This Day in History

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March 16

1621 – Samoset, a Mohegan, visited the settlers of Plymouth Colony and greets them, in English, "Welcome, Englishmen! My name is Samoset."

1802 – The Army Corps of Engineers is established to found and operate the United States Military Academy at West Point.

1870 – The first version of the overture fantasy Romeo and Juliet by Tchaikovsky receives its première performance.

1916 – The 7th and 10th US cavalry regiments under John J. Pershing cross the US–Mexico border to join the hunt for Pancho Villa.

1926 – History of Rocketry: Robert Goddard launches the first liquid-fueled rocket, at Auburn, Massachusetts.

1936 – Warmer-than-normal temperatures rapidly melt snow and ice on the upper Allegheny and Monongahela rivers, leading to a major flood in Pittsburgh.

1945 – World War II: The Battle of Iwo Jima ended, but small pockets of Japanese resistance persisted.

1945 – Ninety percent of Würzburg, Germany is destroyed in only 20 minutes by British bombers, resulting in around 5,000 deaths.

1958 – The Ford Motor Company produces its 50 millionth automobile, the Thunderbird, averaging almost a million cars a year since the company's founding.

1968 – General Motors produces its 100 millionth automobile, an Oldsmobile Toronado.

1978 – Supertanker Amoco Cadiz splits in two after running aground on the Portsall Rocks, three miles off the coast of Brittany, resulting in the largest oil spill in history at that time.

1984 – William Buckley, the CIA station chief in Beirut, Lebanon, is kidnapped by Islamic fundamentalists. (He later dies in captivity.)

1985 – Associated Press newsman Terry Anderson is taken hostage in Beirut. He is 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 chemical attack: The Kurdish town of Halabja in Iraq is attacked with a mix of poison gas and nerve agents on the orders of Saddam Hussein, killing 5000 people and injuring about 10000 people.

1995 – Mississippi formally ratifies the Thirteenth Amendment, becoming the last state to approve the abolition of slavery. The Thirteenth Amendment was officially ratified in 1865.

Births

1751 – James Madison, 1822 – Rosa Bonheur, 1906 – Henny Youngman, 1911 – Josef Mengele, 1916 – Mercedes McCambridge, 1926 – Jerry Lewis, 1927 – Daniel Patrick Moynihan, 1940 – Bernardo Bertolucci, 1941 – Chuck Woolery, 1942 – Jerry Jeff Walker, 1949 – Erik Estrada, 1949 – Victor Garber, 1950 – Kate Nelligan, 1951 – Ray Benson, 1954 – Nancy Wilson, 1956 – Clifton Powell, 1959 – Flavor Flaaaaav, 1961 – Todd McFarlane, 1964 – Gore Verbinski, 1967 – Ronnie McCoury

Deaths

37 – Tiberius, 455 – Valentinian III, 1903 – Judge Roy Bean, 1971 – Bebe Daniels, 1971 – Thomas E. Dewey, 1975 – T-Bone Walker, 1983 – Arthur Godfrey, 1988 – Mickey Thompson, 2013 – Frank Thornton, 2014 – Gary Bettenhausen, 2016 – Frank Sinatra, Jr.