This day in history
Today is Saturday, March 16, the 76th day of 2024. There are 290 days left in the year.
ºBirthdays: Country singer Ray Walker of the Jordanaires is 90. Game show host Chuck Woolery is 83. Country singer Robin Williams is 77. Actor Erik Estrada is
75. Actor Victor Garber is 75. Country singer Ray Benson of Asleep at the Wheel is 73. Bluegrass multi-instrumentalist Tim O’Brien of Hot Rize and Earls of Leicester is 70. Rock singer-musician Nancy Wilson of Heart is
70. Golf Hall of Famer Hollis Stacy is 70. Actor Clifton Powell is
68. Rapper-actor Flavor Flav is
65. Rock musician Jimmy DeGrasso is 61. Actor Jerome Flynn is 61. Folk singer Patty Griffin is
60. Movie director Gore Verbinski is 60. Singer Tracy Bonham is
57. Actor Lauren Graham is 57. Actor Judah Friedlander is 55. Actor Alan Tudyk is 53. Actor Tim Kang is 51. R&B singer Blu Cantrell is 48. Actor Brooke Burns is 46. Actor Kimrie Lewis is 42. Actor Brett Davern is 41. Actor Alexandra Daddario is 38. R&B singer Jhené Aiko is 36. Rock musician Wolfgang Van Halen is 33. Toronto Blue Jays baseball star Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is 25.
▶ 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 authorizing the establishment of the US Military Academy at West Point, N.Y.
▶In 1926, rocket science pioneer Robert H. Goddard successfully tested the first liquid-fueled rocket at his Aunt Effie’s farm in Auburn, Mass.
▶ 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 1968, the My Lai massacre took place during the Vietnam War as US Army soldiers hunting for Viet Cong fighters and sympathizers killed unarmed villagers in two hamlets of Son My village; estimates of the death toll vary from 347 to 504. Senator Robert F. Kennedy of New York announced his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination.
▶In 1972, in a nationally broadcast address, President Richard Nixon called for a moratorium on court-ordered school busing to achieve racial desegregation.
▶In 1984, William Buckley, the CIA station chief in Beirut, was kidnapped by Hezbollah militants (he was tortured by his captors and killed in 1985).
▶In 1987, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis announced his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination.
▶In 1994, figure skater Tonya Harding pleaded guilty in Portland, Ore., to conspiracy to hinder prosecution for covering up an attack on rival Nancy Kerrigan, avoiding jail but drawing a $100,000 fine.
▶In 2016, President Obama nominated Merrick Garland to take the seat of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who had died the previous month. (Republicans who controlled the Senate would stick to their pledge to leave the seat empty until after the presidential election; they confirmed Trump nominee Neil Gorsuch in April 2017.)
▶In 2020, amid coronavirus concerns, global stocks plunged again with Wall Street seeing a 12 percent decline, its worst in more than 30 years, and Ohio called off its presidential primary just hours before polls were to open while Arizona, Florida, and Illinois went ahead with their plans.
▶In 2021, a gunman killed eight people, mostly women of Asian descent, at three Atlanta-area massage parlors in an attack that sent terror through the Asian-American community, which had increasingly been targeted during the pandemic; the white gunman, Robert Long, told police that the attack was not racially motivated and that he had a “sex addiction.” (Long was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty in four of the deaths.)
▶In 2022, a powerful 7.3 magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Fukushima in northern Japan.