March 16

597 BC On March 16, 597 BC Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II captured Jerusalem and installed Zedekiah as King of Judah. The Babylonians then laid waste to Solomon's Temple. Finds unearthed at the Israelite Tower in Jerusalem's Jewish Quarter attest to the Babylonian sack of the city.

Francesco Hayez  Destruction of Temple of Jerusalem (1867)

1322 The Battle of Boroughbridge was fought on March 16, 1322. It was a significant battle during the First War of Scottish Independence, where forces loyal to King Edward II of England, led by Andrew Harclay, defeated rebellious barons led by Thomas, Earl of Lancaster. The battle took place near the town of Boroughbridge in Yorkshire, England.

1621 Samoset (c. 1590–1653) was the first Native American to make contact with the Pilgrim Fathers. On March 16, 1621, the settlers were more than surprised when Samoset strolled straight through the middle of the encampment at Plymouth Colony and greeted them in English, which he had begun to learn from English fishermen frequenting the waters of what now is Maine.

1750 Caroline Herschel, the first woman to be paid for her scientific work, was born on March 16, 1750. Caroline Herschel was a German astronomer who worked with her brother William Herschel throughout his career. Her most significant contributions to astronomy were the discoveries of several comets, including the periodic comet 35P/Herschel-Rigollet, which bears her name.

William and Caroline Herschel polishing a telescope mirror By http://wellcomeimages.org

1751 The 4th President of the United States, James Madison, was born at Belle Grove Plantation near Port Conway, Virginia on March 16, 1751, where his mother had returned to her parents' home to give birth. His father James Madison Sr. was a tobacco planter who became the largest landowner and a leading citizen of Orange County, in the Piedmont. James Jr.'s mother, Nelly Conway Madison was the daughter of a prominent planter and tobacco merchant and his wife.

1774 English navigator and cartographer Captain Matthew Flinders was born on March 16, 1774. He was the leader of the first circumnavigation of Australia. In 1804 Flinders recommended the new continent be named 'Australia', as an umbrella term for New Holland and New South Wales. (The name is from the Latin ‘australis’, meaning ‘of the south’.) It took 20 years before the UK government agreed that the continent should be known officially as Australia.

By Summerdrought - Own work

1799 English botanist and photographer Anna Atkins (née Children) was born on March 16, 1799. Her Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions, published in 1843, was the first book ever to contain photographs. Atkins' book contained 307 cyanotype images of different species of algae found along the British coast. 

1802 Congress authorized the establishment and funding of the United States Military Academy at West Point with the Military Peace Establishment Act of 1802, which Thomas Jefferson signed on March 16, 1802. It is the oldest of the five U.S. military academies.

West Point, from Phillipstown (1831) engraving by W. J. Bennett

1870 It was the Russian pianist, conductor and composer Mily Balakiev who suggested to Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky that he wrote a work based on Shakespeare's tale about Romeo and Juliet. Tchaikovsky was just 29-years-old. He’d had some modest success but was struggling for musical inspiration when Balakirev pressed the idea on him. The first version of Tchaikovsky's orchestral fantasy "Romeo and Juliet" received its premiere performance on March 16, 1870.

1872 In the first-ever final of the FA Cup, Wanderers F.C. defeated Royal Engineers A.F.C. 1–0 at The Oval in Kennington, London on March 16, 1872. 2,000 spectators attended the football match. Wanderers F.C, were a team of former public schoolboys based in London, who went on to win the competition five times in its first seven seasons.

1871–72 FA Cup

1876 On March 16, 1876, Nell Saunders defeated Rose Harland in the first United States women's boxing match held in a real boxing ring. Saunders received a silver butter dish as a prize. However this was an unsanctioned fight. The first sanctioned amateur women's boxing match in the US, with proper licensing and rules, occurred in 1993 between Dallas Malloy and Heather Poyner.

1905 On March 16, 1905 radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi married Beatrice O'Brien, daughter of Edward Donough O'Brien, 14th Baron Inchiquin, Ireland. They had three daughters, one of whom lived only a few weeks, and one son. In 1913, the Marconis returned to Italy and became part of Rome society. Beatrice served as a lady-in-waiting to Queen Elena. They divorced in 1924.

