On this day: March 16

Events on March 16

• 597 BC Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II captured Jerusalem and installed Zedekiah as King of Judah. Wikipedia
• 934 Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period: Chinese general Meng Zhixiang proclaimed himself emperor and established Later Shu as a new state independent of Later Tang. Wikipedia
• 1190 Around 150 Jews died inside York Castle, the majority committing mass suicide to avoid being killed by a mob. Wikipedia
• 1322 Despenser War: A royalist army defeated troops loyal to Thomas, 2nd Earl of Lancaster, in the Battle of Boroughbridge, which allowed King Edward II of England to hold on to power for another five years. Wikipedia
• 1621 Samoset, a member of the Abenaki tribe, walked into Plymouth Colony and greeted the Pilgrims in English. Wikipedia
• 1660 The Long Parliament, originally called by King Charles I of England in 1640 following the Bishops' Wars, dissolved itself. Wikipedia
• 1689 The Royal Welch Fusiliers, one of the oldest line-infantry regiments of the British Army, was founded. Wikipedia
• 1782 American Revolutionary War: Spain captured the island of Roatán from England off the coast of what is now Honduras. Wikipedia
• 1802 Congress passed the Military Peace Establishment Act, authorizing the establishment of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to operate the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York. Wikipedia
• 1819 The Bank for Savings in the City of New-York, the first savings bank in New York City, was incorporated. Wikipedia
• 1872 In the inaugural final of the FA Cup Wanderers defeated Royal Engineers 1–0 in London. Wikipedia
• 1926 History of rocketry: Robert Goddard launches the first liquid-fueled rocket, at Auburn, Massachusetts. Wikipedia
• 1935 Conscription was re-introduced in Germany by the Nazi regime, and the German military was renamed the Wehrmacht. Wikipedia
• 1941 World War II: Operation Appearance took place to re-establish British Somaliland in Africa. Wikipedia
• 1960 African American civil rights activists in Savannah, Georgia, conducted a sit-in, commencing the Savannah Protest Movement. Wikipedia
• 1962 Flying Tiger Line Flight 739, a charter flight carrying U.S. and South Vietnamese soldiers, disappeared without a trace, prompting one of the largest searches in the history of the Pacific. Wikipedia
• 1968 Vietnam War: American soldiers killed hundreds of unarmed civilians in the Sơn Mỹ village in the Sơn Tịnh District of South Vietnam. Wikipedia
• 1978 Former Prime Minister of Italy Aldo Moro was kidnapped in Rome by Mario Moretti and the Red Brigades. Wikipedia
• 1984 William Buckley, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency station chief in Beirut, Lebanon, was kidnapped by Islamic fundamentalists. Wikipedia
• 1988 Iran–Iraq War: Iraqi forces began attacking the Kurdish town of Halabja with chemical weapons, killing up to 5,000 people. Wikipedia
• 1988 Michael Stone, an Ulster loyalist, attacked the funeral of three Provisional IRA members, killing three attendees and injuring at least sixty others. Wikipedia
• 2001 A series of bomb blasts in the city of Shijiazhuang, China, killed 108 people. Wikipedia
• 2002 Sofia Gubaidulina's Johannes-Ostern was premiered in Hamburg, together with her Johannes-Passion, by soloists, choirs and orchestras from the Mariinsky Theatre and the NDR. Wikipedia
• 2003 American peace activist Rachel Corrie was crushed to death by an Israel Defense Forces armored bulldozer in Rafah while protesting the demolition of a Palestinian house. Wikipedia
• 2014 Crimea votes in a controversial referendum to secede from Ukraine to join Russia. Wikipedia
• 2015 Natalia Kills and Willy Moon were fired as judges on the second series of The X Factor New Zealand, following public backlash over comments they made to a contestant during the first live show. Wikipedia

