Events on March 16 60
Year 455
Emperor Valentinian III is assassinated by two Hunnic retainers while training with the bow on the Campus Martius (Rome).
Year 934
Meng Zhixiang declares himself emperor and establishes Later Shu as a new state independent of Later Tang.
Year 1621
Samoset, a Mohegan, visited the settlers of Plymouth Colony and greets them, "Welcome, Englishmen! My name is Samoset."
Year 1660
The Long Parliament of England is dissolved so as to prepare for the new Convention Parliament.
Year 1782
American Revolutionary War: Spanish troops capture the British-held island of Roatán.
Year 1797
French Revolutionary Wars: An Austrian column is defeated by the French in the Battle of Valvasone.
Year 1802
The Army Corps of Engineers is established to found and operate the United States Military Academy at West Point.
Year 1812
The Siege of Badajoz begins: British and Portuguese forces besiege and defeat the French garrison during the Peninsular War.
Year 1815
Prince Willem proclaims himself King of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, the first constitutional monarch in the Netherlands.
Year 1818
In the Second Battle of Cancha Rayada, Spanish forces defeated Chileans under José de San Martín.
Year 1864
American Civil War: During the Red River Campaign, Union troops reach Alexandria, Louisiana.
Year 1865
American Civil War: The Battle of Averasborough began as Confederate forces suffer irreplaceable casualties in the final months of the war.
Year 1870
The first version of the overture fantasy Romeo and Juliet by Tchaikovsky receives its première performance.
Year 1872
The Wanderers F.C. won the first FA Cup, the oldest football competition in the world, beating Royal Engineers A.F.C. 1-0 at The Oval in Kennington, London.
Year 1900
Sir Arthur Evans purchased the land around the ruins of Knossos, the largest Bronze Age archaeological site on Crete.
Year 1916
The 7th and 10th US cavalry regiments under John J. Pershing cross the US-Mexico border to join the hunt for Pancho Villa.
Year 1918
Finnish Civil War: Battle of Länkipohja is infamous for its bloody aftermath as the Whites executed 70-100 capitulated Reds.
Year 1926
History of Rocketry: Robert Goddard launches the first liquid-fueled rocket, at Auburn, Massachusetts.
Year 1935
Adolf Hitler orders Germany to rearm herself in violation of the Treaty of Versailles. Conscription is reintroduced to form the Wehrmacht.
Year 1936
Warmer-than-normal temperatures rapidly melt snow and ice on the upper Allegheny and Monongahela rivers, leading to a major flood in Pittsburgh.
Year 1940
First person killed (James Isbister) in a German bombing raid on the UK in World War II during a raid on Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands.
Year 1945
World War II: The Battle of Iwo Jima ended, but small pockets of Japanese resistance persisted.
Year 1945
Ninety percent of Würzburg, Germany is destroyed in only 20 minutes by British bombers, resulting in around 5,000 deaths.
Year 1958
The Ford Motor Company produces its 50 millionth automobile, the Thunderbird, averaging almost a million cars a year since the company's founding.
Year 1962
A Flying Tiger Line Super Constellation disappears in the western Pacific Ocean, with all 107 aboard missing and presumed dead.
Year 1966
Launch of Gemini 8, the 12th manned American space flight and first space docking with the Agena target vehicle.
Year 1968
Vietnam War: My Lai Massacre occurs; between 347 and 500 Vietnamese villagers (men, women, and children) are killed by American troops.
Year 1977
Assassination of Kamal Jumblatt, the main leader of the anti-government forces in the Lebanese Civil War.
Year 1978
Former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro is kidnapped. (He is later murdered by his captors.)
Year 1978
Supertanker Amoco Cadiz splits in two after running aground on the Portsall Rocks, three miles off the coast of Brittany, resulting in the largest oil spill in history at that time.
Year 1979
Sino-Vietnamese War: The People's Liberation Army crosses the border back into China, ends the war.
Year 1983
Demolition of the Ismaning radio transmitter, the last wooden radio tower in Germany.
Year 1984
William Buckley, the CIA station chief in Beirut, Lebanon, is kidnapped by Islamic fundamentalists. (He later dies in captivity.)
Year 1985
Associated Press newsman Terry Anderson is taken hostage in Beirut. He is released on December 4, 1991.
Year 1988
Iran-Contra affair: Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North and Vice Admiral John Poindexter are indicted on charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States.
Year 1988
Halabja chemical attack: The Kurdish town of Halabja in Iraq is attacked with a mix of poison gas and nerve agents on the orders of Saddam Hussein, killing 5000 people and injuring about 10000 people.
Year 1988
The Troubles: Ulster loyalist militant Michael Stone attacks a Provisional IRA funeral in Belfast with pistols and grenades. A PIRA volunteer and two civilians are killed, and more than 60 others are wounded.
Year 1991
The airplane carrying eight members of Reba McEntire's touring band crashed on the side of Otay Mountain.
Year 1995
Mississippi formally ratifies the Thirteenth Amendment, becoming the last state to approve the abolition of slavery. The Thirteenth Amendment was officially ratified in 1865.
Year 2014
Crimea votes in a controversial referendum to secede from Ukraine to join Russia.
Year 2016
A bomb detonates in a bus carrying government employees in Peshawar, Pakistan, killing 15 and injuring at least 54.
Year 2016
Two suicide bombers detonate their explosives at a mosque during morning prayer on the outskirts of Maiduguri, Nigeria, killing 22 and injuring 18.