March 15 Archives - PopHistory.org

Cincinnati Red Stockings become first professional baseball team

On March 15, 1869, Cincinnati attorney Aaron Champion hires former cricket player Harry Wright to organize, manage and play for the Cincinnati Red Stockings, who become the first professional baseball team. The organization of the club comes shortly after the National Association of Baseball Players, which had previously banned the payment of players, allows open professionalism after the close of the 1868 season.

In 1869, the Red Stockings finished the season with a 57-0 record—64-0 with exhibitions included. Baseball was still in the underhand-pitch iteration of the sport, so the team routinely scored dozens of runs in games. The Red Stockings defeated the Buckeyes of Cincinnati, 103-8.

Wright, given roughly $10,000 to assemble the best team money could buy, signed his younger brother, George, to a team-high $1,400 salary. George, a shortstop who was considered to be the best baseball player, was well worth the investment as he reportedly hit .630 with 49 home runs and averaged six runs per game.

In addition to managing, Harry Wright played center field and pitched. He was the second-highest-paid player on the roster with a $1,200 salary. Known as the “Father of Professional Baseball,” Harry was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1953. George was inducted in 1937.

“This did not just make the city famous, it made baseball famous,” Major League Baseball’s official historian John Thorn said of the Red Stockings’ impact.

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Christchurch, New Zealand mosque attacks

On the afternoon of March 15, 2019, a gunman attacked two different mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand during Friday Prayer, killing 51, wounding 40, and deeply scarring a nation that had, until this point, believed itself to be safe from the scourges of gun violence and far-right terrorism. It was one of the darkest and deadliest days in New Zealand’s history.

The gunman, an Australian with ties to the racist and xenophobic Identitarian Movement in his native country, opened fire at the Al Noor Mosque around 1:40pm, while several hundred people were inside for Friday Prayer. After several minutes of indiscriminate gunfire, he drove about three miles to the Linwood Islamic Center, where he repeated his actions but inflicted less damage, partially due to the efforts of a worshipper who attacked the gunman and successfully captured one of his guns. The assailant fled but was captured less than half an hour after he began his attack.

As news of the massacre spread across the globe, authorities discovered the shooter’s manifesto, which professed his racist and xenophobic beliefs, positively referenced the genocide of Bosnian Muslims and called U.S. President Donald Trump “a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose.” In contrast to the United States, where mass shootings have become common, the incident was the first mass shooting in New Zealand since 1997. Also in contrast to the United States, the government of New Zealand vowed to implement new laws that would help prevent such a stunning act of violence from occurring again.

The administration of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, the world’s youngest female head of government, prioritized gun control in the immediate aftermath, creating a commission to study the issue. The next month, the government passed a law banning semi-automatic weapons and their components and instituting a buy-back period for weapons that would become illegal. By the end of the year, the government had received over 56,000 guns and over 194,000 gun parts.

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The Ides of March

Year: 44 B.C.

Month Day: March 15

Julius Caesar, dictator of Rome, is stabbed to death in the Roman Senate house by 60 conspirators led by Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus on March 15. The day later become known as the Ides of March.

Caesar, born into the Julii, an ancient but not particularly distinguished Roman aristocratic family, began his political career in 78 B.C. as a prosecutor for the anti-patrician Popular Party. He won influence in the party for his reformist ideas and oratorical skills, and aided Roman imperial efforts by raising a private army to combat the king of Pontus in 74 B.C. He was an ally of Pompey, the recognized head of the Popular Party, and essentially took over this position after Pompey left Rome in 67 B.C. to become commander of Roman forces in the east.

In 63 B.C., Caesar was elected pontifex maximus, or “high priest,” allegedly by heavy bribes. Two years later, he was made governor of Farther Spain and in 60 B.C. returned to Rome, ambitious for the office of consul. The consulship, essentially the highest office in the Roman Republic, was shared by two politicians on an annual basis. Consuls commanded the army, presided over the Senate and executed its decrees, and represented the state in foreign affairs. Caesar formed a political alliance–the so-called First Triumvirate–with Pompey and Marcus Licinius Crassus, the wealthiest man in Rome, and in 59 B.C. was elected consul. Although generally opposed by the majority of the Roman Senate, Caesar’s land reforms won him popularity with many Romans.

