Monday, 16th March 2026 in Lisbon
Welcome to your daily snapshot of Lissabon! Explore 54 historical events, birthdays, deaths, and milestones that shaped this day in Lissabon. From remarkable moments in local and world history to the people who left their mark — find out what makes today special. Today's weather in Lissabon brings sunny with temperatures between 11°C and 22°C. Tonight's moon is in its waxing gibbous phase, and the zodiac sign of the day is Pisces. If you're curious about the history of a day — this page brings together everything worth knowing about this Monday, 16th March in Lissabon, PT.

Lisbon, Portugal's capital, sits on the north bank of the Tagus estuary and is known for its historic neighbourhoods, maritime heritage and distinctive yellow trams. On Monday, 16 March 2026, the city will experience sunny weather. The date falls under the zodiac sign of Pisces, and the moon will be in its waxing gibbous phase, illuminated well past half-full as it approaches the full moon.
On this day
On 16 March 2003, American peace activist Rachel Corrie was crushed to death by an Israel Defense Forces armoured bulldozer in Rafah whilst protesting the demolition of a Palestinian house. Her death became a significant moment in international debate over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the role of civilian protest in conflict zones.
Two decades earlier, on 16 March 1978, former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro was kidnapped in Rome by Mario Moretti and the Red Brigades. The abduction, one of the most dramatic events of Italy's turbulent post-war period, would lead to a 55-day crisis that gripped the nation and ultimately ended with Moro's murder, profoundly affecting Italian politics and society.
DayAtlas displays weather conditions, historical events, and notable births and deaths for any date and location worldwide, providing users with a comprehensive view of what occurred and atmospheric conditions on specific days throughout history.
Find out what's happening today in Lissabon.
What the Weather Had in Store for Lissabon on 16th March 2026
Distance teaches what proximity obscures.
Fortune of the Day
16th March in the Stars – Star Sign Pisces
Personality Profile
Personality Those born on 16 March blend Piscean sensitivity with pronounced intuitive power. The Moon's influence deepens their emotional awareness, making them perceptive interpreters of human dynamics. Though dreamy by nature, they carry subtle leadership qualities that set them apart from typical water-sign natives.
Strengths & Weaknesses Their gifts include empathy, imaginative vision, and spiritual openness. They navigate emotional subtleties with remarkable ease. Yet they struggle with practical boundaries and can become lost in fantasy rather than facing reality. Their tendency to absorb others' feelings may drain their energy.
Love People born this day crave profound emotional and spiritual intimacy. They give generously in relationships and need partners who honour their inner world. Their challenge lies in maintaining realistic expectations rather than projecting idealized versions onto their partners.
Caree & Finance These individuals flourish in creative, healing, or service-oriented work. Art, counselling, spirituality, and humanitarian roles suit their gifts perfectly. Financial management rarely excels naturally—they benefit from pragmatic advisors who can handle practical details they overlook.
Health Emotional balance directly influences physical wellbeing; stress and unprocessed feelings manifest somatically. Meditation, creative expression, and natural settings restore their equilibrium. These natives thrive when they channel their sensitivity into meaning rather than allowing it to become overwhelming.
That night, the moon was in its waxing gibbous phase.
Chinese year of the Horse (Fire).
Fun Facts About 16th March
Name Days in Your Language: Bailee, Bailey, Baylee, Bayley, Melisa, Melissa, Melita, Melyta, Millicent, Millie, Missy
Someone born on this day would be just 81 days old today — roughly 1,965 hours, 117,911 minutes, or 7,074,711 seconds spent on Earth so far.
It's the 75. day of the year. In 2026, 16th March falls on a Monday.
There are 290 days still to come.
We’re currently in Week 12 — the year marches on.
Famous Birthdays on 16th March
On this day, 350 notable people were born on 16th March — spanning from 1399 to 2001. From world leaders to artists and scientists, discover who shares this birthday.
16/03/2001
Kyle Hamilton, American football player
Kyle Devin Hamilton is an American professional football safety for the Baltimore Ravens of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, earning consensus All-American honors in 2021 before being selected by the Ravens in the first round of the 2022 NFL draft.
16/03/2000
Jalen Smith, American basketball player
Jalen Rasheed Smith is an American professional basketball player for the Chicago Bulls of the National Basketball Association (NBA). Nicknamed "Stix", he played college basketball for the Maryland Terrapins.
16/03/1999
Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Canadian baseball player
Vladimir Guerrero Ramos, known by fans as Vladdy, is a Dominican-Canadian professional baseball first baseman for the Toronto Blue Jays of Major League Baseball (MLB). He made his MLB debut in 2019 and bats and throws right-handed. Guerrero is the son of Baseball Hall of Famer Vladimir Guerrero Sr. Born in Canada, he represents the Dominican Republic internationally.
16/03/1997
Dominic Calvert-Lewin, English footballer
Dominic Nathaniel Calvert-Lewin is an English professional footballer who plays as a striker for Premier League club Leeds United and the England national team.
Florian Neuhaus, German footballer
Florian Christian Neuhaus is a German professional footballer who plays as a midfielder for Bundesliga club Borussia Mönchengladbach.
Tyrel Jackson Williams, American actor
Tyrel Jackson Williams, also known under the stage name theMetroNorth, is an American actor, rapper, singer and record producer. He starred as Leo Dooley in the Disney XD series Lab Rats. Williams also co-starred in the 2014 Disney XD television film Pants on Fire. From 2017 to 2020, he co-starred in the comedy series Brockmire.
