitt Peak in Arizona was dedicated.
51. 15th March 1960: Ten nations met in Geneva today to discuss disarmament.
52. 15th March 1961: Today South Africa withdrew from the British Commonwealth.
53. 15th March 1962: Today the discovery of antimatter was announced by five research groups.
54. 15th March 1964: Actress Elizabeth Tailor and actor Richard Burton got married for the first time. They were separated in 1974 and got married again in 1975.
55. 15th March 1964: Today USSR performed its nuclear test at its test site at Eastern Kazak.
56. 15th March 1965: President Johnson pledged to Congress today that he would act on legislation that would remove every barrier of discrimination against the citizens trying to register and vote.
57. 15th March 1965: Three unmanned satellites were today launched by the Soviet Union which revolve around the earth once in 106 minutes.
58. 15th March 1966: In the Watts area in Los Angeles a racial riot broke out again today.
59. 15th March 1967: Marshal Arturo da Costa e Silva was today sworn in as the President of Brazil.
60. 15th March 1968: The US Mint today stopped the practice of buying and selling gold.
61. 15th March 1972: In one of the heaviest attacks during the Vietnam War the US destroyed a major North Vietnamese camp in two days wiping out 30 North Vietnamese ground troops. Central Highlands also suffered casualties.
62. 15th March 1974: In a high profile case involving British MPs, health authorities Civil servants, and the architect John Polson, John Polson along with a high-ranking Scottish civil servant William George Pottinger were convicted and jailed for five years for corruption and guilty of bribing public figures to win contracts.
63. 15th March 1976: The driver of an underground train was shot dead when he was chasing a gunman who had detonated a bomb on his train.
64. 15th March 1977: The House of Representatives in the United States today started a 90-day test to determine the feasibility of showing its sessions on television.
65. 15th March 1979: Pope Paul II published his first encyclical “Redemptor Hominis”. The work warned of the growing gap between the rich and the poor.
66. 15th March 1981: 145 passengers of a Boeing 720 aircraft of Pakistan Airways, who were held hostages for nearly two weeks in Syria, were released today following the release of 54 political prisoners by the Pakistan government.
67. 15th March 1982: After anti-government rebels destroyed two bridges near the Honduran border, the junta of Nicaragua proclaimed a month-long state of siege and suspended its constitution for one day.
68. 15th March 1985: A civilian government was installed in Brazil which brought to an end two decades of military rule.
69. 15th March 1988: Today Eugene Marino was appointed as Archbishop. He was the first African American to be appointed Archbishop.
70. 15th March 1988: In Japan, passengers were stuck in the Seiken Tunnel, 460 feet underground for three hours due to a power outage.
71. 15th March 1988: An accelerated breakdown of the Ozone layer by CFK was reported by NASA.
72. 15th March 1989: After two cyanide-tinted grapes were found in Philadelphia, the US Food and Drug Administration decided to impound all fruit imported from Chile.
73. 15th March 1989: The US Department of Veterans Affairs became the 14th department in the President’s cabinet.
74. 15th March 1990: In Iraq a journalist of “The Observer”, Farzad Bazoft was today executed on charges of spying. The British and the UN condemned the execution. They did not cut off diplomatic ties with the country.
75. 15th March 1990: Ford Explorer was today introduced to the public.
76. 15th March 1990: It was announced today that the services of Soviet airlines Aeroflot would be re-instated in Indonesia. The Soviet flights were not allowed in Indonesia earlier because of allegations of spying.
77. 15th March 1990: Today Fernando Collor de Mello was sworn in as the President of Brazil.
78. 15th March 1990: The Soviet parliament today ruled as invalid Lithuania’s declaration of independence and said Soviet law was still in force in the Baltic republic.
79. 15th March 1991: In the case related to the beating up of Rodney King, four Los Angeles police officers were today indicted.
80. 15th March 1991: President Boris Jovic of Yugoslavia resigned today after a week of anticommunist protests.
81. 15th March 1992: The United Nations today officially embarked on its largest peacekeeping operations.
82. 15th March 1994: The moratorium on nuclear testing was today extended up to Sept 1995 by US President Bill Clinton.
83. 15th March 1996: Today marks the collapse of the aviation firm Fokker NV.
84. 15th March 1998: The film Titanic became the highest-grossing film at the North American box office by surpassing Star Wars.
85. 15th March 1998: Today in Yugoslavia more than 15,000 ethnic Albanians took out a march demanding independence of Kosovo.
86. 15th March 1998: Iran was today hit by an earthquake of magnitude 6.4 on the Richter scale.
21st Century – March 15 This Day In History – The 2000s
87. 15th March 2000: A new Goodyear Blimp was launched six months after the previous Blimp crashed. A woman’s experience after a 45-minute ride was that it felt like an airplane although the ride was rougher than expected.
88. 15th March 2001: An oil rig located off Brazil and operated by Petrobras, which is the world’s largest oil rig suffered three explosions today.
89. 15th March 2002: The US Secretary of State Collin Powell told the Associated Press today that the United States US would stand by its 24-year-old pledge not to use nuclear arms against states that do not have them.
90. 15th March 2002: In the US the fast food chain Burger King today began selling veggie burgers.
91. 15th March 2004: The novel written by Clive Woodall “One for sorrow, Two for joy” was published today. Two days later the film rights were sold to Walt Disney and Co. by the author for $ 1 million.
92. 15th March 2004: After she was convicted of insider trading Martha Stewart was today forced to resign from the board of Martha Stewart Omnimedia.
93. 15th March 2006: City workers who were conducting regular inspections of the Brooklyn Bridge discovered a stockpile of water drums, medical supplies, survival blankets, drugs, and food which is said to have been stored in the 1950s and meant for survival of the residents of New York City in the event of a nuclear attack.
94. 15th March 2006: Today the former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein began his formal defense in his trial for crimes against humanity.
95. 15th March 2006: The 18th Commonwealth Games opened today in Australia.
96. 15th March 2007: A new sanction package including an arms embargo and economic penalties was created to put pressure on Iran’s nuclear program.
97. 15th March 2011: Protests erupted in the capital city of Damascus in Syria with hundreds of people demanding democratic reforms in the country. Several people were arrested.
98. 15th March 2012: Since the fall of the Gaddafi regime, Libya for the first time reopened its stoke exchange.
99. 15th March 2013: 24 people were killed when a double Decker veers off a pass in Cape Town in South Africa.
100. 15th March 2013: Republican senator Rob Portman from Ohio, who had earlier voted in favor of the marriage act which defined marriage as a commitment between man and woman, announced that he had reversed his position on gay marriage. This change came about when he learned that his son was gay.
101. 15th March 2014: There was a protest in Moscow against the Russian intervention in the Crimean peninsula of Ukraine. However the next day (16th March 2014) in a referendum the citizens of Ukraine overwhelmingly voted for joining Russia.
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