Born on March 16

• 1750 Caroline Herschel, German-English astronomer (died 1848) Wikipedia
• 1751 James Madison, American academic and politician, 4th President of the United States (died 1836) Wikipedia
• 1774 Matthew Flinders, English navigator and cartographer (died 1814) Wikipedia
• 1789 Georg Ohm, German physicist and mathematician (died 1854) Wikipedia
• 1839 Sully Prudhomme, French poet and critic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1907) Wikipedia
• 1859 Alexander Stepanovich Popov, Russian physicist and inventor (died 1906) Wikipedia
• 1892 César Vallejo, Peruvian poet (died 1938) Wikipedia
• 1911 Josef Mengele, German physician, SS captain and mass-murderer (died 1979) Wikipedia
• 1912 Pat Nixon, American teacher, First Lady of the United States (died 1993) Wikipedia
• 1916 Mercedes McCambridge, American actress (died 2004) Wikipedia
• 1918 Frederick Reines, American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1998) Wikipedia
• 1926 Jerry Lewis, American actor and comedian (died 2017) Wikipedia
• 1927 Vladimir Komarov, Russian pilot, engineer, and cosmonaut (died 1967) Wikipedia
• 1941 Bernardo Bertolucci, Italian director and screenwriter (died 2018) Wikipedia
• 1944 Andrew S. Tanenbaum, American computer scientist and academic Wikipedia
• 1953 Richard Stallman, American computer scientist and programmer Wikipedia
• 1953 Isabelle Huppert, French actress Wikipedia
• 1959 Jens Stoltenberg, Norwegian economist and politician, 27th Prime Minister of Norway, 13th Secretary General of NATO Wikipedia
• 1965 Mark Carney, Canadian economist and politician, Prime Minister of Canada Wikipedia
• 1967 Lauren Graham, American actress and producer Wikipedia
• 1986 Alexandra Daddario, American actress Wikipedia
• 1989 Theo Walcott, English footballer Wikipedia

Died on March 16

• 37 Tiberius, Roman emperor (born 42 BC) Wikipedia
• 455 Valentinian III, Roman emperor (assassinated; b. 419) Wikipedia
• 1185 Baldwin IV of Jerusalem (born 1161) Wikipedia
• 1736 Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, Italian composer (born 1710) Wikipedia
• 1914 Charles Albert Gobat, Swiss lawyer and politician, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1843) Wikipedia
• 1930 Miguel Primo de Rivera, Spanish general and politician, Prime Minister of Spain (born 1870) Wikipedia
• 1935 John Macleod, Scottish physician and physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1876) Wikipedia
• 1935 Aron Nimzowitsch, Latvian-Danish chess player (born 1886) Wikipedia
• 1937 Austen Chamberlain, English politician, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1863) Wikipedia
• 1940 Selma Lagerlöf, Swedish author and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1858) Wikipedia
• 1957 Constantin Brâncuși, Romanian-French sculptor, painter, and photographer (born 1876) Wikipedia
• 1979 Jean Monnet, French economist and politician (born 1888) Wikipedia
• 1998 Derek Barton, English-American chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1918) Wikipedia
• 2003 Rachel Corrie, American activist (born 1979) Wikipedia

Holidays and observances

• Christian feast day: Eusebia of Hamage Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Finian Lobhar (Finian the Leper) Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Heribert of Cologne Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Hilarius of Aquileia Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Jean de Brébeuf Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Blessed John Amias and Robert Dalby Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Julian of Antioch Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: March 16 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics) Wikipedia
• Day of the Book Smugglers (Lithuania) Wikipedia
• Remembrance day of the Latvian legionnaires (Latvia) Wikipedia
• Saint Urho's Day (Finnish Americans and Finnish Canadians) Wikipedia

Sources

• Wikipedia — “March 16” — events, births, deaths and observances (text under CC BY-SA 4.0) (checked 2026-10-15)
• Wikipedia — “Selected anniversaries/March 16” — the anniversaries editors chose for the date and the article each one is about (checked 2026-10-15)
• Wikidata — in how many language editions each entry's own article exists, used to fill the lists (CC0) (checked 2026-10-15)
• vacanza/holidays (open-source holiday rules, MIT licence) — holiday rules used to build the lists (checked 2026-10-15)

The events, births, deaths and observances above are from the English Wikipedia article “March 16” and the articles it links to (authors and history), retrieved 2026-10-15 through the Wikimedia “On this day” feed. They are licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0; this selection is shared under the same licence. Every anniversary that Wikipedia's editors selected for March 16 stays on the list; the remaining places, up to 26 events, 22 births and 14 deaths, go to the entries whose own article — about the event itself, or else the person or thing it is about — appears in the most language editions (counted from Wikidata); an article about a person or thing, which covers far more than one day, counts half. An entry with no article of its own counts, also at half, by the least covered article it links, and one that links only places counts for nothing. Each list runs by year, and the wording is unchanged apart from removing references to pictures, audio and video.