16/03/1996
Ajiona Alexus, American actress and singer
Ajiona Alexus Brown is an American actress and singer. She began her career starring in the TV One sitcom The Rickey Smiley Show (2012–2014), and later played Teenage Cookie Lyon in the Fox musical drama series, Empire (2016–2019). She starred in the Netflix teen drama series, 13 Reasons Why (2017–2018), the Hulu supernatural thriller, Light as a Feather (2018–2019), and the starz crime drama, BMF (2021). Alexus also starred in films Something Like Summer (2017), Acrimony (2018),Breaking In (2018), Mary J. Blige's Real Love and Strength of a Woman (2023)
Ivan Toney, English footballer
Ivan Benjamin Elijah Toney is an English professional footballer who plays as a striker for Saudi Pro League club Al-Ahli and the England national team.
16/03/1995
Inga Janulevičiūtė, Lithuanian figure skater
Inga Janulevičiūtė is a Lithuanian figure skater. She is the 2014 Lithuanian national champion.
16/03/1994
Camilo, Colombian singer
Camilo Echeverri Correa, known mononymously as Camilo, is a Colombian singer, musician and songwriter. Born in Medellín, Antioquia, his accolades include six Latin Grammy Awards and three Grammy Award nominations.
Joel Embiid, Cameroonian basketball player
Joel Hans Embiid is a Cameroonian and American professional basketball player for the Philadelphia 76ers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). After one year of college basketball with the Kansas Jayhawks, he was drafted third overall by the 76ers in the 2014 NBA draft. The 7-foot (2.13 m) center is a seven-time NBA All-Star, a five-time member of the All-NBA Team, a three-time member of the All-Defensive Team, and a two-time NBA scoring champion. He was named the NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP) in 2023. Embiid also won a gold medal on the 2024 U.S. Olympic team.
Sierra McClain, American actress
Sierra Aylina McClain is an American actress and singer. As an actress, she was first recognized for her role as Sierra in Daddy's Little Girls (2007). She had her breakthrough as Nessa Parker in Empire (2016–2018), and is also best known for starring as Tanya Clifton in the television series Mindhunter (2019), and as Grace Ryder in 9-1-1: Lone Star (2020–2023). Her film roles have included starring as Tosha in the film Honey: Rise Up and Dance (2018), and as Carina in Shrink (2009).
16/03/1993
George Ford, English rugby union player
George Thomas Ford is an English professional rugby union player who plays as a fly-half for Premiership Rugby club Sale Sharks and the England national team.
Marine Lorphelin, French model and beauty queen, Miss France 2013
Marine Lorphelin is a French model, beauty pageant titleholder and General practitioner who was crowned Miss France 2013 on 8 December 2012, representing the region of Burgundy and then represented France at Miss World 2013 and placed 1st runner up.
16/03/1992
Tim Hardaway Jr., American basketball player
Timothy Duane Hardaway Jr. is an American professional basketball player for the Denver Nuggets of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball for the Michigan Wolverines and declared for the NBA draft after his junior season for the national runner-up 2012–13 team. Hardaway was selected as the 24th overall pick in the 2013 NBA draft by the New York Knicks. He has had two stints with the Knicks and has also played for the Atlanta Hawks, Dallas Mavericks, and Detroit Pistons. He is the son of Hall of Famer Tim Hardaway. He holds several Mavericks three point shooting records as well as the Pistons’ single-playoff game made three point shots record.
Brett Davern, American actor
Brett Davern is an American actor known for his role as Jake Rosati on the MTV series Awkward.
16/03/1991
Chris Boswell, American football player
Christopher Lynn Boswell is an American professional football placekicker for the Pittsburgh Steelers of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football for the Rice Owls and was signed by the Houston Texans in 2014 as an undrafted free agent and has also spent time with the New York Giants. Boswell is currently the most accurate field goal kicker in NFL history on field goal attempts of 50 yards or more.
Reggie Bullock, American basketball player
Reginald Ryedell Bullock Jr. is an American professional basketball player who last played for the Houston Rockets of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball for the North Carolina Tar Heels before being selected by the Los Angeles Clippers in the first round of the 2013 NBA draft with the 25th overall pick. Bullock has also played for the Phoenix Suns, Detroit Pistons, Los Angeles Lakers, New York Knicks, and Dallas Mavericks.
Admir Mehmedi, Swiss footballer
Admir Mehmedi is a Swiss former professional footballer who played as a second striker or centre forward. Born in North Macedonia, Mehmedi represented the Switzerland national team. He was most recently the sporting director of FC Schaffhausen.
Wolfgang Van Halen, American bassist
Wolfgang William Van Halen is an American musician, singer, and songwriter. The son of actress Valerie Bertinelli and guitarist Eddie Van Halen, he performed alongside his father and his uncle Alex as the bassist for Van Halen from 2007 to 2020. He also performed with the heavy metal band Tremonti from 2012 to 2016. After his father died in 2020, which led to the disbanding of Van Halen, he began to focus on his solo project Mammoth, in which he performs all instruments and vocals. His debut album Mammoth WVH was released in 2021, and his second album Mammoth II was released in 2023.
16/03/1990
Josh Johnson, American comedian and writer
Josh Johnson is an American stand-up comedian and writer. He is best known for his work on The Daily Show, having first joined as a staff writer in 2017. Johnson became a correspondent in February 2024, and was later promoted to the weekly rotation of hosts in July 2025. His self-released frequent YouTube sets have aired over the 2020s.
Andre Young, American basketball player
Andre Young is an American former professional basketball player. Standing at 5 ft 9 in, Young played the point guard or shooting guard position. He played four years of collegiate basketball with Clemson followed by three seasons of playing professionally in multiple countries in Europe.
