What Happened on March 16th in History
30 historical events on this date
Flying Tiger Line Flight 739 disappears in the western Pacific Ocean with all 107 aboard missing and presumed dead.
Flying Tiger Line Flight 739 was a Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation propliner that disappeared on March 16, 1962, over the western Pacific Ocean. The aircraft, which had been chartered by the...
Launch of Gemini 8 with astronauts Neil Armstrong and David Scott. It would perform the first docking of two spacecraft in orbit.
Gemini 8 was the sixth crewed spaceflight in NASA's Gemini program. It was launched on March 16, 1966, and was the 14th crewed American flight and the 22nd crewed spaceflight overall. The mission...
Vietnam War: My Lai massacre occurs; between 347 and 500 Vietnamese villagers are killed by American troops.
The Vietnam War was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam and their allies. North Vietnam was supported by the Soviet Union and China, while...
A Viasa McDonnell Douglas DC-9 crashes in Maracaibo, Venezuela, killing 155.
Venezolana Internacional de AviaciĆ³n Sociedad AnĆ³nima was the Venezuelan flag carrier airline between 1960 and 1997. It was headquartered in the Torre Viasa in Caracas. Launched in NovemberĀ 1960 ,...
Assassination of Kamal Jumblatt, the main leader of the anti-government forces in the Lebanese Civil War.
Kamal Fouad Jumblatt was a prominent Lebanese politician, intellectual, and traditional za'im of the Lebanese Druze community. He was the founder of the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) and served...
Former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro is kidnapped; he is later murdered by his captors.
Aldo Moro was an Italian statesman and prominent member of Christian Democracy (DC) and its centre-left wing. He served as prime minister of Italy for five terms from December 1963 to June 1968 and...
A Balkan Bulgarian Airlines Tupolev Tu-134 crashes near Gabare, Bulgaria, killing 73.
Balkan Bulgarian Airlines was Bulgaria's government-owned flag carrier airline between 1947 and 2002. During the 1970s, the airline became a significant European carrier. The company encountered...
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.
Amoco Cadiz was an oil tanker owned by Amoco Transport Corp and transporting crude oil for Shell Oil. Operating under the Liberian flag, she ran aground on 16 March 1978 on Portsall Rocks, 2Ā km...
Sino-Vietnamese War: The People's Liberation Army crosses the border back into China, ending the war.
The Sino-Vietnamese War was a war which occurred in early 1979 between China and Vietnam. China launched an offensive ostensibly in response to Vietnam's invasion and occupation of Cambodia in 1978,...
William Buckley, the CIA station chief in Lebanon, is kidnapped by Hezbollah; he later dies in captivity.
William Francis Buckley was an American intelligence officer, and was the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) station chief in Beirut from 1984 until his kidnapping and killing in 1985.
Associated Press newsman Terry Anderson is taken hostage in Beirut; he is not released until December 1991.
The Associated Press (AP) is an American not-for-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association, and produces news...
IranāContra affair: Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North and Vice Admiral John Poindexter are indicted on charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States.
The IranāContra affair, also referred to as the IranāContra scandal, the Contragate, Iran Initiative, or simply IranāContra, was a political scandal in the United States that centered on arms...
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 5,000 people and injuring about 10,000 people.
The Halabja massacre took place in Iraqi Kurdistan on 16 March 1988, when thousands of Kurds were killed by a large-scale Iraqi chemical attack. A targeted attack in Halabja, it was carried out...
The Troubles: Ulster loyalist militant Michael Stone attacks a Provisional IRA funeral in Belfast with pistols and grenades. Three persons, one of them a member of PIRA, are killed, and more than 60 others are wounded.
The Troubles were an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted for about 30 years from the late 1960s to 1998. Also known internationally as the Northern Ireland conflict, it began...
Mississippi formally ratifies the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, becoming the last state to approve the abolition of slavery. The Thirteenth Amendment was officially ratified in 1865.
Mississippi is a state in the Southeastern and Deep South regions of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Alabama to the east, the Gulf of Mexico to the south, Louisiana to the...
A series of bomb blasts in the city of Shijiazhuang, China kill 108 people and injure 38 others, the biggest mass murder in China in decades.
