On March 15, 44 B.C., on the “ides of March,” Roman dictator Julius Caesar was assassinated by Roman senators, including Brutus and Cassius, who feared Caesar was working to establish a monarchy.

In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson, addressing a joint session of Congress, called for new legislation to guarantee every American’s right to vote. The result was passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

In 2019, a gunman killed 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, streaming the massacre live on Facebook. (Brenton Tarrant, an Australian white supremacist, was sentenced to life in prison without parole after pleading guilty to 51 counts of murder and other charges.)

In 2022, Russia stepped up its bombardment of the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, while an estimated 20,000 civilians fled the desperately encircled port city of Mariupol by way of a humanitarian corridor.