TODAY IN HISTORY

On March 16, 1968, the My Lai massacre took place during the Vietnam War as U.S. soldiers hunting for Viet Cong fighters and sympathizers killed unarmed villagers in two hamlets; estimates of the death toll vary from 347 to 504.

Also on this date

In 1521, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan and his crew reached the Philippines, where Magellan was killed during a battle with natives the following month.

In 1802, President Thomas Jefferson signed a measure establishing the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York.

In 1935, Adolf Hitler decided to break the military terms set by the Treaty of Versailles by ordering the rearming of Germany.

In 1945, during World War II, American forces declared they had secured Iwo Jima, although pockets of Japanese resistance remained.

In 1972, President Richard Nixon called for a moratorium on courtordered school busing to achieve racial desegregation.

In 1984, William Buckley, the CIA station chief in Beirut, was kidnapped by Hezbollah militants (he was killed in 1985).

In 1994, figure skater Tonya Harding pleaded guilty in Oregon to conspiracy to hinder prosecution for covering up an attack on rival Nancy Kerrigan, avoiding jail but drawing a $100,000 fine.

In 2014, Crimeans voted to leave Ukraine and join Russia, approving a referendum that sought to unite the strategically important Black Sea region with the country it was part of for some 250 years.

In 2016, President Barack Obama nominated Merrick Garland to take the seat of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who died the previous month. (Senate Republicans would stick to their pledge to leave the seat empty until after the presidential election; they confirmed Donald Trump nominee Neil Gorsuch in April 2017.)

In 2018, singer Aretha Franklin canceled two upcoming concerts, saying a doctor had told her to stay off the road and rest completely for at least two months. (Franklin died five months later from pancreatic cancer.)

In 2021, a gunman killed eight people, mostly women of Asian descent, at three Atlanta-area massage parlors; the white gunman, Robert Long, told police he had a “sex addiction.” (Long was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty in four of the deaths.)

ASSOCIATED PRESS On this date in 2018, Aretha Franklin canceled two concerts for health reasons; five months later she died of cancer. This photo is from the film, “Amazing Grace.”