March 15

474 BC – Roman consul Aulus Manlius Vulso celebrates an ovation for concluding the war against Veii and securing a forty years truce. 44 BC – The assassination of Julius Caesar takes place 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. 856 – Michael III, emperor of the Byzantine Empire, overthrows the regency of his mother, empress Theodora (wife of Theophilos) with support of the Byzantine nobility. 897 – Al-Hadi ila'l-Haqq Yahya enters Sa'dah and founds the Zaydi Imamate of Yemen. 933 – After a ten-year truce, German King Henry the Fowler defeats a Hungarian army at the Battle of Riade near the Unstrut river. 1311 – Battle of Halmyros: The Catalan Company defeats Walter V, Count of Brienne to take control of the Duchy of Athens, a Crusader state in Greece. 1564 – Mughal Emperor Akbar abolishes the jizya tax on non-Muslim subjects. 1672 – King Charles II of England issues the Royal Declaration of Indulgence, granting limited religious freedom to all Christians. 1783 – In an emotional speech in Newburgh, New York, George Washington asks his officers not to support the Newburgh Conspiracy. The plea is successful, and the threatened coup d'état never takes place. 1820 – Maine is admitted as the twenty-third U.S. state. 1823 – Sailor Benjamin Morrell erroneously reported the existence of the island of New South Greenland near Antarctica. 1848 – A revolution breaks out in Hungary, and the Habsburg rulers are compelled to meet the demands of the reform party. 1874 – France and Vietnam sign the Second Treaty of Saigon, further recognizing the full sovereignty of France over Cochinchina. 1875 – Archbishop of New York John McCloskey is named the first cardinal in the United States. 1877 – First ever official cricket test match is played: Australia vs England at the MCG Stadium, in Melbourne, Australia. 1888 – Start of the Anglo-Tibetan War of 1888.