March 16
From Wikipedia, a free encyclopedia written in simple English for easy reading.
[edit] Births
[edit] Deaths
- 37 - Tiberius Claudius Nero Caesar, second Roman emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty (b. 46 B.C.E.)
- 455 - Valentinian III, Roman emperor, (b. 419)
- 1736 - Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, Italian composer, (b. 1710)
- 1747 - Christian Augustus of Anhalt-Zerbst, father of Catherine II of Russia (b. 1690)
- 1898 - Aubrey Beardsley, British artist, (b. 1872)
- 1903 - Judge Roy Bean, jurist, Old West pioneer, (b. c. 1825)
- 1940 - Selma Lagerlöf, Swedish writer, (b. 1858)
- 1945 - Börries von Münchhausen, German poet (b. 1874)
- 1957 - Constantin Brancusi, Romanian sculptor, (b. 1876)
- 1968 - Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Italian composer (b. 1895)
- 1970 - Tammi Terrell, American singer
- 1971 - Thomas Dewey, American Presidential candidate (b. 1902)
- 1975 - T-Bone Walker, musician, (b. 1910)
- 1977 - Kamal Jumblatt, leader of the Lebanese Druze (b. 1917)
- 1983 - Arthur Godfrey, American actor and television host
- 2000 - Durward Kirby, American television announcer
- 2001 - Norma MacMillan, American voice actress
- 2003 - Rachel Corrie, American political activist (b. 1979)
- 2003 - Major Ronald Ferguson, father of Sarah, Duchess of York
[edit] Events
- 1190 - Crusaders start to massacre the Jews of York.
- 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 - The United States Military Academy West Point is established.
- 1815 - Prince Willem of the House of Orange-Nassau proclaimed himself King of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, the first constitutional monarch in the Netherlands.
- 1850 - Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel The Scarlet Letter is first published.
- 1861 - Edward Clark became Governor of Texas, replacing Sam Houston, who was evicted from the office for refusing to take an oath of loyalty to the Confederacy.
- 1867 - First publication of an article by Joseph Lister outlining the discovery of antiseptic surgery, in The Lancet.
- 1872 - The Wanderers F.C. won the first FA Cup, the oldest football competition in the world, beating Royal Engineers A.F.C. 1-0 at The Oval in Kennington, London.
- 1900 - Sir Arthur Evans purchases the land around the ruins of Knossos, the largest Bronze Age archaeological site 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.
- 1945 - Würzburg, Germany is 90% destroyed, with 5,000 dead, in only 20 minutes by British bombers.
- 1956 - St. Urho's Day is first celebrated.
- 1962 - A Flying Tiger Line Super Constellation disappears in the western Pacific Ocean, with 107 people missing.
- 1968 - Vietnam War: In the My Lai massacre, between 350 and 500 Vietnamese villagers -- men, women, and children -- are killed by American troops.
- 1969 - A Venezuelan Airlines DC-9 crashes shortly after takeoff in Maracaibo, Venezuela killing 155
- 1972 - The first building of the Pruitt-Igoe housing complex is demolished.
- 1978 - Aldo Moro is kidnapped by left-wing urban guerrillas in Italy and is later killed by his captors.
- 1983 - Demolition of the radio tower Ismaning, the last radio tower in Germany built of wood.
- 1984 - William Buckley, the CIA station chief in Beirut, Lebanon, is kidnapped by Islamic fundamentalists and later dies in captivity.
- 1985 - Associated Press newsman Terry Anderson is taken hostage in Beirut. He would 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 - Halabja poison gas attack: The Kurdish town of Halabjah in Iraq was attacked with a mix of poison gas and nerve agents, killing thousands of people.
- 1993 - A blizzard on the east coast of the United States kills 184 (see Great Blizzard of 1993).
- 1994 - Tonya Harding pleads guilty to conspiracy to hinder prosecution for trying to cover-up an attack on figure skating rival Nancy Kerrigan.
- 1997 - Stuart Appleby wins the Honda Golf Classic.
- 2002 - Closing ceremonies of the Winter Paralympics in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
- 2003 - Largest coordinated worldwide vigil, as part of the global protests against Iraq war.
- 2006 - Planned release date of the computer role-playing game Final Fantasy XII in Japan.
- 2880 - The predicted closest approach to Earth of near-Earth object (29075) 1950 DA which might impact Earth.