READ MORE: Beware the Ides of March. But Why?

In 58 B.C., Caesar was given four Roman legions in Cisalpine Gaul and Illyricum, and during the next decade demonstrated brilliant military talents as he expanded the Roman Empire and his reputation. Among other achievements, Caesar conquered all of Gaul, made the first Roman inroads into Britain, and won devoted supporters in his legions. However, his successes also aroused Pompey’s jealousy, leading to the collapse of their political alliance in 53 B.C.

The Roman Senate supported Pompey and asked Caesar to give up his army, which he refused to do. In January 49 B.C., Caesar led his legions across the Rubicon River from Cisalpine Gaul to Italy, thus declaring war against Pompey and his forces. Caesar made early gains in the subsequent civil war, defeating Pompey’s army in Italy and Spain, but was later forced into retreat in Greece. In August 48 B.C., with Pompey in pursuit, Caesar paused near Pharsalus, setting up camp at a strategic location. When Pompey’s senatorial forces fell upon Caesar’s smaller army, they were entirely routed, and Pompey fled to Egypt, where he was assassinated by an officer of the Egyptian king.

Caesar was subsequently appointed Roman consul and dictator, but before settling in Rome he traveled around the empire for several years and consolidated his rule. In 45 B.C., he returned to Rome and was made dictator for life. As sole Roman ruler, Caesar launched ambitious programs of reform within the empire. The most lasting of these was his establishment of the Julian calendar, which, with the exception of a slight modification and adjustment in the 16th century, remains in use today. He also planned new imperial expansions in central Europe and to the east. In the midst of these vast designs, he was assassinated on March 15, 44 B.C., by a group of conspirators who believed that his death would lead to the restoration of the Roman Republic. However, the result of the “Ides of March” was to plunge Rome into a fresh round of civil wars, out of which Octavian, Caesar’s grand-nephew, would emerge as Augustus, the first Roman emperor, destroying the republic forever.

READ MORE: 8 Reasons Why Rome Fell

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Maine enters the Union

Year: 1820

Month Day: March 15

As part of the Missouri Compromise between the North and the South, Maine is admitted into the Union as the 23rd state. Administered as a province of Massachusetts since 1647, the entrance of Maine as a free state was agreed to by Southern senators in exchange for the entrance of Missouri as a slave state.

In 1604, French explorer Samuel de Champlain visited the coast of Maine and claimed it as part of the French province of Acadia. However, French attempts to settle Maine were thwarted when British forces under Sir Samuel Argall destroyed a colony on Mount Desert Island in 1613. Sir Ferdinando Gorges, a leading figure in the Plymouth Company, initiated British settlement in Maine after receiving a grant and royal charter, and upon Gorges’ death in 1647 the Massachusetts Bay Colony claimed jurisdiction. Gorges’ heirs disputed this claim until 1677, when Massachusetts agreed to purchase Gorges’ original proprietary rights.

As part of Massachusetts, Maine developed early fishing, lumbering and shipbuilding industries and in 1820 was granted statehood. In the 19th century, the promise of jobs in the timber industry lured many French Canadians to Maine from the Canadian province of Quebec, which borders the state to the west. With 90 percent of Maine still covered by forests, Maine is known as the “Pine Tree State” and is the most sparsely populated state east of the Mississippi River.

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Czar Nicholas II abdicates Russian throne

Year: 1917

Month Day: March 15

During the February Revolution, Czar Nicholas II, ruler of Russia since 1894, is forced to abdicate the throne by the Petrograd insurgents, and a provincial government is installed in his place.

Crowned on May 26, 1894, Nicholas was neither trained nor inclined to rule, which did not help the autocracy he sought to preserve in an era desperate for change. The disastrous outcome of the Russo-Japanese War led to the Russian Revolution of 1905, which the czar diffused only after signing a manifesto promising representative government and basic civil liberties in Russia. However, Nicholas soon retracted most of these concessions, and the Bolsheviks and other revolutionary groups won wide support. In 1914, Nicholas led his country into another costly war, and discontent in Russia grew as food became scarce, soldiers became war-weary, and devastating defeats on the eastern front demonstrated the czar’s ineffectual leadership.

