Today is March 15, otherwise known as the Ides of March. It’s the date on which Julius Caesar, the greatest of the Roman emperors, was stabbed by Marcus Junius Brutus, Gaius Cassius Longinus and up to 60 other conspirators in the Roman Senate in 44 B.C.

“Beware the Ides of March” has become part of the English language thanks to William Shakespeare’s dramatization of the life of the Roman Emperor titled Julius Caesar.

An historical account of the time by Plutarch tells us that a seer tried to warn Caesar of his impending fate. Caesar joked, “Well, the Ides of March have come,” and the seer replied, “Ay, they have come, but they are not gone.” Which Shakespeare turned into “beware the Ides of March.”

The point is to be careful on this day as it’s one associated with double crossings, death, and bad fates coming to pass.