16/03/1989
Blake Griffin, American basketball player
Blake Austin Griffin is an American former professional basketball player. Griffin primarily played with the Los Angeles Clippers of the National Basketball Association (NBA) and played college basketball for the Oklahoma Sooners, where he was named the consensus national college player of the year as a sophomore. Griffin was selected first overall by the Clippers in the 2009 NBA draft, and was a six-time NBA All-Star and a five-time All-NBA selection. In January 2018, Griffin was traded to the Detroit Pistons and played for them until 2021. In March 2021, Griffin signed with the Brooklyn Nets. In September 2022, Griffin signed with the Boston Celtics, with whom he stayed until his retirement in 2023.
Jung So-min, South Korean actress
Kim Yoon-ji, known professionally as Jung So-min (정소민), is a South Korean actress. Jung made her screen debut in 2010 with a supporting role in the television series Bad Guy. She then got her first leading role that same year in the romantic comedy television series Playful Kiss. She is known for her leading roles in the television series Because This Is My First Life (2017), Alchemy of Souls (2022), Love Next Door (2024), and Would You Marry Me? (2025), as well as the film Love Reset (2023).
Magalie Pottier, French racing cyclist
Magalie Pottier is a French racing cyclist who represents France in BMX. She was selected to represent France at the 2012 Summer Olympics in the women's BMX event and finished in seventh place.
Theo Walcott, English footballer
Theo James Walcott is an English former professional footballer who played as a winger and a striker. He represented England at the 2006 World Cup and Euro 2012 and won 47 caps, scoring eight goals. Walcott currently appears as a club ambassador for Arsenal and as a contributor for Sky Sports.
16/03/1988
Jhené Aiko, American singer-songwriter and rapper
Jhené Aiko Efuru Chilombo is an American R&B singer, songwriter, musician, and record producer. Aiko embarked on her musical career in 2002, as a backing vocalist and music video performer for the R&B group B2K. She was signed by their record label, The Ultimate Group that same year and was marketed as the "cousin" of B2K member Lil' Fizz to cultivate her own following, although they are not related. Her debut album, slated for a 2003 release through the label with Epic Records, was shelved due to Aiko instead further pursuing her education.
Jessica Gregg, Canadian speed skater
Jessica Gregg is a former Canadian short track speed skater.
Patrick Herrmann, German footballer
Patrick Herrmann is a German professional former footballer.
Agustín Marchesín, Argentinian footballer
Agustín Federico Marchesín is an Argentine professional footballer who plays as a goalkeeper for Argentine Primera División club Boca Juniors.
Jiří Tlustý, Czech ice hockey player
Jiří Tlustý is a Czech former professional ice hockey left winger. He was originally a first-round draft pick of the Toronto Maple Leafs in the 2006 NHL entry draft, and split time between the Maple Leafs and the Toronto Marlies of the American Hockey League (AHL) until he was traded to the Carolina Hurricanes in December 2009. Tlustý was also drafted by Atlant Moscow of the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) on 1 June 2009, 43rd overall.
16/03/1987
Fabien Lemoine, French football player
Fabien Lemoine is a French former professional footballer who played as a midfielder. Across his career, he played for Rennes, Saint-Étienne, Lorient, and Versailles.
16/03/1986
Alexandra Daddario, American actress
Alexandra Anna Daddario is an American actress. She had her breakthrough portraying Annabeth Chase in Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010) and its sequel (2013). She has since starred in Hall Pass (2011), Texas Chainsaw 3D (2013), San Andreas (2015), Baywatch (2017), and We Summon the Darkness (2019).
Toney Douglas, American basketball player
Toney Bernard Douglas is an American professional basketball player for Hapoel Galil Elyon of the Israeli Basketball Premier League. He played college basketball for the Auburn Tigers, and the Florida State Seminoles. Douglas was drafted by the Los Angeles Lakers in the 2009 NBA draft with the 29th overall pick, but was immediately traded to the New York Knicks. He played for the Knicks, Houston Rockets, Sacramento Kings and the Golden State Warriors before being traded to the Miami Heat in 2014. After spending the 2014–15 season in China with the Jiangsu Dragons, he returned to the NBA in 2015, joining the New Orleans Pelicans.
Kenny Dykstra, American wrestler
Kenneth George Doane is an American retired professional wrestler. He is signed to WWE, where he works as a producer, as well as a trainer at the WWE Performance Center. During his time in WWE as a wrestler, he was known as Kenny Dykstra, and previously went by the mononym of Kenny as a member of the Spirit Squad faction.
T. J. Jordan, American basketball player
Taurean Yves Jordan is a women's basketball player who played collegiately for Old Dominion University. She holds several ODU scoring records, and was regarded as one of the best players in the Colonial Athletic Association.
Boaz Solossa, Indonesian footballer
Boaz Theofilus Erwin Solossa is an Indonesian professional footballer who plays as a forward for Liga 2 club Persipura Jayapura. He is considered to be one of the greatest Indonesian players of all time.
Daisuke Takahashi, Japanese figure skater
Daisuke Takahashi is a Japanese figure skater, ice show producer and actor. As a singles skater, he is the 2010 Olympic bronze medalist, the 2010 World champion, the 2012–13 Grand Prix Final champion, a two-time Four Continents champion, and a five-time Japanese national champion.
16/03/1985
Teddy Atine-Venel, French athlete
Teddy Atine-Venel is a French athlete who specialises in the 400 meters. He represented his country at the 2008 Summer Olympics as well as three outdoor and one indoor World Championships.
Eddy Lover, Panamanian singer-songwriter
Eduardo Mosquera, better known by his stage name Eddy Lover, is a Panamanian reggaeton and Spanish reggae singer and songwriter. Lover rose to international fame with his guest appearance on La Factoría's 2006 smash hit "Perdóname".