In March 1917, the army garrison at Petrograd joined striking workers in demanding socialist reforms, and Czar Nicholas II was forced to abdicate. Nicholas and his family were first held at the Czarskoye Selo palace, then in the Yekaterinburg palace near Tobolsk. In July 1918, the advance of counterrevolutionary forces caused the Yekaterinburg Soviet forces to fear that Nicholas might be rescued. After a secret meeting, a death sentence was passed on the imperial family, and Nicholas, his wife, his children, and several of their servants were gunned down on the night of July 16.

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LBJ calls for equal voting rights

Year: 1965

Month Day: March 15

On this day in 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson addresses a joint session of Congress to urge the passage of legislation guaranteeing voting rights for all.

Using the phrase “we shall overcome,” borrowed from African American leaders struggling for equal rights, Johnson declares that “every American citizen must have an equal right to vote.” Johnson reminds the nation that the Fifteenth Amendment, which was passed after the Civil War, gave all citizens the right to vote regardless of race or color. But states had defied the Constitution and erected barriers. Discrimination had taken the form of literacy, knowledge or character tests administered solely to African-Americans to keep them from registering to vote.

“Their cause must be our cause too,”Johnson said. “Because it is not just Negroes, but really it is all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And we shall overcome.”

The speech was delivered eight days after racial violence erupted in Selma, Alabama. Civil rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King and over 500 supporters were attacked while planning a march from Selma to Montgomery to register African Americans to vote. The police violence that erupted resulted in the death of a King supporter, a white Unitarian Minister from Boston named James J. Reeb. Television news coverage of the event galvanized voting rights supporters in Congress.

A second attempt to march to Montgomery was also blocked by police. It took Federal intervention with the “federalizing” of the Alabama national guard and the addition of over 2,000 other guards to allow the march to begin.

The march to Montgomery finally began March 21 with over 3,000 participants under the glare of worldwide news publicity.

The violence, however, continued. Just after the march was successfully completed on March 25, four Klansman shot and killed Detroit homemaker Viola Liuzzo as she drove marchers back to Selma.

On August 6, 1965, Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act, which made it illegal to impose restrictions on federal, state and local elections that were designed to deny the vote to blacks.

While state and local enforcement of the act was initially weak, mainly in the South, the Voting Rights Act gave African-American voters the legal means to challenge voting restrictions and vastly improved voter turnout. In Mississippi alone, voter turnout among blacks increased from 6 percent in 1964 to 59 percent in 1969.

In 1970, President Richard Nixon extended the provisions of the Voting Rights Act and lowered the eligible voting age for all voters to 18.

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Andrew Jackson is born

Year: 1767

Month Day: March 15

Future President Andrew Jackson is born in a backwoods region between North and South Carolina to Irish immigrant parents on March 15, 1767. Jackson was essentially an orphan—all but one member of his family were killed during the Revolutionary War–who rose from humble beginnings to become a celebrated soldier and one of the nation’s most influential presidents.

Jackson was a 13-year-old soldier when he was captured by the British during the American Revolution; he is the only former prisoner of war ever to become president. After the war, Jackson embarked on an impressive military and political career that included stints as a Tennessee lawyer, plantation owner, delegate to the Tennessee Constitutional Convention, Tennessee Supreme Court justice, Tennessee senator (twice), victorious leader of the Battle of New Orleans during the War of 1812, and governor of the Florida Territory. He was defeated by John Quincy Adams in his first presidential campaign in 1823, but turned around and beat Adams four years later.

From the country’s inception, political participation had been largely restricted to an elite land-owning class of men. In contrast, Jackson’s presidential legacy endures in the phrase Jacksonian Democracy–the idea that American politics should involve the greater participation of the common man. He vowed to end political corruption, proposed federal policies to limit the power of wealthy elites and facilitated settlement of the American frontier. Further examination reveals, though, that Jackson was also a racist and a hothead. A slave-holding southerner, Jackson’s agitation for extended voting rights applied only to white males. His persecution of Native Americans and Mexicans, both as a military leader and in his presidential policies, were low points in American history. While Jackson abhorred abuse of power, he nevertheless advocated a strong executive branch and favored limiting the powers of Congress. In fact, Jackson was criticized for his own abuses, including his zealous use of the veto. Political cartoonists portrayed Jackson as King Andrew to illustrate his fondness for vetoing Congressional bills.

