Literature

The Return of the King (1955)

J.R.R. Tolkien

In-fiction date: 3/15/3019

On March 15, Third Age 3019, the Battle of the Pelennor Fields reaches its crisis outside the walls of Minas Tirith. King Théoden of Rohan is crushed beneath his dying horse after the Witch-king of Angmar strikes it down — and it is his niece Éowyn, fighting in secret among the Riders, who kills the Nazgûl lord, aided by the hobbit Merry. Aragorn arrives by river with the dead men of Dunharrow before dawn and breaks the siege. Théoden dies on the field. The war is not yet over.

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Mar 25, 3019 On March 25, Third Age 3019, Frodo Baggins reaches the Sammath Naur within Mount Doom — and, overcome by the Ring's power at the last moment, claims it for himself. Gollum bites the Ring from Frodo's finger and tumbles into the fire, inadvertently fulfilling the quest: the One Ring is destroyed, Sauron's power collapses, and the Third Age of Middle-earth ends. Tolkien chose March 25 deliberately — the Feast of the Annunciation — as the day his world's great evil was unmade.

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