Aleksei Sokirskiy, Russian hammer thrower
Aleksey Nikolaevich Sokirskiy is a Ukrainian and Russian hammer thrower. His personal best is 76.96, achieved 19 June 2011 in Stockholm. He became a Russian citizen in 2015.
16/03/1984
Aisling Bea, Irish comedienne and actress
Aisling Clíodhnadh O'Sullivan, known professionally as Aisling Bea, is an Irish comedian, actress and screenwriter. She created, wrote and starred in the comedy series This Way Up on Channel 4. As a stand-up comedian, she won the So You Think You're Funny award at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2012, being only the second woman to win the award in its then-25-year history. She also appears regularly on light entertainment comedy panel shows such as QI and 8 Out of 10 Cats and was a contestant on series 5 of Taskmaster.
Levi Brown, American football player
Levi James Brown III is an American former professional football player who was an offensive tackle in the National Football League (NFL). He was selected by the Arizona Cardinals fifth overall in the 2007 NFL draft. He played college football for the Penn State Nittany Lions.
Sharon Cherop, Kenyan long-distance runner
Sharon Jemutai Cherop is a Kenyan long-distance runner who specialises in the marathon. She won a bronze medal at the age of sixteen in the 5000 metres at the World Junior Championships. She was the bronze medal winner in the marathon at the 2011 World Championships in Athletics and won the Boston Marathon in 2012.
Hosea Gear, New Zealand rugby player
Hosea Emiliano Gear is a former New Zealand rugby union player who played as a wing. He has also played 14 international matches for New Zealand.
Brandon Prust, Canadian ice hockey player
Brandon Raymond James Prust is a Canadian former professional ice hockey winger. He was selected in the third round, 70th overall, by the Calgary Flames of the National Hockey League (NHL) in the 2004 NHL entry draft. Prust also played for the Phoenix Coyotes, New York Rangers, Montreal Canadiens and Vancouver Canucks, most notably in the role as an enforcer.
16/03/1983
Stephen Drew, American baseball player
Stephen Oris Drew is an American former professional baseball infielder. He played 12 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Arizona Diamondbacks, Oakland Athletics, Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees and Washington Nationals. His two brothers, outfielder J.D. and pitcher Tim, also played in MLB.
Brandon League, American baseball player
Brandon Paul League is an American former professional baseball pitcher. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Toronto Blue Jays, Seattle Mariners, and Los Angeles Dodgers. He is a former closer and one-time All-Star.
Nicolas Rousseau, French road bicycle racer
Nicolas Rousseau is a French professional road bicycle racer for St. Michel–Preference Home–Auber93. He won stage 3 of the 2010 La Tropicale Amissa Bongo.
Tramon Williams, American football player
Tramon Vernell Williams Sr. is an American former professional football player who was a cornerback for 15 seasons in the National Football League (NFL). He played college football for the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs, and was signed by the Houston Texans as an undrafted free agent in 2006. Williams spent much of his NFL career with the Green Bay Packers, playing with them from 2006 to 2014, and again in the 2018, 2019, and 2020 seasons. He was also a member of the Cleveland Browns, Arizona Cardinals, and Baltimore Ravens.
16/03/1982
Julia Letlow, American politician
Julia Janelle Letlow is an American politician and academic administrator serving as the U.S. representative for Louisiana's 5th congressional district since 2021. Letlow is the first Republican woman to represent Louisiana in the House.
Miguel Comminges, Guadeloupean footballer
Miguel Gregory Comminges is a Guadeloupean former professional footballer. Having spent his career in France, England, Wales, and the United States, he played for the Guadeloupe national team. A versatile player, he played on either side of defence, as well as in midfield.
Riley Cote, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
Riley D. Cote is a former Canadian professional ice hockey left winger and formerly an assistant coach with the Lehigh Valley Phantoms of the American Hockey League (AHL). He played four National Hockey League (NHL) seasons with the Philadelphia Flyers and was mainly known as an enforcer. He also won the 2005 Calder Cup with the Philadelphia Phantoms. He currently co-hosts the Nasty Knuckles podcast.
Jesús Del Nero, Spanish road bicycle racer
Jesús del Nero Montes is a Spanish professional road bicycle racer who most recently rode for the UCI Professional Continental Team NetApp. Del Nero turned professional with the Basque continental team Orbea in 2005 before moving to new UCI Professional Continental team 3 Molinos Resort in 2006. When 3 Molinos folded at the end of 2006, Del Nero moved to Saunier Duval, which subsequently became Fuji-Servetto. Del Nero's best results to date are third in the 2005 Euskal Bizikleta and eleventh in the 2007 Tour of Flanders.
Brian Wilson, American baseball player
Brian Patrick Wilson, nicknamed "the Beard" and "B-Weezy", is an American former professional baseball relief pitcher. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the San Francisco Giants and Los Angeles Dodgers. He stands 6 feet 1 inch (1.85 m) tall and weighs 205 pounds (93 kg). Wilson is known for his large black beard, which he began growing during the 2010 pennant race. Wilson's entrance at home games accompanied by the song "Jump Around" was popular with fans.
16/03/1981
Andrew Bree, Irish swimmer
Andrew Patrick Bree is a breaststroke swimmer from Helen's Bay, County Down, Northern Ireland. He is a two-time Olympian, having swum at the 2000 and 2008 Olympics for Ireland. He also represented Northern Ireland four times at the Commonwealths and placed fifth twice in the 200m breaststroke. Andrew attended the University of Tennessee.
Danny Brown, American rapper
Daniel Dewan Sewell, better known by his stage name Danny Brown, is an American rapper, songwriter, actor and podcaster.
