Rambling thought for today, the ides of March 2020

Well it's 15th March, and this morning -- mainly on the spur of the moment but partly to keep my mind off  the all-pervading news about COVID-19 corona virus) -- I  felt like investigating the Latin work "ides".

Several online dictionaries use the same definition:
The 15th day of March, May, July, or October or the 13th day of the other months in the ancient Roman calendar.

Curious about why it wasn’t the 15th of the month that was always used, I found a good discussion you can investigate under Ides of March in Wikipedia

… a day in the Roman calendar that corresponds to 15 March. It was marked by several religious observances and was notable for the Romans as a deadline for settling debts. In 44 BC, it became notorious as the date of the assassination of Julius Caesar which made the Ides of March a turning point in Roman history.

and

The Romans did not number days of a month from the first to the last day. Instead, they counted back from three fixed points of the month: the Nones (the 5th or 7th, nine days inclusive before the Ides), the Ides (the 13th for most months, but the 15th in March, May, July, and October), and the Kalends (1st of the following month). Originally the Ides were supposed to be determined by the full moon, reflecting the lunar origin of the Roman calendar. In the earliest calendar, the Ides of March would have been the first full moon of the new year.

However there's the following alternative scenario:

              

So avoid being stabbed, and smile for a while on the ides of March!