15 March 2014

ides

[ahydz]
noun (used with a singular or plural verb)

– (in the ancient Roman calendar) the fifteenth day of March, May, July, or October, and the thirteenth day of the other months.

Origin:
1300–50; Middle English < Old French < Latin īdūs (feminine plural); replacing Middle English idus < Latin

-ides
a Greek plural suffix appearing in scientific names: cantharides.
Origin:
< Greek, plural of -is, suffix of ‘source or origin’.

Anagram

dies
side

Today’s aphorism

Beware the Ides of March.

– William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, Act I Scene II, Soothsayer warning Caesar.

On this day

15 March 44BC – Roman dictator and self-declared Emperor of Rome, Julius Caesar, stabbed to death on the Ides of March by Marcus Junus Brutus, Gaius Cassius Longinus, Decimus Junius Brutus and other Roman senators. Julius Caesar’s assassination was one of the events that marked the transition from the Roman Republic to the Roman Empire.

15 March 270 – birth of St Nikolaos of Myra. Greek bishop of Myra (in what is now Turkey). He would often secretly leave gifts for people. The most famous story of his gift-giving related to a father who couldn’t afford the dowry for his three daughters, which would mean they’d remain unmarried. Legend has it that St Nikolaos secretly threw three bags of gold coins through the window one night so that there would be enough dowry for each. He became the model on which Santa Claus was based. Died 6 December 343.

15 March 1892 – founding the English football club, Liverpool F.C.

15 March 1916 – President Woodrow Wilson sends thousands of troops into Mexico to capture the Mexican revolutionary, Pancho Villa.

15 March 1985 – the first internet domain name is registered, Symbolics.com.

15 March 1990 – Mikael Gorbachev elected as first president of the Soviet Union and held the office until 25 December 1991. He was the only person to occupy the office. He resigned as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on 24 August 1991 following a coup by hard-line members of the CPSU. During the coup, Gorbachev’s Presidency was briefly usurped from 19 August to 21 August 1991 by the Vice-President, Gennady Yanayev. On 8 December 1991, in a legally questionable move, the Soviet Union was dissolved with the agreement of Boris Yeltsin, Leonid Kravchuk and Stanislav Shushkevich, respective leaders of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, creating the Commonwealth of Independent States (or Russian Commonwealth), whose leaders governed their own states.