Curtis Granderson, American baseball player
Curtis Granderson Jr., nicknamed "the Grandyman", is an American former professional baseball outfielder. He played 16 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Detroit Tigers, New York Yankees, New York Mets, Los Angeles Dodgers, Toronto Blue Jays, Milwaukee Brewers, and Miami Marlins.
Julien Mazet, French road bicycle racer
Julien Mazet is a French former professional road bicycle racer.
Fabiana Murer, Brazilian pole vaulter
Fabiana de Almeida Murer is a retired Brazilian pole vaulter. She holds the South American record in the event with an indoor best of 4.82 m and an outdoor best of 4.87 m, making her the fourth highest vaulter ever at the time, now the eighth. She won gold medals at the 2011 World Championships, 2010 World Indoor Championships, and 2007 Pan American Games. Murer represented Brazil at the 2008, 2012 and 2016 Summer Olympics. She is a four-time South American Champion with wins in 2006, 2007, 2009 and 2011. Murer was coached by both the Ukrainian Vitaly Petrov, who managed the world record holders Sergei Bubka and Yelena Isinbayeva, and her husband, Élson Miranda de Souza, a former pole vaulter himself.
16/03/1980
Todd Heap, American football player
Todd Benjamin Heap is an American former professional football player who was a tight end for 12 seasons in the National Football League (NFL), primarily for the Baltimore Ravens. He was selected to the Pro Bowl twice with the Ravens, earning second-team All-Pro honors in 2003.
Felipe Reyes, Spanish basketball player
Felipe Reyes Cabanás is a Spanish former professional basketball player. He represented the senior Spain national team. Standing at a height of 2.06 m, and weighing 120 kg (260 lb), he plays at the power forward and center positions.
16/03/1979
Tyler Arnason, American ice hockey player
Tyler Lawrence Arnason is an American former professional ice hockey center who played in the National Hockey League (NHL) for the Chicago Blackhawks, Ottawa Senators and the Colorado Avalanche.
Hee-seop Choi, South Korean baseball player
Hee-seop Choi is a South Korean former professional baseball first baseman. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Chicago Cubs, Florida Marlins, and Los Angeles Dodgers and in the KBO League for the Kia Tigers. He was the first Korean-born position player to play in the major leagues.
Christina Liebherr, Swiss equestrian
Christina Liebherr is a Swiss equestrian who competes in the sport of show jumping.
Rashad Moore, American football player
Glenn Rashad Moore is an American former professional football player who was a defensive tackle in the National Football League (NFL). He was selected by the Seattle Seahawks in the sixth round of the 2003 NFL draft. He played college football for the Tennessee Volunteers.
Sébastien Ostertag, French handball player
Sébastien Ostertag is a French team handball player. He played on the France men's national handball team which won gold medals at the 2009 World Men's Handball Championship in Croatia and at the 2010 European Championship in Austria.
Leena Peisa, Finnish keyboard player and songwriter
Leena Maria "Awa" Peisa is a Finnish keyboard player. Her former bands include Lordi, Punaiset Messiaat and Dolchamar. Currently, she plays in Lordi's ex-drummer's Kita's band "Sampsa Astala & Qma".
Andrei Stepanov, Estonian footballer
Andrei Stepanov is an Estonian former professional footballer. He played the position of defender.
16/03/1978
Brooke Burns, American fashion model, television personality, and actress
Brooke Elizabeth Burns is an American actress, fashion model, game show host, and television personality. Burns began her television career in 1995, portraying the supporting character Peg in the Spanish-American teen sitcom Out of the Blue (1995–1996), appearing in all episodes. Burns joined the cast of the action drama series Baywatch in 1998 and subsequently starred in Baywatch's second rendition, Baywatch: Hawaii, until she left the show owing to her first pregnancy. She appeared in 33 episodes.
Annett Renneberg, German actress and singer
Annett Renneberg (born 16 March 1978 in Rudolstadt) is a German actress and singer.
16/03/1977
Mónica Cruz, Spanish actress and dancer
Mónica Cruz Sánchez is a Spanish actress and dancer. She is the younger sister of actress Penélope Cruz. She has appeared in the films The Inquiry (2006), Last Hour (2008), Jerry Cotton (2010) and Iron Cross (2011).
Thomas Rupprath, German swimmer
Thomas Rupprath is an Olympic swimmer from Germany, who is nicknamed "The New Albatross".
16/03/1976
Blu Cantrell, American singer-songwriter and producer
Tiffany Cobb, known professionally as Blu Cantrell, is an American R&B and soul singer.
Zhu Chen, Qatari chess Grandmaster
Zhu Chen is a Chinese and Qatari chess grandmaster. In 1999, she became China's second women's world chess champion after Xie Jun, and China's 13th Grandmaster. In 2006, she obtained Qatari citizenship and since then has played for Qatar.
Kim Johnsson, Swedish ice hockey player
Kim Emil Jörgen Johnsson is a Swedish former professional ice hockey defenceman who played ten seasons in the National Hockey League (NHL) for the New York Rangers, Philadelphia Flyers, Minnesota Wild and Chicago Blackhawks. He played six seasons for the Malmö Redhawks in the Swedish Elitserien prior to his NHL career.
Leila Lejeune, French handballer
Leila Lejeune is a French former handballer who played for the French national team. She is a world champion from 2003. She also represented France at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. Lejeune scored six goals in the match against Hungary.
Susanne Ljungskog, Swedish cyclist
Susanne Ljungskog is a Swedish former cyclist. As a four-time Olympian, she won the world road race championship in 2002 and 2003. The same years, she was UCI points champion. She has also won two World Cup races.
