Roman dictator Julius Caesar was assassinated at the Roman Forum by a number of his own senators led by Marcus Brutus on March 15, 44 BC over concerns that he was becoming too powerful. The assassination wound up being a political failure as the Roman citizenry ended up becoming incensed at the conspirators and a civil war broke out, which Brutus and his supporters lost to Mark Antony and Octavian (later Augustus). William Shakespeare later wrote in his eponymous play about the assassination, "Beware the ides of March." Learn more about the assassination of Julius Caesar.

US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was born on March 15, 1933.

Learn more about Justice Ginsburg from Oyez, the Supreme Court multimedia project at Northwestern University.

On March 15, 1803, the Code Napoleon (French Civil Code) was promulgated in France. The Code is considered the first successful legal code in Europe and is still used today as the basis for the modern French Civil Code. Napoleon's conquests spread his Code across the European Continent, influencing modern legal codes in Portugal, Austria, Italy, and other nations. Read a history of the Code Napoleon.