March 16
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Featured Event
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Samoset greets pilgrims at Plymouth Colony
On this day in 1621, Samoset, a member of the Abenaki tribe, made contact with the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony. He greeted them in English, having learned the language from fishermen along the coast of Maine, and thereafter established a close relationship with the settlers. He later introduced them to Squanto, who became an important part of the Plymouth community. Throughout his life, Samoset helped to establish peaceful relations between Native Americans and settlers, despite occasional wars and disputes—and near the end of his life, he orchestrated the first property sale between the groups. [Read today’s edition of Today in History > >]
Featured Biography
Featured Biography
Science History Images/Alamy
German-born British astronomer Caroline Herschel, born this day in 1750, made important contributions to the work of her brother Sir William Herschel, and in 1786 she became the first woman to discover a comet.
Famous Birthdays
More on March 16
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
2014
A reported 97 percent of voters in Crimea chose to secede from Ukraine and join the Russian Federation. The referendum was not recognized by the Ukrainian government in Kiev, and only a handful of countries recognized Russia’s subsequent annexation of the region.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
1995
Mississippi ratified the Thirteenth Amendment—which abolished slavery—130 years after it was added to the U.S. Constitution. Mississippi’s ratification was not made official until 2013, when the state notified the U.S. Archivist. [Take our amendments to the U.S. Constitution quiz.]
Image: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
1978
The Amoco Cadiz tanker ran aground and broke in two, releasing nearly 69 million gallons of light crude oil off the coast of Brittany, France; it was at that time the largest oil spill in the world. [Read our list of the nine biggest oil spills in history.]
© Wally McNamee—Corbis Historical/Getty Images
1974
The Grand Ole Opry radio show was broadcast for the first time from the new Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville. Opening night featured country legend Roy Acuff and U.S. President Richard Nixon, among others.
© World History Archive/Alamy
1968
During the Vietnam War, U.S. soldiers dispatched on a search-and-destroy mission killed as many as 500 unarmed civilians in My Lai, which the U.S. military considered a stronghold of the Viet Cong.
Joe Rosenthal/AP
1945
U.S. Marines captured the Japanese island of Iwo Jima during World War II. [Sort fact from fiction in our World War II quiz.]
© 1964 York-Jerry Lewis Productions and Paramount Pictures Corporation; photograph from a private collection
1926
Jerry Lewis, whose unrestrained comic style made him one of the most popular performers of the 1950s and ’60s, was born in Newark, New Jersey. [Discover how much you know about actors.]
U.S. Army Photo
1802
The United States Military Academy at West Point, New York—one of the oldest service academies in the world—was originally founded as a training centre for the U.S. Corps of Engineers. [How much do you know about U.S. history?]
Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Alisa Mellon Bruce Fund, 1979.4.2
1751
James Madison, the fourth U.S. president and one of the Founding Fathers, was born in Virginia. [Watch an overview of the Founding Fathers.]
© Universal Art Archive/Alamy
1521
Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan, sailing under the Spanish flag on his circumnavigation of the globe, reached the Philippines, securing the first alliance in the Pacific Islands for Spain. [Test your knowledge of human exploration.]