March 16
From the Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can change
March 16 is the 75th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (76th in leap years). There are 290 days remaining.
[change] 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.
[change] Births
- 1751 - James Madison, 4th President of the United States (d. 1836)
- 1911 - Josef Mengele, Nazi war criminal (d. 1979)
- 1912 - Pat Nixon, First Lady of the United States (d. 1993)
- 1926 - Jerry Lewis, American comedian
- 1953 - Richard Stallman, American free software activist
[change] Deaths
- 1898 - Aubrey Beardsley, British artist (b. 1872)