March 15
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Featured Event
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Hitler orders church bells be reclaimed for war efforts
On this day in 1940, Adolf Hitler decreed that church bells across Germany be confiscated for use in the ongoing war. About 175,000 church bells were taken by force, despite widespread protest, and melted down to make armaments for the German military. In addition to marking times of prayer throughout the day and summoning worshipers to Sunday services, many had functioned for centuries as.as holiday markers, ringing during times of celebration and merriment. Many years after the war, bells were discovered in various locations across Europe, including Estonia and Poland—buried to prevent their peals from being stolen for the war effort. [Read today’s edition of Today in History > >]
Featured Biography
Featured Biography
Steve Petteway/Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States
American jurist Ruth Bader Ginsburg, born this day in 1933, was the second woman to serve on the Supreme Court, and she became a progressive and feminist folk hero, dubbed “Notorious R.B.G.” by her admirers.
Famous Birthdays
More on March 15
Sean Gallup/Getty Images
2019
More than 1.5 million students participated in climate change protests around the world as part of Fridays for Future, a movement started by Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg. [What’s the difference between global warming and climate change?]
AP/Shutterstock.com
2011
Antigovernment protests were held in several cities across Syria, considered the beginning of the county’s civil war. [Sort fact from fiction in our quiz about the Middle East.]
EPA/REX/Shutterstock.com
2003
Hu Jintao succeeded Jiang Zemin as the president of China. [Sort fact from fiction in our China quiz.]
Boris Yurchenko/AP Images
1990
The Congress of People’s Deputies of the U.S.S.R. elected Mikhail Gorbachev to the newly created post of president of the Soviet Union. [Watch an overview of Mikhail Gorbachev’s life and career.]
© 2023 Dharma Productions/Viacom18 Studios and Collection Christophel/Alamy
1993
Alia Bhatt, an actress in Bollywood cinema who is celebrated for her screen presence, versatility, and success at the box office, was born in Mumbai. [How much do you know about Bollywood?]
© 1972 Paramount Pictures Corporation
1972
The Godfather, an epic drama about organized crime, premiered to universal acclaim; the Academy Award-winning film was directed by Francis Ford Coppola and starred Al Pacino and Marlon Brando. [Take our Al Pacino quiz.]
White House Collection
1965
About a week after a civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, was halted due to violent opposition, U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson delivered his We Shall Overcome speech, in which he introduced voting rights legislation that was passed later that year. [Discover 10 milestones in U.S. civil rights history.]
© 1963 Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation
1964
Following a highly publicized affair, American actress Elizabeth Taylor wed British actor Richard Burton in Montreal; they divorced in 1974 and briefly remarried (1975–76). [Test your knowledge of A-list actors.]
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. LC-B2- 4315-10)
1917
During the first phase of the Russian Revolution, Tsar Nicholas II was forced to abdicate, thus ending the rule of the Romanov dynasty. [How much do you know about Russian history?]
Religious News Service
1875
Pope Pius IX appointed John McCloskey the first American cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. [Test your knowledge of popes.]
Image: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
1781
American revolutionaries won a strategic victory over the British at the Battle of Guilford Courthouse in North Carolina. [Watch an overview of the American Revolution.]
Bettmann/Getty Images
1767
Andrew Jackson, who was the first U.S. president to come from west of the Appalachians and the first to be elected by a direct appeal to the mass of voters, was born. [Do you know where each U.S. president was born?]
BBC Hulton Picture Library
1614
Franciscus Sylvius, whose studies helped shift medical emphasis from mystical speculation to a rational application of the laws of physics, was born in Hanau, Germany. [Take our physics quiz.]
© Photos.com/Thinkstock
44 bce
In 44 bce Roman dictator Julius Caesar was launching a series of political and social reforms when he was assassinated on the Ides of March by a group of nobles, among whom were Cassius and Brutus.