Abraham Núñez, Dominican baseball player
Abraham Orlando Núñez Adames [NOO-nyez] is a Dominican former professional baseball third baseman. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) from 1997 to 2008 for the Pittsburgh Pirates, St. Louis Cardinals, Philadelphia Phillies, and New York Mets. Núñez primarily played third base, but was capable of playing all four infield positions.
16/03/1975
Luciano Castro, Argentine actor
Luciano Daniel Castro is an Argentine actor. He has worked as the lead actor in several successful telenovelas, such as Valientes, Herederos de una venganza and Sos mi hombre.
Sienna Guillory, English model and actress
Sienna Tiggy Guillory is an English actress and former model. She portrayed Jill Valentine in several entries of the Resident Evil action-horror film series. Other prominent roles include elf princess Arya Dröttningu in the fantasy-adventure film Eragon, and the title role in the TV miniseries Helen of Troy. She has appeared in TV shows including Fortitude, Stan Lee's Lucky Man, and Luther.
Lionel Torres, French archer
Lionel Torres is a French athlete from Perpignan who competes in recurve archery. He competed at the 2000 Olympic Games, qualifying in 11th place but losing in the first knockout round, and has won two individual medals at the World Archery Championships and was the world number one archer from May 2002 to February 2003.
16/03/1974
Georgios Anatolakis, Greek footballer and politician
Georgios Anatolakis is a Greek former professional footballer who played as a defender. He is well known in Greece for his strength, passion and persistence. A strong aerial challenger, he also advances on set pieces to find himself scoring on several occasions. He most notably scored the winning goal for Olympiacos' first match in the renovated Georgios Karaiskakis.
Anne Charrier, French actress
Anne Charrier is a French actress, who is credited with 7 films and 22 TV productions between 2000 and 2009.
Heath Streak, Zimbabwean cricketer (died 2023)
Heath Hilton Streak was a Zimbabwean cricketer and cricket coach who played for and captained the Zimbabwe national cricket team. He was the all time leading wicket taker for Zimbabwe in Test cricket with 216 wickets and in ODI cricket with 239 wickets.
16/03/1973
Tim Kang, American actor
Yila Timothy Kang is an American actor. He is known for his role as Kimball Cho in the television series The Mentalist and Gordon Katsumoto in the reboot series Magnum P.I.
Andrey Mizurov, Kazakhstani road bicycle racer
Andrey Mizurov is a Kazakhstani former professional road bicycle racer.
Vonda Ward, American boxer
Vonda Ward is an American former professional boxer and NCAA basketball player. As a boxer, she competed from 2000 to 2008 and held multiple heavyweight world championships, including the WBC title in 2007. She also challenged Ann Wolfe for the WIBA and IBA female light heavyweight titles in 2004, in which she suffered her only defeat, losing by knockout in the first round.
16/03/1972
Ismaïl Sghyr, French-Moroccan long-distance runner
Ismaïl Sghyr is a French-Moroccan long-distance runner. He won a bronze medal at the over 3000 metres at the 1997 IAAF World Indoor Championships. In 5000 metres he finished fourth at the World Championships the same year, as well as winning a bronze medal at the 2002 European Championships. Over 10,000 metres he won at the 1997 Mediterranean Games.
16/03/1971
Greg Johnson, Canadian ice hockey player (died 2019)
Gregory James Johnson was a Canadian professional ice hockey player in the National Hockey League with the Detroit Red Wings, Pittsburgh Penguins, Chicago Blackhawks, and Nashville Predators.
Alan Tudyk, American actor
Alan Wray Tudyk is an American actor. His film work includes roles in 28 Days (2000), A Knight's Tale (2001), Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (2004), 3:10 to Yuma (2007), and Trumbo (2015). He starred in the black comedy horror film Tucker & Dale vs. Evil (2010).
16/03/1970
Joakim Berg, Swedish singer-songwriter and guitarist
Herbert Joakim "Jocke" Berg is a Swedish singer and songwriter, best known as the lead singer of the alternative rock band Kent.
16/03/1969
Judah Friedlander, American comedian and actor
Judah Friedlander is an American actor and stand-up comedian. He is known for playing the role of writer Frank Rossitano on the NBC sitcom 30 Rock. Friedlander is also known for his role as Toby Radloff in the film American Splendor, a role that garnered him favorable reviews and a nomination for best supporting actor at the 2004 Independent Spirit Awards. Earlier in his career, he was recognized as "the hug guy" from the music video for the 2001 Dave Matthews Band single "Everyday".
Ottis Gibson, Barbadian cricketer and coach
Ottis Delroy Gibson is a cricket coach and former cricketer from Barbados, who played for the West Indies. From 2010 to 2014, Gibson was the head coach for the West Indies, where he led the team to be champions of the 2012 T20 World Cup. He has been appointed as Bangladesh bowling head coach and previously twice worked as bowling coach for England, from 2007 to 2010 and again from 2015 to 2017. Gibson also coached the South African cricket team from 2017 to 2019. He was the pace bowling coach of the Bangladesh national cricket team and Multan Sultans. In January 2022 Gibson was appointed the head coach of Yorkshire County Cricket Club, he is set to join the team after the conclusion of the 2022 Pakistan Super League season.
Alina Ivanova, Russian athlete
Alina Petrovna Ivanova is a retired Russian long-distance athlete who had been competing in race walking and road running. She is best known for winning the gold medal in the women's 10 km walk at the 1991 World Championships in Tokyo, Japan. She represented the Unified Team at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain.
Evangelos Koronios, Greek basketball player and coach
Evangelos Koronios, most commonly known as Angelos Koronios, is a Greek former professional basketball player and coach.
