On this day in history —

• Julius Caesar is assassinated (44 BCE)
• Columbus returns to Spain after his visit to the New World (1493 CE)
• Charles II issues the Royal Declaration of Indulgence, permitting religious freedom for Catholics in England (1672 CE)
• 1,900 British soldiers defeat 4,000 colonial rebels at the Battle of Guilford Courthouse (1781 CE)
• George Washington ends the Newburgh Conspiracy, a threatened rebellion of the Continental Army for Congressional failure to provided promised back pay and benefits (1783 CE)
• Maine secedes from Massachusetts and forms its own state (1820 CE)
• The Hungarian Revolution begins (1848 CE)
• Rolls-Royce is founded (1906 CE)
• Nicholas II, last Tsar of Russia, abdicates following the February Revolution (1917 CE)
• The first dot-com domain, symbolics.com, is registered (1985 CE)
• The “Two Plus Four Agreement” allows the reunification of Germany (1990 CE)
• The Syrian Civil War begins (2011 CE)

It’s the birthday of —

• Kevin Youkilis, baseball player (1979)
• will.i.am, rapper (1975)
• Terence Trent D’Arby, musician (1962)
• Heather Graham, romance novelist (1953)
• Ry Cooder, guitarist (1947)
• David Cronenberg, director (1943)
• Sly Stone, rocker (1943)
• Mike Love, Beach Boy (1941)
• Judd Hirsch, actor (1935)
• Jimmy Swaggart, televangelist (1935)
• Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Supreme Court justice (1933)
• Alan Bean, astronaut (1932)
• Norm Van Brocklin, football player (1926)
• Lawrence Sanders, mystery writer (1920)
• Harry James, bandleader (1916)
• Macdonald Carey, soap star (1913)
• Lightnin’ Hopkins, blues guitarist (1912)
• Marjorie Merriweather Post, cereal heiress (1887)
• Andrew Jackson, seventh U.S. president (1767)

Deaths —

• Ken Reardon, hockey player (2008)
• Bowie Kuhn, baseball commissioner (2007)
• Ann Sothern, actress (2001)
• Benjamin Spock, child care expert (1998)
• Tom Harmon, football player (1990)
• Dmitri Polyakov (Дмитрий Поляков), Cold War spy for the U.S. (1988)
• Rebecca West, writer (1983)
• Aristotle Onassis (Αριστοτέλης Ωνάσης) , magnate and Jackie husband (1975)
• Abe Saperstein, shortest member of the Basketball Hall of Fame (1966)
• Lester Young, saxophonist (1959)
• H. P. Lovecraft, horror writer (1937)
• Henry Bessemer, steel process inventor (1898)
• Cao Cao (曹操), Chinese emperor (220)

Holidays —

• Ides of March (Roman Empire)
• Hōnen Matsuri (豊年祭) (Japan)
• National Day (Hungary)
• Constitution Day (Дзень Канстытуцыi) (Belarus)
• Feast of Leocritia (Catholicism)