On this day, March 15
1493 Italian explorer Christopher Columbus arrived back in the Spanish harbor of Palos de la Frontera, two months after concluding his first voyage to the Western Hemisphere.
1820 Maine became the 23rd state.
1944 During World War II, Allied bombers again raided Germanheld Monte Cassino.
1965 President Lyndon B. Johnson, addressing a joint session of Congress, called for new legislation to guarantee every American’s right to vote; the result was passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
2011 The Syrian civil war had its beginnings with Arab Spring protests across the region that turned into an armed insurgency and eventually became a full-blown conflict.
2012 Convicted former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich walked into a federal prison in Colorado, where the 55-year-old Democrat began serving a 14-year sentence for corruption. (He was released in February 2020 after President Donald Trump commuted his sentence.)
2019 A gunman killed 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, streaming the massacre live on Facebook. (Brenton Tarrant, an Australian white supremacist, was sentenced to life in prison without parole after pleading guilty to 51 counts of murder and other charges.)
2020 The Federal Reserve took massive emergency action to help the economy withstand the coronavirus by slashing its benchmark interest rate to near zero and saying it would buy $700 billion in treasury and mortgage bonds. After initially trying to keep schools open, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said the nation’s largest public school system would close in hopes of curbing the spread of the virus.
Today’s birthdays: Actor Judd Hirsch, 89. Rock musician Phil Lesh, 84. Singer Mike Love (The Beach Boys), 83. Rock singermusician Sly Stone, 81. Rock singer-musician Howard Scott (War; Lowrider Band), 78. Actor Frances Conroy, 71. Actor Craig Wasson, 70. Rock singer Dee Snider (Twisted Sister), 69. Actor Joaquim de Almeida, 67. Actor Park Overall, 67. Movie director Renny Harlin, 65. Model Fabio, 63. Singer Sananda Maitreya, 62. Rock singer Bret Michaels (Poison), 61. R&B singer Rockwell, 60.