On this day in history

March 16

27 births · 14 deaths · 5 events

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Anniversary highlights

Event anniversary

My Lai Massacre

58 years ago

Born this day

1751

James Madison

Died aged 85

Photo (modified): John Vanderlyn · Public domain

Oldest record

1571st

Valentinian III

death anniversary

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Famous births27

1478 · 548 yrs

Francisco Pizarro

Francisco Pizarro, 1st Marquess of the Conquest (Spanish:; c. 1478 – 26 June 1541), was a Spanish conquistador, best known for his expeditions that led to the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire. Born in Trujillo, Spain, to a poor family of pig farmers, Pizarro chose to pursue fortune and adventure in the New World.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

MilitaryDied aged 63

View profile Photo (modified): Amable-Paul Coutan · Public domain

1634 · 392 yrs

Madame de Lafayette

Marie-Madeleine Pioche de La Vergne, Comtesse de La Fayette (baptized 18 March 1634 – 25 May 1693), better known as Madame de La Fayette, was a French writer; she authored La Princesse de Clèves, France's first historical novel and one of the earliest novels in literature.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureDied aged 59

View profile Photo (modified): anonymous · Public domain

1750 · 276 yrs

Caroline Herschel

Caroline Lucretia Herschel ( HUR-shəl, HAIR-shəl, German:; 16 March 1750 – 9 January 1848) was a German-British astronomer, whose most significant contributions to astronomy were the discoveries of several comets, including the periodic comet 35P/Herschel–Rigollet, which bears her name.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceDied aged 97

View profile Photo (modified): Ölgemälde: Melchior Gommar Tieleman ; Foto des gemeinfreien Gemäldes: unbekannt · Public domain

1751 · 275 yrs

James Madison

James Madison (March 16, 1751 – June 28, 1836) was a Founding Father and the fourth president of the United States from 1809 to 1817. Before his presidency, Madison was a statesman and diplomat.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PoliticsDied aged 85

View profile Photo (modified): John Vanderlyn · Public domain

1774 · 252 yrs

Matthew Flinders

Captain Matthew Flinders (16 March 1774 – 19 July 1814) was a British Royal Navy officer, navigator and cartographer who led the first inshore circumnavigation of mainland Australia, then called New Holland.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ExplorationDied aged 40

View profile Photo (modified): Antoine Toussaint de Chazal · Public domain

1789 · 237 yrs

Georg Simon Ohm

Georg Simon Ohm (German:; 16 March 1789 – 6 July 1854) was a German mathematician and physicist. As a school teacher, Ohm began his research with the new electrochemical cell, invented by Italian scientist Alessandro Volta.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceDied aged 65

View profile Photo (modified): Original: unknown · Public domain

1835 · 191 yrs

Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky

Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky (Russian: Модест Петрович Мусоргский, romanized: Modest Petrovich Musorgsky; IPA:; 21 March 1839 – 28 March 1881) was a Russian composer, one of the group known as "The Five." He was an innovator of Russian music in the Romantic period and strove to achieve a uniquely Russian musical…

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

MusicDied aged 46

View profile Photo (modified): Рузана Ширинян · Public domain

1839 · 187 yrs

Sully Prudhomme

René François Armand "Sully" Prudhomme (French:; 16 March 1839 – 6 September 1907) was a French poet and essayist. He was the first winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, in 1901.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureDied aged 68

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown Unknown , uploaded, stitched and restored by Jebulon · Public domain

1892 · 134 yrs

César Vallejo

César Abraham Vallejo Mendoza (Spanish:; March 16, 1892 – April 15, 1938) was a Peruvian poet, writer, playwright, and journalist. Although he published only two books of poetry during his lifetime, he is considered one of the great poetic innovators of the 20th century in any language.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureWould be 134

View profile Photo (modified): Prefecture of Police of Paris · Public domain

1911 · 115 yrs

Josef Mengele

Josef Mengele (German:; 16 March 1911 – 7 February 1979), often dubbed the "Angel of Death" (German: Todesengel), was a German military officer and physician during World War II at the Soviet front and then at Auschwitz during the Holocaust.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

MilitaryWould be 115

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown, i.e. either Bernhard Walther or Ernst Hofmann or Karl-Friedrich Höcker · Public domain

1912 · 114 yrs

Pat Nixon

Thelma Catherine "Pat" Nixon (née Ryan; March 16, 1912 – June 22, 1993) was First Lady of the United States from 1969 to 1974 as the wife of Richard Nixon, the 37th U.S. president. From 1953 to 1961, she had been the second lady of the United States when her husband was Dwight D. Eisenhower's vice president.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

FilmWould be 114

View profile Photo (modified): Richard M. Nixon Presidential Library · Public domain

1918 · 108 yrs

Frederick Reines

Frederick Reines ( RY-nəs; March 16, 1918 – August 26, 1998) was an American physicist. He was awarded the 1995 Nobel Prize in Physics for his co-detection of the neutrino with Clyde Cowan in the neutrino experiment.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceWould be 108

View profile Photo (modified): Los Alamos National Laboratory · Attribution

Showing 12 of 27

Famous deaths14

AD 455 · 1571 yrs

Valentinian III

Valentinian III (Latin: Placidus Valentinianus; 2 July 419 – 16 March 455) was Roman emperor in the West from 425 to 455. Starting in childhood, his reign over the Roman Empire was one of the longest, but was dominated by civil wars among powerful generals and the barbarian invasions.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

