What Happened on March 15?

March 15 is World Consumer Rights Day — a global reminder that shoppers deserve safe products and honest information — on the same date Maine became a state, Caesar met the Ides, and the internet got its first .com address.

• 1493 — Columbus sails home to Spain after his first Atlantic voyage

  Storm-battered but successful, Christopher Columbus steered the Niña into the Spanish port of Palos, ending the voyage that connected Europe and the Americas by sea. Read the full story →

• 1820 — Maine becomes the 23rd state

  After decades as a district of Massachusetts, Maine officially joined the United States as its 23rd state — part of the famous Missouri Compromise deal. Read the full story →

• 1892 — Jesse Reno patents his "inclined elevator"

  Inventor Jesse Reno received U.S. Patent No. 470,918 for a moving sloped conveyor — the machine that grew into today's escalator. Read the full story →

• 1917 — Russia's last tsar gives up the throne

  With food riots and revolution sweeping his country, Tsar Nicholas II signed away 300 years of Romanov rule, ending Russia's monarchy during World War I. Read the full story →

• 1985 — The internet's first .com address goes online

  A Massachusetts computer company called Symbolics registered symbolics.com — the very first .com domain name — years before most people had ever heard of the internet. Read the full story →

Famous birthdays

Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933–2020) · Andrew Jackson (1767–1845) · will.i.am (1975)

Days & observances

World Consumer Rights Day · The Ides of March · National Peanut Lovers Day · National Everything You Think Is Wrong Day · International Day Against Police Brutality