On this Day, March 15, 44 B.C., Julius Caesar is assassinated on the Ides of March by a group of 60 conspirators led by Marcus Brutus. According to the historian Plutarch, a fortune teller had warned Caesar, "beware the ides of March." This event was immortalized in Shakespeare's play, “Julius Caesar.”

The word Ides is from Latin, meaning to divide, and is the 15th day of March, May, July, October, and the 13th day of the other months in the ancient Roman calendar. At one time, the Ides of March marked the new year.

#otd #history #Caesar #March

Because Bulgarian dissident, Georgi Markov was born this week, on March 1, 1929, I thought today would be a good say to tell his compelling, if tragic story.

While waiting at a bus stop in London, he was stabbed with an umbrella that inserted a ricin-filled pellet. He died several days later. It’s believed that the KGB was behind the assassination at the request of the Bulgarian Secret Service, but no one has ever been charged with his murder.

Markov originally worked as a novelist, screenwriter, and playwright in Bulgaria, eventually defecting and relocating to London in 1968. He worked there as a broadcaster and journalist criticizing the Bulgarian regime.

After relocating to London, he worked as a broadcaster and journalist for the BBC World Service, the US-funded Radio Free Europe, and West Germany's Deutsche Welle. Markov used such forums to conduct a campaign of sarcastic criticism against the incumbent Bulgarian regime, which, according to his wife at the time he died, ev...