RoyaltyDied aged 35

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown author · CC BY-SA 3.0

1406 · 620 yrs

Ibn Khaldun

Ibn Khaldūn (27 May 1332 – 17 March 1406, 732–808 AH) was an Arab Tunisian scholar, historian, philosopher, and sociologist.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScholarshipDied aged 73

View profile Photo (modified): Reda Kerbush · CC BY-SA 4.0

1736 · 290 yrs

Giovanni Battista Pergolesi

Giovanni Battista Draghi (Italian:; 4 January 1710 – 16 or 17 March 1736), usually referred to as Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (Italian:), was an Italian Baroque composer, violinist, and organist, leading exponent of the Baroque; he is considered one of the greatest Italian musicians of the first half of the 18th…

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

MusicDied aged 26

View profile Photo (modified): Domenico Antonio Vaccaro · Public domain

1881 · 145 yrs

Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

MusicDied aged 46

View profile Photo (modified): Рузана Ширинян · Public domain

1914 · 112 yrs

Charles Albert Gobat

Charles Albert Gobat (French pronunciation:; 21 May 1843 – 16 March 1914) was a Swiss lawyer, educational administrator, and politician who jointly received the Nobel Peace Prize with Élie Ducommun in 1902 for their leadership of the Permanent International Peace Bureau.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PoliticsDied aged 70

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown author · Public domain

1919 · 107 yrs

Yakov Sverdlov

Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov (3 June 1885 – 16 March 1919) was a Russian revolutionary and Soviet politician.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PoliticsWould be 141

View profile Photo (modified): Пётр Адольфович Оцуп (1883-1963) · Public domain

1930 · 96 yrs

Miguel Primo de Rivera, 2nd Marquis of Estella

Miguel Primo de Rivera y Orbaneja, 2nd Marquis of Estella, GE (8 January 1870 – 16 March 1930), was a Spanish dictator and military officer who ruled as prime minister of Spain from 1923 to 1930 during the last years of the Bourbon Restoration. He was born into a landowning family of Andalusian aristocrats.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PoliticsDied aged 60

View profile Photo (modified): Kaulak · CC0

1935 · 91 yrs

John James Rickard Macleod

John James Rickard Macleod (6 September 1876 – 16 March 1935), was a Scottish biochemist and physiologist. He devoted his career to diverse topics in physiology and biochemistry, but was chiefly interested in carbohydrate metabolism.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceWould be 150

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown author · Public domain

1937 · 89 yrs

Austen Chamberlain

Sir Joseph Austen Chamberlain (16 October 1863 – 16 March 1937) was a British statesman, Nobel Peace Prize winner, son of Joseph Chamberlain and older half-brother of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PoliticsDied aged 73

View profile Photo (modified): Georges Chevalier · CC BY 4.0

1940 · 86 yrs

Selma Lagerlöf

Selma Ottilia Lovisa Lagerlöf (US also, Swedish:; 20 November 1858 – 16 March 1940) was a Swedish writer. She published her first novel, Gösta Berling's Saga, at the age of 33.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureDied aged 81

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown author · Public domain

1957 · 69 yrs

Constantin Brâncuși

Constantin Brâncuși (Romanian:; February 19, 1876 – March 16, 1957) was a Romanian sculptor, painter, and photographer. Considered one of the most influential sculptors of the 20th century and a pioneer of modernism, Brâncuși is called the patriarch of modern sculpture.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ArtWould be 150

View profile Photo (modified): Edward Steichen · Public domain

1979 · 47 yrs

Jean Monnet

Jean Omer Marie Gabriel Monnet (French:; 9 November 1888 – 16 March 1979) was a French civil servant, entrepreneur, diplomat, financier, and administrator. An influential supporter of European unity, he is considered one of the founding fathers of the European Union.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceWould be 137

View profile Photo (modified): Anonymous Unknown author (Keystone France) · Public domain

Showing 12 of 14

Events5

1934 · 92 yrs

6th Academy Awards

The 6th Academy Awards were held on March 16, 1934, to honor films released between August 1, 1932, and December 31, 1933, at The Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California. They were hosted by Will Rogers, who also presented the awards.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Culture

1968 · 58 yrs

My Lai Massacre

The My Lai Massacre ( MEE LY; Vietnamese: Thảm sát Mỹ Lai ) was a U.S. Army war crime committed on 16 March 1968, involving the mass murder of between 347 and 504 civilians, almost all women, children and elderly men, in Sơn Mỹ village, Quảng Ngãi province, South Vietnam, during the Vietnam War.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

War

1988 · 38 yrs

Halabja massacre

The Halabja massacre (Kurdish: کیمیابارانی ھەڵەبجە, romanized: Kêmyabarana Helebce) took place in Iraqi Kurdistan on 16 March 1988, when thousands of Kurds were killed by a large-scale Iraqi chemical attack.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

War

2004 · 22 yrs

Insurgency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

Since 2004, an insurgency has been fought in the Pakistani province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa by Islamist militant groups such as the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Jundallah, Lashkar-e-Islam (LeI), the Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM), Al-Qaeda, and their Central Asian allies such as the Islamic State –…

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

War

2014 · 12 yrs

2014 Crimean status referendum

A disputed referendum concerning the status of Crimea was conducted in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol (both subdivisions of Ukraine) on March 16, 2014, after Russian forces seized control of Crimea. The referendum was a step in the process of Russia annexing Crimea.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Politics

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