16/03/1967
Tracy Bonham, American singer and violinist
Tracy Kristin Bonham is an American alternative rock musician. Born and raised in Eugene, Oregon, she is a classically trained violinist and pianist, and a self-taught guitarist.
John Darnielle, American musician and novelist
John Darnielle is an American musician and novelist best known as the primary, and originally sole, member of the American indie folk band The Mountain Goats, for which he is the writer, composer, guitarist, pianist, and vocalist. Since starting the band in 1991, he has gained a cult following and is known for his prolific output and literary lyrics. He has written three novels: Wolf in White Van (2014), Universal Harvester (2017), and Devil House (2022).
Lauren Graham, American actress and producer
Lauren Graham is an American actress and author. She is best known as Lorelai Gilmore on Gilmore Girls, for which she was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Drama, and Sarah Braverman on Parenthood (2010–15). She also appeared in the films Sweet November (2001), Bad Santa (2003), The Pacifier (2005), Because I Said So (2007), Evan Almighty (2007), and Max (2015). In 2013, Graham published her debut novel with Ballantine Books, Someday, Someday, Maybe. In 2016, Graham reprised her role on a Gilmore Girls Netflix revival miniseries A Year in the Life and published a memoir, Talking as Fast as I Can.
Ronnie McCoury, American bluegrass mandolin player, singer and songwriter
Ronald Delano McCoury, known as Ronnie McCoury, is an American mandolin player, singer, and songwriter. He is the son of bluegrass musician Del McCoury, and is best known for his work with the Del McCoury Band and the Travelin' McCourys.
Heidi Zurbriggen, Swiss alpine skier
Heidi Andenmatten-Zurbriggen is a Swiss former alpine skier. She is the sister of Pirmin Zurbriggen, an aunt of Elia Zurbriggen and cousin of Silvan Zurbriggen. She won 3 Downhill races on the World Cup tour. She competed at the 1992, 1994 and the 1998 Winter Olympics.
16/03/1966
H.P. Baxxter, German musician
Hans Peter Geerdes, professionally known by his stage name H. P. Baxxter, and sometimes by his nickname Dave, is a German musician best known as the lead vocalist of the German techno band Scooter. He founded Scooter with his friend Rick J. Jordan in 1993.
Chrissy Redden, Canadian cross-country cyclist
Chrissy Redden is a Canadian cross-country cyclist.
16/03/1965
Steve Armstrong, American wrestler
Steven James, better known by his ring name Steve Armstrong, is an American professional wrestler. He is the son of fellow wrestler "Bullet" Bob Armstrong, and has three brothers who also wrestled: Scott, Brad, and Brian.
Sergei Bazarevich, Russian basketball player and coach
Sergei Valerianovich Bazarevich is a Russian basketball coach and former basketball player. At 191 cm and 79 kg (174 lb), he played at the point guard and shooting guard positions.
Cindy Brown, American basketball player
Cynthia Louise "Cindy" Brown is an American former women's basketball player, at the college, Olympic and professional levels. Brown was a member of the USA Basketball team which went on to win a gold medal at the Pan American Games in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1987, and the gold medal at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul. She was also a member of the gold medal-winning team for the US at the 1985 World University Games, and the 1986 World Championship team.
Mark Carney, Canadian economist and politician, Prime Minister of Canada
Mark Joseph Carney is a Canadian politician and economist who has served as the 24th prime minister of Canada since 2025. Carney was also elected as the leader of the Liberal Party and the member of Parliament (MP) for Nepean in 2025. He was previously Governor of the Bank of Canada from 2008 to 2013 and Governor of the Bank of England from 2013 to 2020.
Cristiana Reali, Italian-Brazilian actress
Cristiana Reali is a Brazilian actress. She has appeared in numerous theatre pieces, television series, and films.
16/03/1964
Patty Griffin, American singer-songwriter
Patricia Jean Griffin is an American singer, songwriter, and musician. She is a vocalist and plays guitar and piano. She is known for her stripped-down songwriting style in the folk music genre. Her songs have been covered by numerous musicians, including Emmylou Harris, Ellis Paul, Kelly Clarkson, Rory Block, Dave Hause, Sugarland, Bette Midler and The Chicks.
Jaclyn Jose, Filipino actress (died 2024)
Jaclyn Jose was a Filipino actress. Known for her penetrating eyes and antagonistic roles in film and soap operas, she was a recipient of various accolades, including five Gawad Urians, two Luna Awards, and a FAMAS Award, in addition to an Asian Film Awards nomination. She is the only Filipino to win the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress for the movie Ma' Rosa (2016). She was also described as the "Queen of Underacting" for her ability to deliver restrained and subtle performances.
Pascal Richard, Swiss racing cyclist
Pascal Richard is a Swiss former racing cyclist. He is most notable as a former King of the Mountains winner at the Giro d'Italia and Olympic Games gold medalist. He won the Swiss National Road Race championship in 1989 and 1993.
Gore Verbinski, American director, producer, and screenwriter
Gregor Justin "Gore" Verbinski is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, and musician. He is best known for directing Mouse Hunt (1997), The Ring (2002), the first three Pirates of the Caribbean films, Rango (2011), and Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die.
16/03/1963
Jerome Flynn, English actor and singer
Jerome Patrick Flynn is an English actor and singer. He is best known for his role as Bronn in the HBO fantasy series Game of Thrones (2011–2019). His other roles include Paddy Garvey of the King's Fusiliers in the ITV series Soldier Soldier (1991–1995), Bennet Drake in the BBC mystery series Ripper Street (2012–2016), Hector in the Black Mirror episode "Shut Up and Dance" (2016), Banner Creighton in the Paramount+ western series 1923 (2022–2025) and Boris Oliver in L2: Empuraan (2025).
