March 16

Events

• 1190 - Crusaders start to massacre the Jews of York, England.
• 1521 - Ferdinand Magellan reaches the Philippines.
• 1621 - Samoset, a Mohegan, visits the settlers of Plymouth Colony and greets them, "Welcome, Englishmen! My name is Samoset."
• 1660 - The Long Parliament disbands.
• 1792 - King Gustav III of Sweden is shot; he dies on March 29.
• 1802 - West Point is established.
• 1815 - Willem I becomes King of the Netherlands.
• 1850 - Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel The Scarlet Letter is published for the first time.
• 1900 - Sir Arthur Evans discovers the ruins of Knossos on Crete.
• 1926 - Robert Goddard launches the first liquid-fueled rocket, at Auburn, Massachusetts.
• 1935 - Adolf Hitler orders Germany to rearm herself in violation of the Versailles Treaty.
• 1945 - World War II: The Battle of Iwo Jima ends but small pockets of Japanese resistance persist.
• 1962 - A Flying Tiger Line Super-Constellation disappeared in the western Pacific Ocean killing 107
• 1968 - Vietnam War: My Lai massacre American troops kills scores of women and children.
• 1969 - A Venezuelan Airlines DC-9 crashes shortly after takeoff Maracaibo, Venezuela killing 155
• 1978 - Aldo Moro is kidnapped by left-wing urban guerrillas in Italy and is later killed by his captors.
• 1984 - CIA station chief stationed in Beirut, William Buckley, is kidnapped by Islamic fundamentalists and later dies in captivity.
• 1985 - Associated Press newsman Terry Anderson is taken hostage in Beirut. He would later be released on December 4, 1991.
• 1988 - Iran-Contra Affair: Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North and Vice Admiral John Poindexter are indicted on charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States.
• 1988 - Iraq attacks the Kurdish town of Halabjah with mix of poison gas and nerve agents killing 5000.
• 1993 - A blizzard on the east coast of the United States kills 184.
• 1994 - In Portland, Oregon Tonya Harding pleads guilty to conspiracy to hinder prosecution for trying to cover-up an attack on figure skating rival Nancy Kerrigan. She is fined $100,000 and banned from the sport.
• 2003 - Largest co-ordinated worldwide vigil, as part of the global protests against war on Iraq.
• 2880 - A 1/300 probability prediction that Asteroid 1950DA will hit Earth causing an extinction-level event

Births

• 1751 - James Madison, 4th President of the United States, (d. 1836)
• 1787 - Georg Simon Ohm, physicist and discoverer of Ohm's law, (d. 1854)
• 1829 - René François Armand Sully-Prudhomme, laureate of the first Nobel Prize in Literature in 1901, (d. 1907)
• 1834 - James Hector, geologist, (d. 1907)
• 1878 - Clemens August Graf von Galen, archbishop of Münster and cardinal, (d. 1946)
• 1902 - Leon Roppolo, jazz clarinetist, (d. 1943)
• 1905 - Elisabeth Flickenschildt, actress, (d. 1977)
• 1906 - Henny Youngman, comedian, (d. 1998)
• 1911 - Josef Mengele, Nazi war criminal, (d. 1979)
• 1912 - Pat Nixon, actress, First Lady, (d. 1993)
• 1918 - Frederick Reines, physicist (1995 Nobel Prize in Physics), (d. 1998)
• 1920 - Leo McKern, actor, (d. 2002)
• 1926 - Jerry Lewis, comedian
• 1926 - James N. Miller, microbiologist
• 1927 - Vladimir Komarov, cosmonaut, (d. 1967)
• 1927 - Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Senator from New York, (d. 2003)
• 1929 - Nadja Tiller, actress
• 1934 - Ray Hnatyshyn, former Governor-General of Canada, (d. 2002)
• 1941 - Bernardo Bertolucci, film director
• 1942 - James Soong, politician
• 1949 - Erik Estrada, actor
• 1953 - Isabelle Huppert, actress
• 1953 - Richard Stallman, Free software proponent
• 1954 - Nancy Wilson, guitarist, singer, actress
• 1955 - Jiro Watanabe, Japanese boxing world champion
• 1959 - Flavor Flav, rap musician
• 1959 - Jens Stoltenberg, Prime Minister of Norway

Deaths

• 455 - Valentinian III, Roman emperor, (b. 419)
• 1736 - Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, composer, (b. 1710)
• 1898 - Aubrey Beardsley, British artist, (b. 1872)
• 1903 - Judge Roy Bean, jurist, Old West pioneer, (b. c. 1825)
• 1940 - Selma Lagerlöf, writer, (b. 1858)
• 1957 - Constantin Brancusi, sculptor, (b. 1876)
• 1970 - Tammi Terrell, singer
• 1971 - Thomas Dewey, candidate for President of the United States in 1944 and 1948, (b. 1902)
• 1975 - T-Bone Walker, musician, (b. 1910)
• 1977 - Kamal Jumblatt, leader of the Lebanese Druze, (b. 1917)

Holidays and observances

• The first day of the Bacchanalia in ancient Rome

March 15 - March 17 - February 16 - April 16 -- listing of all days

January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December

Referenced By