Marconi with his wife c. 1910

1912 On March 16, 1912, Captain Oates who was in charge of the ponies of Captain Robert Scott’s team during their return journey from the South Pole, staggered into the blizzard uttering his famous remark about "going outside and being sometime."

1926 Robert Goddard launched the first liquid-fueled rocket on March 16, 1926 in Auburn, Massachusetts. Pioneer rocket scientist and New England physics professor Robert H. Goddard patented liquid rocket fuel in 1914, though he didn't get a rocket off the ground for another twelve years. The rocket engine used gasoline for fuel and liquid oxygen as the oxidizer. It rose 41 feet and went 184 feet, in 2.5 seconds.

Goddard with a liquid oxygen-gasoline rocket (1926)

1926 Sergeant Stubby, the most decorated dog of World War I and the only dog to be promoted by combat, died on March 16, 1926. Sergeant Stubby saved his regiment from mustard gas attacks comforted the wounded and notified his troop of oncoming artillery. Back home, his exploits were front page news in major newspapers. After the war, Sergeant Stubby led parades across the country met three presidents and became a university mascot.

1935 The driving test was introduced in the United Kingdom with the Road Traffic Act 1934. Would-be drivers had to arrange to meet an examiner at a post office or town hall. The first driving test pass slip was presented to Mr. R. Beene of Kensington, a pupil of the British School of Motoring on March 16, 1935.

1940 James Isbister was killed in a German bombing raid on the UK during World War II. He died during a raid on Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands on March 16, 1940. The Imperial War Museums acknowledge James Isbister as the first civilian casualty of the war. 

1958 The Ford Motor Company produced its 50 millionth automobile on March 16, 1958, averaging almost a million cars a year since the company's founding. The 50 millionth was the popular 1958 model of the Ford Thunderbird.

1966 Neil Armstrong joined the NASA Astronaut Corps in 1962 after participating in the U.S. Air Force's Man in Space Soonest and X-20 Dyna-Soar human spaceflight programs. His first spaceflight was the NASA Gemini 8 mission, for which he was the command pilot, becoming one of the first U.S. civilians to fly in space. On this mission, Armstrong performed the first manned docking of two spacecraft with pilot David Scott on March 16, 1966.

1995 Mississippi became the last US State to ratify the 13th Amendment of the US Constitution (abolition of Slavery), passed in 1865 on March 16, 1995. It was later discovered the state authorities failed to complete the proper documentation to officially carry this through until 2013.

1998 On March 16, 1988, the Kurdish town of Halabja in Iraq was attacked with a mix of poison gas and nerve agents on the orders of Saddam Hussein.  The attack was part of the Anfal campaign, a genocidal campaign waged against the Kurdish population of Iraq in the late 1980s. 5,000 people were killed and about another 10,000 were injured.

2003  Ricky Craven won the 2003 Carolina Dodge Dealers 400 at Darlington Raceway on March 16, 2003, by beating Kurt Busch in a photo finish. The margin of victory was officially recorded as .002 seconds, which is the closest finish in NASCAR history.

2011 The record for the largest balloon inflated in one minute using only air blown through the tear ducts belongs to Wu Zuyou from China. On March 16, 2011, on the set of Lo Show Dei Record in Milan, Italy, Wu Zuyou achieved a balloon diameter of 16.1 centimeters (6.33 inches) in one minute.

2012 Sachin Tendulkar was the first cricketer to score 100 international cricket centuries. He achieved his much awaited 100th international hundred on March 16, 2012 against Bangladesh in the Asia Cup. Indian batsman Tendulkar is widely regarded as one of the greatest batsmen in the history of cricket, 

2014 On March 16, 2014, a controversial referendum was held in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, both part of Ukraine at the time. The referendum was conducted after Russia seized control of Crimea.  he official results showed a very high voter turnout and an overwhelming majority voting to join Russia. However, the referendum's legitimacy is widely disputed.

2019 The most used hashtag in 24 hours on X formerly known as Twitter was #TwitterBestFandom, with 60,055,339 uses from March 16-17, 2019. #TwitterBestFandom was used by fans voting in the 14th Annual Soompi Awards. (Soompi is an English-language website providing coverage of Korean pop culture).

2020 The largest single-day point loss in the history of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) occurred on March 16, 2020, when during the initial market panic due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the DJIA plunged by a staggering 2,997 points.