Today In History
Today is Thursday, March 16, the 75th day of 2023. There are 290 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT
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.
ON THIS DATE
› 1521: Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan and his crew reached the Philippines, where Magellan was killed during a battle with natives the following month.
› 1802: President Thomas Jefferson signed a measure authorizing the establishment of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York.
› 1935: Adolf Hitler decided to break the military terms set by the Treaty of Versailles by ordering the rearming of Germany.
› 1945: During World War II, American forces declared they had secured Iwo Jima, although pockets of Japanese resistance remained.
› 1968: Senator Robert F. Kennedy of New York announced his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination.
› 1972: In a nationally broadcast address, President Richard Nixon called for a moratorium on court-ordered school busing to achieve racial desegregation.
› 1984: William Buckley, the CIA station chief in Beirut, was kidnapped by Hezbollah militants (he was tortured by his captors and killed in 1985).
› 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.
› 2004: China declared victory in its fight against bird flu, saying it had “stamped out” all its known cases.
› 2014: Crimeans voted to leave Ukraine and join Russia, overwhelmingly approving a referendum that sought to unite the strategically important Black Sea region with the country it was part of for some 250 years.
› 2016: President Barack 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.)
› 2020: Global stocks plunged again amid coronavirus concerns, with Wall Street seeing a 12% decline, its worst in more than 30 years; the S&P 500 was down 30% from its record set less than a month earlier. Ohio called off its presidential primary just hours before polls were to open, but Arizona, Florida and Illinois went ahead with their plans.