Contemporaries described Jackson as argumentative, prone to physical violence and obsessed with dueling to solve conflicts. (Estimates of the number of duels Jackson engaged in range from a minimum of 5 to around 100.) In 1806, Jackson dueled with a man named Charles Dickinson over an argument stemming from a horse-racing bet. Jackson received Dickinson’s first bullet in the chest next to his heart, put his hand over the wound to staunch the flow of blood and stayed standing long enough to kill his opponent. As president, when an attempted assassination failed, Jackson beat the perpetrator with his walking stick. Jackson’s all-around toughness earned him the nickname of Old Hickory.

After serving two consecutive terms as president, Jackson retired to his Tennessee estate, The Hermitage, and died at age 78. This colorful and controversial president is pictured on the $20 bill and was briefly immortalized on the Confederate $1,000 bill.

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Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Godfather” opens

Year: 1972

Month Day: March 15

On March 15, 1972, The Godfather—a three-hour epic chronicling the lives of the Corleones, an Italian-American crime family led by the powerful Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando)—is released in theaters.

The Godfather was adapted from the best-selling book of the same name by Mario Puzo, a novelist who grew up in New York City’s Hell’s Kitchen and got his start writing pulp stories for men’s magazines. Controversy surrounded the film from the beginning: Soon after Paramount Pictures announced its production, the Italian-American Civil Rights League held a rally in Madison Square Garden, claiming the film would amount to a slur against Italian Americans. The uproar only increased publicity for the movie, which Paramount was counting to become a big-money hit after the success of Puzo’s novel.

The studio’s production chief, Robert Evans, approached several directors—including Sergio Leone and Costa Gavras—about The Godfather before hiring the relatively unknown Francis Ford Coppola, who was only 31 years old at the time. As an Italian American himself, Coppola strove to make the film an authentic representation of the time period and the culture, and to do justice to the complex relationships within the Corleone family, instead of focusing primarily on the violent crime aspect of the story. He worked with Puzo on the screenplay and persuaded Paramount to increase the budget of the film, which the studio had envisioned as a relatively meager $2.5 million.

Perhaps most importantly, Coppola and Puzo fought to cast Marlon Brando in the coveted role of Vito Corleone. At the time, Brando’s career had been in decline for a decade, and he had become notorious for his moody on-set behavior, most notably during the filming of 1962’s Mutiny on the Bounty. When Paramount insisted that Brando do a screen test, the legendary actor complied because he wanted the role so badly. Reading his lines from hidden cue cards, Brando turned in a phenomenal, intuitive performance as the Godfather, winning an Academy Award for Best Actor (which he declined to accept). Combined with Coppola’s meticulous direction and memorable performances by the rest of the film’s cast, including Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall and Diane Keaton, Brando’s star turn propelled the film to record-breaking box-office success, as well as three Academy Awards, for Best Actor, Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay.

The Godfather has remained a perennial choice on critics’ lists of the all-time best films in history. In 2007, it ranked second on the American Film Institute (AFI)’s list of the greatest movies of all time, behind Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane (1941). Its sequel, The Godfather: Part II, was released in 1974 and won six Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director. A third installment, The Godfather: Part III (1990), received some positive reviews but was generally considered to be the weakest of the three films.

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Construction begins on America’s highest vehicle tunnel

Year: 1968

Month Day: March 15

On March 15, 1968, construction starts on the north tunnel of the Eisenhower/Johnson Memorial Tunnel on Interstate 70 in Colorado, some 60 miles west of Denver. Located at an altitude of more than 11,000 feet, the project was an engineering marvel and became the world’s highest vehicular tunnel when it was completed in 1979. Four months after opening, one million vehicles had passed through the tunnel; today, some 10 million vehicles drive through it each year.