The Shijiazhuang bombings, also known as Jin Ruchao bombings and March 16 bombings, were a series of bomb blasts that took place on March 16, 2001, in Shijiazhuang, the capital of Hebei province in...
Sofia Gubaidulina's Johannes-Ostern is premiered, together with her earlier Johannes-Passion, at Hamburg's Michaeliskirche, performed by soloists, choir and orchestra from the Mariinsky Theatre combined with NDR choir and orchestra, conducted by Valery Gergiev.
Sofia Asgatovna Gubaidulina was a Soviet and Russian composer of modernist sacred music. She was highly prolific, producing numerous chamber, orchestral and choral works. Her output has been...
American activist Rachel Corrie is killed in Rafah by being run over by an Israel Defense Forces bulldozer while trying to obstruct the demolition of a home.
Rachel Aliene Corrie was an American nonviolence activist and diarist. She was a member of the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement (ISM), and was active throughout the Israeli-occupied...
Israel officially hands over Jericho to Palestinian control.
Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. It is bordered by Lebanon to the north, Syria to the northeast, Jordan to the east, and Egypt to the...
The Kasubi Tombs, Uganda's only cultural World Heritage Site, are destroyed in a fire.
The Kasubi Tombs in Kampala, Uganda, is the site of the burial grounds for four kabakas and other members of the Baganda royal family. As a result, the site remains an important spiritual and...
Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar becomes the first batter in history to score 100 centuries in international cricket.
Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar is an Indian former international cricketer who captained the Indian national team. Often dubbed the "God of Cricket", Tendulkar is widely regarded as one of the greatest...
Crimea votes in a controversial referendum to secede from Ukraine to join Russia.
Crimea is a peninsula in Eastern Europe, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, almost entirely surrounded by the Black Sea and the smaller Sea of Azov. The Isthmus of Perekop connects the...
A bomb detonates in a bus carrying government employees in Peshawar, Pakistan, killing 15 and injuring at least 30.
On 16 March 2016, bomb detonated in a bus carrying government employees in Peshawar, Pakistan, killing 15 and injuring at least 30. The explosion occurred on Sunehri Masjid Road. The bomb had been...
Two suicide bombers detonate their explosives at a mosque during morning prayer on the outskirts of Maiduguri, Nigeria, killing 24 and injuring 18.
On 16 March 2016, two female suicide bombers, thought to be members of Boko Haram, killed 22 people worshiping at the Molai-Umarari mosque on the outskirts of Maiduguri, Nigeria. The first bomb...
The Dow Jones Industrial Average falls by 2,997.10, the single largest point drop in history and the second-largest percentage drop ever at 12.93%, an even greater crash than Black Monday (1929). This follows the U.S. Federal Reserve announcing that it will cut its target interest rate to 0ā0.25%.
On 20 February 2020, stock markets across the world suddenly crashed after growing instability due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The crash ended on 7 April 2020.
Atlanta spa shootings: Eight people are killed and one is injured in a trio of shootings at spas in and near Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. A suspect is arrested the same day.
On March 16, 2021, a shooting spree occurred at two spas and a massage parlor in the metropolitan area of Atlanta, Georgia, United States. Eight people were killed and a ninth was wounded. The...
A 7.4-magnitude earthquake occurs off the coast of Fukushima, Japan, killing 4 people and injuring 225.
On March 16, 2022, at 23:36 JST, a strong earthquake struck off the coast of Fukushima, Japan. The earthquake had a magnitude of 7.4 according to the Japanese Meteorological Agency (JMA), while the...
Mariupol theatre airstrike during the siege of Mariupol.
On 16 March 2022, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Russian Armed Forces bombed the Mariupol theatre in Mariupol, Ukraine. It was used as an air raid shelter during the siege of Mariupol,...
A fire breaks out in a nightclub in KoÄani, North Macedonia, killing at least 59 people and injuring 155 others.
On 16 March 2025, a fire at the Pulse nightclub in KoÄani, North Macedonia, killed 63 people and injured 193. The fire started when sparks from indoor fireworks hit the ceiling and set it alight,...
A series of Boko Haram bombings leave 26 dead and 146 injured in Maiduguri, Nigeria.
On 16 March 2026, three suspected suicide bombings were carried out at three locations in Maiduguri, Borno State, Nigeria. The bombings occurred during a year-long peaceful stretch in the city. At...