44 BC – Julius Caesar, Dictator of the Roman Republic, is stabbed to death by Marcus Junius Brutus, Gaius Cassius Longinus, Decimus Junius Brutus, and several other Roman senators on the Ides of March.
493 – Odoacer, the first barbarian King of Italy after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, is slain by Theoderic the Great, king of the Ostrogoths, while the two kings were feasting together.
1493 – Christopher Columbus returns to Spain after his first trip to the Americas.
1783 – In an emotional speech in Newburgh, New York, George Washington asks his officers not to support the Newburgh Conspiracy.
From wikipedia: The Newburgh Conspiracy was a plan by Continental Army officers to challenge the authority of the Confederation Congress, arising from their frustration with Congress’s long-standing inability to meet its financial obligations to the military. By early 1783, widespread unrest had created an atmosphere ripe for mutiny.The plea is successful and the threatened coup d’état never takes place.
1819 – French physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel wins a contest at the Academie des Sciences in Paris by proving that light behaves like a wave. The Fresnel integrals, still used to calculate wave patterns, silence skeptics who had backed the particle theory of Isaac Newton.
1906 – Rolls-Royce Limited is incorporated.
1916 – President Woodrow Wilson sends 4,800 troops over the U.S.-Mexico border to pursue Pancho Villa.
1922 – After Egypt gains nominal independence from the United Kingdom, Fuad I becomes King of Egypt.
1939 – The German occupation of Czechoslovakia is completed.
1985 – The first Internet domain name is registered (symbolics.com).
1990 – Mikhail Gorbachev is elected as the first President of the Soviet Union.
Births
1638 – Shunzhi Emperor of China (d. 1661)
1767 – Andrew Jackson, 7th President of the United States (d. 1845)
1835 – Eduard Strauss, Austrian composer and conductor (d. 1916)
1878 – Reza Shah, Iranian king (d. 1944)
1887 – Marjorie Merriweather Post, founded General Foods (d. 1973)
1932 – Alan Bean, American captain, pilot, and astronaut
1940 – Phil Lesh, American bass player and songwriter
1943 – Sly Stone, American singer-songwriter, musician, and producer
1947 – Ry Cooder, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer
Deaths
44 BC – Julius Caesar, Roman general and statesman (b. 100 BC)
1327 – Albert of Schwarzburg
1937 – H. P. Lovecraft, short story writer, editor, and novelist (b. 1890)
1975 – Aristotle Onassis, Greek-Argentinian businessman (b. 1900)
1998 – Benjamin Spock, American pediatrician and author (b. 1903)
Edited from various sources including historyorb.com, the NYTimes.com Wikipedia and other internet searches
