What happened on March 16 ?

Choose another date »

 
 

 

Events

597 BC - Babylonians capture Jerusalem, replace Jehoiachin with Zedekiah as king

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.

1689 - The 23rd Regiment of Foot or Royal Welch Fusiliers is founded.

1792 - King Gustav III of Sweden is shot; he dies on March 29.

1802 - The United States Military Academy West Point is established.

1812 - Battle of Badajoz (March 16 - April 6) - British and Portuguese forces besiege and defeat French garrison during Peninsular War.

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.

1818 - Battle of Cancha Rayada - Spanish forces defeat Chileans under José de San Martín.

1850 - Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel The Scarlet Letter is first published.

1855 - Bates College in Lewiston, Maine is founded.

 
 

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.

1912 - Lawrence Oates, ill member of Scott's South Pole expedition leaves the tent saying, "I am just going outside and may be some time."

1914 - Henriette Caillaux, wife of French minister Joseph Caillaux shoots Gaston Calmet, the editor of Le Figaro.

1916 - 7th and 10th US cavalry regiments under John J. Pershing cross the border to join the hunt of Pancho Villa.

1924 - The free port of Fiume formally annexed by Mussolini's fascist regime.

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. Conscription was reintroduced to form the Wehrmacht.

1939 - From Prague Castle Hitler proclaimed Bohemia and Moravia a German protectorate.

1939 - Marriage of Princess Fawzia of Egypt to Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran

1942 - First V-2 rocket test launch (exploded at liftoff)

 
 

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.

1963 - Mount Agung erupts on Bali - 11,000 dead

1966 - Launch of Gemini 8, the 12th manned American space flight and first space docking with the Agena Target Vehicle.

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

1970 - Publication of complete New English Bible.

1971 - Government of Trygve Bratteli in Norway

1972 - The first building of the Pruitt-Igoe housing complex is demolished.

1976 - UK Prime Minister, Harold Wilson resigns.

1978 - Aldo Moro is kidnapped by left-wing urban guerrillas in Italy and is later killed by his captors.

1978 - Supertanker the Amoco Cadiz, split in two after running aground on Portsall Rocks, three miles off the coast of Brittany, resulting in the 5th-largest oil spill in history

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.

1996 - Göran Persson is elected leader of the Swedish Social Democratic Party.

1997 - Sandline affair - On Bougainville, soldiers of commander Jerry Singirok arrest Tim Spicer and his mercenaries of the Sandline International

1997 - Stuart Appleby wins the Honda Golf Classic.

1998 - Pope John Paul II apologises for inactivity and silence of some Roman Catholics during the Holocaust.

2001 - The only day between 1993 and 2002 when nobody in the United Kingdom killed themselves, according to a health survey.

2002 - Closing ceremonies of the Winter Paralympics in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA.

2002 - Brittanie Cecil, age 13, is struck by a hockey puck while watching an NHL game in Columbus, Ohio. She dies from her injuries two days later.

2003 - Largest coordinated worldwide vigil, as part of the global protests against Iraq war.

2005 - Israel officially hands over Jericho to Palestinian control

2005 - Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri, accused of the bombing of the Air India Flight 182 in 1985, are found not guilty on all counts.

2006 - The United Nations General Assembly votes overwhelmingly to establish the UN Human Rights Council.

 

Events Births Deaths Holidays