On this day, March 16
1802 President Thomas Jefferson signed a measure authorizing the establishment of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y.
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 Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, of New York, announced his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination.
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.
1984 William Buckley, the CIA station chief in Beirut, was kidnapped by Hezbollah militants.
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.
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 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.
2021 A gunman killed eight people, mostly women of Asian descent, at three Atlantaarea massage parlors in an attack that sent terror through the Asian-American community, which had increasingly been targeted during the pandemic; the 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.)
Today’s birthdays: Country singer Ray Lindsay Walker, 90. Game show host Chuck Woolery, 83. Actor Erik Estrada, 75. Actor Victor Garber, 75. Country singer Ray Benson), 73. Bluegrass musician Tim O’Brien, 70. Rock singer-musician Nancy Wilson (Heart), 70. World Golf Hall of Famer Hollis Stacy, 70. Actor Clifton Powell, 68. Rapper-actor Flavor Flav, 65. Rock musician Jimmy DeGrasso, 61. Actor Jerome Flynn, 61. Folk singer Patty Griffin, 60. Movie director Gore Verbinski, 60. Country singer Tracy Bonham, 57. Actor Lauren Graham, 57. Actor Judah Friedlander, 55. Actor Alan Tudyk, 53. Actor Tim Kang, 51. R&B singer Blu Cantrell, 48. Rock musician Wolfgang Van Halen, 33. Toronto Blue Jays baseball star Vladimir Guerrero Jr., 25.