Friday, March 16

Today is Friday, March 16, the 76th day of 2012. There are 290 days left in the year.

Highlights in history on this date:

1521 – Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan reaches the Philippines, where he is killed by natives the following month.

1527 – Mogul Emperor Barbar defeats Hindu Confederacy at Kanwanha, India.

1534 – England severs all relations with Roman Catholic Papacy.

1690 – France’s King Louis XIV sends troops to Ireland to fight for King James II.

1792 – Sweden’s King Gustavus II is shot and killed during a masquerade party at the Royal Opera of Stockholm.

1802 – Congress authorizes the establishment of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York.

1812 – Austria, in alliance with France, agrees to provide army for Napoleon Bonaparte.

1844 – Greece adopts Constitution with two chambers.

1850 – Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel “The Scarlet Letter” is published in the United States.

1851 – Spanish Concordat with Papacy goes into effect, whereby Catholicism becomes sole faith in Spain and Church gains control of education and the press.

1906 – Japan nationalizes its railways.

1910 – Magician Harry Houdini becomes the first man to fly an airplane in Australia. He also drove a car for the first time on that trip. After that, he never did either again.

1917 – Russia’s Czar Nicholas II abdicates and Prince George Lvov, Paul Milivkov and Alexander Kerensky form ministry.

1922 – Britain recognizes Kingdom of Egypt under Fuad I, with joint Anglo-Egyptian sovereignty over Sudan.

1926 – The first liquid-fuel rocket is successfully launched by Prof. Robert Goddard at Auburn, Massachusetts. The rocket travels 56 meters (184 feet) in 2.5 seconds.

1934 – Rome protocols signed between Italy, Austria and Hungary to form Danubian bloc against Little Entente of Czechoslovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia.

1935 – Germany repudiates disarmament clauses of Versailles Treaty that ended World War I.

1945 – Japanese resistance to U.S. assault on Iwo Jima in Pacific comes to end in World War II.

1968 – During the Vietnam War, the My Lai massacre is carried out by U.S. troops under the command of Lt. William L. Calley Jr.

1978 – Italian politician Aldo Moro is kidnapped by left-wing urban guerrillas, who later murder him.

1985 – American journalist Terry Anderson of The Associated Press is captured by Muslim extremists in Beirut. He is released almost seven years later.

1992 – U.N. troops take up positions in the peacekeeping mission to Croatia.

1993 – Bomb in Calcutta, India, kills 69.

1994 – Russia agrees to phase out production of weapons-grade plutonium.

1995 – In a first for Russian-American cooperation in space, a Soyuz space capsule carrying an American astronaut docks with the orbiting Russian space station Mir.

1996 – Thousands of civilians flee the Chechen town of Samashky as Russian artillery shells rain down on their homes.

1998 – The Vatican apologizes for the failure of some Christians to deter the mass killings of European Jews before and during World War II; Rwanda, with 125,000 suspects for 500,000 murders, begins mass trials for the country’s 1994 genocide.

1999 – The entire European Commission, the top executive body of the European Union, resigns after allegations of corruption and inefficiency.

2002 – Two unidentified gunmen shoot and kill Isaias Duarte Cancino, archbishop of the southwestern city of Cali, Colombia. The 63-year-old archbishop is the highest-ranking clergyman ever assassinated in Colombia.

2003 – Anti-war protesters demonstrate across the United States to show their support for peace, including an estimated 10,000 protesters in Chicago.

2005 – Syrian military intelligence agents leave Beirut, ending an 18-year presence in Lebanon.

2006 – Thailand’s Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra vows to lead his party to victory in an upcoming election despite widespread street protests demanding he step down.

2007 – China’s legislators pass a law providing the most sweeping protection for private businesses and property since the nation’s move toward a more capitalist-style economy beginning in the late 1970s.

2008 – Four Belgian tourists held hostage by protesting farmers are released after security forces in boats and helicopters locate the group in Guatemala’s eastern jungle.

2009 – Iran’s most prominent reformer former President Mohammed Khatami pulls out of the race against the country’s hardline president, saying he does not want to split the pro-reform vote.

2010 – Hundreds of Palestinians in east Jerusalem set tires and garbage bins ablaze and hurl rocks at Israeli riot police, who respond with rubber bullets and tear gas. The heaviest clashes in months break out as an American envoy abruptly cancels a visit, deepening a U.S.-Israeli diplomatic feud.

2011 — Australia, Britain and Germany advise their citizens in Japan to consider leaving Tokyo and earthquake-affected areas, joining a growing number of governments and businesses telling their people it may be safer elsewhere.

Today’s Birthdays:

James Madison, U.S. president (1751-1836); Georg Simon Ohm, German physicist (1787-1854); Modest Mussorgsky, Russian composer (1839-1881); Reza Shah Pahlavi, shah of Iran (1878-1946); Jerry Lewis, U.S. comedian (1926–); Bernardo Bertolucci, Italian film director (1941–); Kate Nelligan, Canadian born actress (1951–).

Thought For Today:

He who does not enjoy his own company is usually right — Coco Chanel, French fashion designer (1883-1971).