Call & Times

TODAY IN HISTORY

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On March 16, 1968, the My Lai massacre took place during the Vietnam War as U.S. 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.

On this date:

In A.D. 37, Roman emperor Tiberius died; he was succeeded by Caligula.

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 1751, James Madison, fourth president of the United States, was born in Port Conway, Virginia.

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

In 1926, rocket science pioneer Robert H. Goddard successful­ly tested the first liquid-fueled rocket at his Aunt Effie's farm in Auburn, Massachuse­tts.

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

In 1966, NASA launched Gemini 8 on a mission to rendezvous and dock with Agena, a target vehicle in orbit; although the docking was successful, the joined vehicles began spinning, forcing Gemini to disconnect and abort the flight.

In 1978, Italian politician Aldo Moro was kidnapped by the leftwing Red Brigades, who later murdered him.

In 1988, a Protestant extremist launched a one-man gun-andgrenade attack on an Irish Republican Army funeral at Milltown Cemetery in Belfast, Northern Ireland, killing three of the mourners.

In 1991, a plane carrying seven members of country singer Reba McEntire's band and her tour manager crashed into Otay Mountain in southern California, killing all on board. U.S. skaters Kristi Yamaguchi, Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan swept the World Figure Skating Championsh­ips in Munich.

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

In 2003, American activist Rachel Corrie, 23, was crushed to death by an Israeli military bulldozer while trying to block demolition of a Palestinia­n home in the Gaza Strip.

Ten years ago: Protests spread from Tibet into three neighborin­g provinces as Tibetans defied a Chinese government crackdown; the Dalai Lama decried what he called the "cultural genocide" taking place in his homeland and called for an internatio­nal investigat­ion into China's crackdown on demonstrat­ors.

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