March 12,1933 – Eight days after his inauguration, President Franklin D. Roosevelt gives the first of his famous “fireside chats” to a national radio audience broadcasting directly from the White House. His topic centered around his decision to close the nation’s banks in order to stop panic withdrawals, the so-called “run on the bank.”. He went on to deliver 30 more of these broadcasts between 1933 and 1944.
March 15, 44 B.C. – Julius Caesar was assassinated in the Senate chamber in Rome by Marcus Junius Brutus and fellow conspirators. His death is immortalized by playwright William Shakespeare and the line “Et tu, Brute?”.
March 17, 461– Ireland, and eventually anywhere in the world where the Irish gather, pays homage to the death of St. Patrick of Ireland. The fifth century missionary and later bishop brought Christianity to Ireland’s masses.
March 18, 1974 – The five-month-old Arab oil embargo against the U.S is lifted. The embargo was in retaliation for the American support of Israel during the Yom Kipper War of 1973 in which Egypt and Syria suffered a crushing defeat. The embargo caused U.S. gas prices to soar 300%.