Almanac - Wednesday March 15, 2023

March 15, 1933 – Ruth Bader Ginsburg is born. She is the second female U.S. Supreme Court Justice and spent her legal career advocating for women's rights before taking the bench.

March 15, 1825 (1900) – Harriet E. Wilson, one of the first female African-American novelist, her novel Our Nig, or Sketches from the Life of a Free Black was published anonymously in 1859 in Boston, and was not widely known until it was discovered in 1982 by the scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

March 15, 1896 (1989) – Marion Cuthbert, helped found the National Association of College Women to fight discrimination in higher education (1932), wrote pathbreaking dissertation, “Education and Marginality: A Study of the Negro Woman College Graduate” (1942), secretary of the National Board of YWCA and member of NAACP and numerous peace and human rights boards

Eva Longoria, a popular actress known for her role in the Desperate Housewives and numerous films, was born today in 1975. Her philanthropic work with PADRES Contra el Cancer has also helped millions of families affected by the illness. Longoria is a huge political activist championing equal pay and diversity in Hollywood among other causes

1907 – Zarah Leander, Swedish actress and singer (d. 1981)

1921 – Madelyn Pugh, American television writer and producer (d. 2011)

1939 – Julie Tullis, English mountaineer (d. 1986)

1941 – Carolyn Hansson, Canadian materials engineer

1943 – Lynda La Plante, English actress, screenwriter, and author

1944 – Chi Cheng, Taiwanese runner

1948 – Kate Bornstein, American author and activist

1954 – Isobel Buchanan, Scottish soprano and actress

1955 – Dee Snider, American singer-songwriter

1965 – Sunetra Gupta, Indian epidemiologist, author, and academic

1968 – Kahimi Karie, Japanese singer

1968 – Sabrina Salerno, Italian singer-songwriter

1971 – Joanne Wise, English long jumper

1976 – Cara Pifko, Canadian actress

1983 – Golda Marcus, Salvadoran swimmer

1993 – Alia Bhatt, British actress

Today is also the birthday of….

1767 – Andrew Jackson, American general, judge, and politician, 7th President of the United States (d. 1845)

1874 – Harold L. Ickes, American journalist and politician, United States Secretary of the Interior (d. 1952)

1912 – Lightnin' Hopkins, American blues singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 1982)

1916 – Harry James, American trumpet player, bandleader, and actor (d. 1983)

1935 – Judd Hirsch, American actor

1935 – Jimmy Swaggart, American pastor and television host

1940 – Phil Lesh, American bassist

1943 – Sly Stone, American musician and record producer

1947 – Ry Cooder, American singer-songwriter and guitarist

1959 – Ben Okri, Nigerian poet and author

1968 – Mark McGrath, American singer-songwriter

1975 – will.i.am, American rapper, producer, and actor

Also on this day in history…

44 BC – The assassination of Julius Caesar takes place.

1917 – Tsar Nicholas II of Russia abdicates the Russian throne, ending the 304-year Romanov dynasty.

1951 – Iranian oil industry is nationalized.

1965 – President Lyndon B. Johnson, responding to the Selma crisis, tells U.S. Congress "We shall overcome" while advocating the Voting Rights Act.

1990 – Mikhail Gorbachev is elected as the first President of the Soviet Union.

2019 – Fifty-one people are killed in the Christchurch mosque shootings.

2019 – Beginning of the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests.

2019 – Approximately 1.4 million young people in 123 countries go on strike to protest climate change.