On March 16th:
597 BC - Babylonians capture Jerusalem, replace Jehoiachin with Zedekiah as king
1190 - Crusaders start to massacre the Jews of York; many Jews commit suicide rather than submit to baptism.
1249 - The Servite Order is officially approved by Cardinal Raniero Capocci, papal legate in Tuscany.
1322 - Battle of Boroughbridge in the First War of Scottish Independence.
1521 - Ferdinand Magellan reaches the Philippines.
1621 - Samoset, a Mohegan, visits the settlers of Plymouth Colony and greets them, "Welcome, Englishmen! My name is Samoset."
1660 - The Long Parliament disbands.
1689 - The 23rd Regiment of Foot or Royal Welch Fusiliers is founded.
1792 - King Gustav III of Sweden is shot; he dies on March 29.
1802 - The United States Military Academy West Point is established.
1812 - Battle of Badajoz (March 16 - April 6) - British and Portuguese forces besiege and defeat French garrison during Peninsular War.
1815 - Prince Willem of the House of Orange-Nassau proclaimed himself King of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, the first constitutional monarch in the Netherlands.
1818 - Battle of Cancha Rayada - Spanish forces defeat Chileans under José de San Martín.
1850 - Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel The Scarlet Letter is first published.
1855 - Bates College in Lewiston, Maine is founded.
1861 - Edward Clark became Governor of Texas, replacing Sam Houston, who was evicted from the office for refusing to take an oath of loyalty to the Confederacy.
1867 - First publication of an article by Joseph Lister outlining the discovery of antiseptic surgery, in The Lancet.
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.
1900 - Sir Arthur Evans purchases the land around the ruins of Knossos, the largest Bronze Age archaeological site on Crete.
1912 - Lawrence Oates, ill member of Scott's South Pole expedition leaves the tent saying, "I am just going outside and may be some time."
1914 - Henriette Caillaux, wife of French minister Joseph Caillaux shoots Gaston Calmet, the editor of Le Figaro.
1916 - 7th and 10th US cavalry regiments under John J. Pershing cross the border to join the hunt of Pancho Villa.
1924 - The free port of Fiume formally annexed by Mussolini's fascist regime.
1926 - History of Rocketry: Robert Goddard launches the first liquid-fueled rocket, at Auburn, Massachusetts.
1935 - Adolf Hitler orders Germany to rearm herself in violation of the Versailles Treaty. Conscription was reintroduced to form the Wehrmacht.
1939 - From Prague Castle Hitler proclaimed Bohemia and Moravia a German protectorate.
1939 - Marriage of Princess Fawzia of Egypt to Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran
1942 - History of Rocketry: First V-2 rocket test launch (exploded at liftoff)
1945 - World War II: The Battle of Iwo Jima ends but small pockets of Japanese resistance persist.
1945 - Würzburg, Germany is 90% destroyed, with 5,000 dead, in only 20 minutes by British bombers.
1952 - In Cilaos, Réunion, 73 inches (1,870mm) of rain falls in one day, setting a new world record.
1956 - St. Urho's Day is first celebrated.
1958 - Ford Motor Company produces its 50 millionth automobile, the Thunderbird, averaging almost a million cars a year since the company's founding.
1962 - A Flying Tiger Line Super Constellation disappears in the western Pacific Ocean, with 107 people missing.
1963 - Mount Agung erupts on Bali - 11,000 dead
1966 - Launch of Gemini 8, the 12th manned American space flight and first space docking with the Agena Target Vehicle.
1968 - Vietnam War: In the My Lai massacre, between 350 and 500 Vietnamese villagers -- men, women, and children -- are killed by American troops.
1968 - General Motors releases its 100 millionth automobile, the Oldsmobile Toronado.
1969 - A Venezuelan Airlines DC-9 crashes shortly after takeoff in Maracaibo, Venezuela killing 155
1970 - Publication of complete New English Bible.
1971 - Government of Trygve Bratteli in Norway
1972 - The first building of the Pruitt-Igoe housing complex is demolished.
1976 - UK Prime Minister, Harold Wilson resigns.
1978 - Aldo Moro is kidnapped by left-wing terrorists in Italy and is later killed by his captors.
1978 - Supertanker Amoco Cadiz splits in two after running aground on Portsall Rocks, three miles off the coast of Brittany, resulting in the 5th-largest oil spill in history
1983 - Demolition of the radio tower Ismaning, the last radio tower in Germany built of wood.
1984 - William Buckley, the CIA station chief in Beirut, Lebanon, is kidnapped by Islamic fundamentalists and later dies in captivity.
1985 - Associated Press newsman Terry Anderson is taken hostage in Beirut. He would be released on December 4, 1991.
1988 - Iran-Contra Affair: Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North and Vice Admiral John Poindexter are indicted on charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States.
1988 - Halabja poison gas attack: The Kurdish town of Halabjah in Iraq was attacked with a mix of poison gas and nerve agents, killing thousands of people.
1993 - A blizzard on the east coast of the United States kills 184 (see Great Blizzard of 1993).
1995 - Mississippi formally ratifies the Thirteenth Amendment, becoming the last state to approve the abolition of slavery.
1996 - Göran Persson is elected leader of the Swedish Social Democratic Party.
1997 - Sandline affair - On Bougainville, soldiers of commander Jerry Singirok arrest Tim Spicer and his mercenaries of the Sandline International
1998 - Pope John Paul II apologises for inactivity and silence of some Roman Catholics during the Holocaust.
2001 - The only day between 1993 and 2002 when nobody in the United Kingdom killed themselves, according to a health survey.
2003 - Largest coordinated worldwide vigil, as part of the global protests against Iraq war.
2005 - Israel officially hands over Jericho to Palestinian control
2005 - Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri, accused of the bombing of the Air India Flight 182 in 1985, are found not guilty on all counts.
2006 - The United Nations General Assembly votes overwhelmingly to establish the UN Human Rights Council.