The north tunnel (or bore) was finished on March 8, 1973 and named for America’s 34th president, who was in office from 1953 to 1961. Construction on the south tunnel began on August 18, 1975, and was finished on December 21, 1979. The south tunnel was named for Edwin C. Johnson, a Colorado governor and U.S. senator who was a big supporter of an interstate highway system across his state. (Interstate 70 stretches more than 2,100 miles from Interstate 15 near Cove Fort, Utah, to Baltimore, Maryland. It was America’s first interstate highway project. Construction began in 1956 and ended in 1992 in Glenwood Canyon, located near the city of Glenwood Springs in western Colorado.)

The north tunnel cost $117 million to construct and at the height of the building process, some 1,140 people worked three shifts, 24 hours a day, six days a week. The south tunnel cost $145 million and employed 800 workers, approximately 500 of whom were involved in drilling operations.

The Eisenhower/Johnson Tunnel cuts through the Continental Divide at an average elevation of 11,112 feet. (Driving conditions around the tunnel can be challenging during the months between November and April: The surrounding area receives an average of 26 feet of snow during those months.) The north tunnel, which handles westbound traffic, is 1.693 miles long, while the south tunnel (eastbound traffic) is 1.697 miles. Illuminating those tunnels is no small task–each has approximately 2,000 light fixtures using 8-foot bulbs.

The Eisenhower/Johnson Tunnel is an impressive accomplishment, but it’s small potatoes compared to some others. The 15.2 mile-long Laerdal Tunnel in Norway is the world’s longest road tunnel. One of the busiest vehicular tunnels in America is the Lincoln Tunnel, which was built under the Hudson River to connect New Jersey and Midtown Manhattan in New York City. That tunnel’s center tube opened in 1937, while its north tube opened in 1945 and its south tube in 1957. In 2019, 18,534,30 vehicles passed through the Lincoln Tunnel.

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George Washington puts an end to the Newburgh Conspiracy

Year: 1783

Month Day: March 15

On the morning of March 15, 1783, General George Washington makes a surprise appearance at an assembly of army officers at Newburgh, New York, to calm the growing frustration and distrust they had been openly expressing towards Congress in the previous few weeks. Angry with Congress for failing to honor its promise to pay them and for its failure to settle accounts for repayment of food and clothing, officers began circulating an anonymous letter condemning Congress and calling for a revolt.

When word of the letter and its call for an unsanctioned meeting of officers reached him, Washington issued a general order forbidding any unsanctioned meetings and called for a general assembly of officers for March 15. At the meeting, Washington began his speech to the officers by saying, “Gentlemen: By an anonymous summons, an attempt has been made to convene you together; how inconsistent with the rules of propriety! How unmilitary! And how subversive of all order and discipline…”

Washington continued by pledging, “to exert whatever ability I am possessed of, in your favor.” He added, “Let me entreat you, gentlemen, on your part, not to take any measures, which viewed in the calm light of reason, will lessen the dignity, and sully the glory you have hitherto maintained; let me request you to rely on the plighted faith of your country, and place a full confidence in the purity of the intentions of Congress.”

When he finished, Washington removed a letter from his breast pocket that he had received from a member of the Continental Congress. He hesitated for a moment as he looked down at the letter before fumbling to retrieve a pair of spectacles from his pocket. Before reading the letter, Washington, in an almost apologetic tone said, “Gentlemen, you must pardon me. I have grown old in the service of my country and now find that I am growing blind.” The eyes of most of his audience filled with tears. The content of the letter became irrelevant as the assembled officers realized that Washington had given as much or more in the service of the new nation as any of them. Within minutes, the officers voted unanimously to express confidence in Congress and their country.

In a letter to the Continental Congress dated March 18, 1783, Washington wrote to assure the body that the unrest of officers was over, writing, “The result of the proceedings of the grand convention of the officers, which I have the honor of enclosing to your Excellency for the inspection of Congress, will, I flatter myself, be considered as the last glorious proof of patriotism which could have been given by men who aspired to the distinction of a Patriot army; and will not only confirm their claim to the justice, but will increase their title to the gratitude of their country.”

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