This was not a good day for  poor Julius Caesar, the man who gave us Leap Year, extending the coldest month of the year by one  extra 24-hour period  every four years. On this day in history in 44 B.C., the Roman emperor, then given the title Dictator for Life, was assassinated by a group of Roman senators, led by his close personal friend, Brutus. He had been forewarned of the Ides of March, but presumably didn’t take the threat seriously.

If only Caesar had had the modern conveniences of a smartphone and social media, his fate might have been much different and the world might be a whole lot different today. After all, you don’t need me to tell you of  the magical power of mobile and social technologies.

Heck, GEICO has already shown us how much happier Paul Revere would have been if he’d had a cell phone — He could have alerted all his followers to the impending British attack without interrupting his charades game, the commercial would have us believe. He could have stayed home, avoiding the need for his famed midnight ride.

But back to Roman times: Caesar could have found out what his friend Brutus was up to simply by following him on Twitter, sent a text message to his elite palace guards urging them to be on the lookout for Brutus and his co-conspirators, and then posted the video of Brutus’ imminent capture and execution on YouTube as a deterrent to others looking to carry out similar crimes against the state. And he’d have looked so good and natural doing it, as shown in these 2011 commercials for an Italian telephone company..