On This Day - March 16th

Submitted by Syrext on March 16, 2025

On This Day 📜 - March 16th

Featured Event:

My Lai Massacre (1968) 🔪

On this day in 1968, during the Vietnam War, U.S. soldiers dispatched on a search-and-destroy mission killed as many as 500 unarmed villagers in the hamlet of My Lai, considered a stronghold of the Viet Cong.

Other Events:

1850: American author Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter was published. 📕

1945: U.S. Marines captured the Japanese island of Iwo Jima during World War II. 🪖

1995: Mississippi ratified the Thirteenth Amendment—which abolished slavery—130 years after it was added to the U.S. Constitution; however, Mississippi's ratification was not made official until 2013 📄

2014: In a popular referendum, Crimea voted to secede from Ukraine and join the Russian Federation; despite opposition from numerous countries, Russia later annexed the region. 🇷🇺

Holidays:

Day of the Book Smugglers 🇱🇹

Remembrance Day 🇱🇻

Saint Urho's Day 🇫🇮 (Finnish-Americans and Canadians)

Featured Birthdays:

1751: James Madison 🇺🇸 (4th President)

1911: Josef Mengele 🇩🇪 (Physician)

1926: Jerry Lewis 🇺🇸 (Comedian)

1963: Eiji Aonuma 🇯🇵 (Video Game Designer)

Featured Deaths:

37: Tiberius 🇮🇹 (Emperor)

1940: Selma Lagerlöf 🇸🇪 (Author)