Kevin Smith, New Zealand actor and singer (died 2002)
Kevin Tod Smith was a New Zealand actor and musician, best known for starring as the Greek God of war, Ares, in the TV series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and in its two spin-offs – Xena: Warrior Princess and Young Hercules.
16/03/1962
Franck Fréon, French race car driver
Franck Fréon is a French race car driver. Fréon won the 1996 24 Hours of Le Mans in the LMP2 class with Mazda, and the overall 2001 24 Hours of Daytona with Corvette.
Liliane Gaschet, French athlete
Liliane Gaschet is a French athlete who specialises in the 100 and 200 meters. Gaschet competed in the women's 100 and 200 meters and also the 4 x 100 meter relay at the 1984 Summer Olympics.
16/03/1961
Todd McFarlane, Canadian author, illustrator, and businessman, founded McFarlane Toys
Todd McFarlane is a Canadian comic-book creator, best known for his work as an artist on The Amazing Spider-Man and as the creator, writer, and artist on the superhero horror-fantasy series Spawn, as well as being the current President and a co-founder of Image Comics.
16/03/1960
Jenny Eclair, English comedian, actress and screenwriter
Jenny Eclair is a Malaysian-born English comedian, novelist, and actress, best known for her roles in Grumpy Old Women between 2004 and 2007 and in Loose Women in 2011 and 2012.
John Hemming, English businessman and politician
John Alexander Melvin Hemming is a British Liberal Democrat politician and businessman who served as the Member of Parliament for Birmingham Yardley from 2005 until 2015.
Duane Sutter, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
Duane Calvin Sutter is a Canadian former National Hockey League player and head coach. Sutter was a first round pick in 1979 and made the major league early in the 1979-80 season with the Islanders and played in all 21 playoff games, where he scored a goal in the decisive Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final as the Islanders won the first of four consecutive Stanley Cups. Sutter had the most points (7) for all players in the 1983 Final and 21 in total for the playoffs for New York's fourth championship. As a player, Sutter had seven seasons with 100+ penalty minutes and two 50-point seasons. After leaving the Islanders in 1987, he played for the Chicago Blackhawks from 1987 to 1990 before retiring. In eleven seasons as a player, he never missed the playoffs.
16/03/1959
Michael J. Bloomfield, American astronaut
Michael John "Bloomer" Bloomfield is an American former astronaut and a veteran of three Space Shuttle missions.
Sebastian Currier, American composer and educator
Sebastian Currier is an American composer of music for chamber groups and orchestras. He was also a professor of music at Columbia University from 1999 to 2007.
Greg Dyer, Australian cricketer
Gregory Charles Dyer is a former New South Wales and Australian wicketkeeper. Dyer played in six Tests and 23 ODIs from 1986 to 1988, including playing in the victorious 1987 World Cup Final. He toured India in 1986 as a back-up keeper.
Flavor Flav, American rapper and actor
William Jonathan Drayton Jr., better known by his stage name Flavor Flav, is an American rapper, hype man, and television personality. Known for his catchphrase "Yeah, boyeee!" when performing, he is a founding member, alongside Chuck D, of Public Enemy, a rap group that has earned six Grammy Award nominations. He has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Charles Hudson, American baseball player
Charles Lynn Hudson is an American former professional baseball starting pitcher, who played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Philadelphia Phillies, New York Yankees, and Detroit Tigers, from 1983 to 1989.
Steve Marker, American musician
Steven W. Marker is an American musician, songwriter, and record producer, best known as the co–founder and guitarist of the alternative rock band Garbage.
Jens Stoltenberg, Norwegian economist and politician, 27th Prime Minister of Norway, 13th Secretary General of NATO
Jens Stoltenberg is a Norwegian politician who has served as the minister of finance since 2025, a position he previously held from 1996 to 1997. A member of the Labour Party, he also served as the prime minister of Norway from 2000 to 2001 and 2005 to 2013, and secretary general of NATO from 2014 to 2024.
Scott L. Schwartz, American actor stuntman and wrestler (died 2024)
Scott Leslie Schwartz also known as The Ultimate Bad Guy, was an American film and television actor, stuntman and professional wrestler. His size and agility at 6 ft 10 in (2.08 m) and 303 pounds (137 kg) had allowed him many roles as a thug or villain for film and television.
16/03/1958
Jorge Ramos, Mexican-American journalist and author
Jorge Gilberto Ramos Ávalos is a Mexican journalist and author.
Phillip Wilcher, Australian pianist and composer
Phillip Leslie Wilcher is an Australian pianist and composer who was a founding member of the children's music group the Wiggles. When Wilcher published his first work, "Daybreak", at the age of 14, he was one of the youngest classical composers in Australia.
Kate Worley, American author (died 2004)
Kathleen Louise Worley was an American comic book writer, best known for her work on Omaha the Cat Dancer, a sexually explicit anthropomorphic animal comic book series about a female stripper. Worley was also a musician, and a writer and performer for the science fiction comedy radio program Shockwave Radio Theater. She died of lung cancer.
16/03/1956
Ozzie Newsome, American football player and executive
Ozzie Newsome Jr. is an American professional football executive and former player who is the executive vice president of player personnel of the Baltimore Ravens of the National Football League (NFL). Newsome was a tight end for the NFL's Cleveland Browns, and was general manager of the Ravens from 1996 to 2018. Newsome has been inducted into both the College Football Hall of Fame (1994) and the Pro Football Hall of Fame (1999).
Clifton Powell, American actor, director, and producer
Clifton Powell is an American actor who primarily plays supporting roles in films, such as in Ray (2004), for which he received an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture nomination. He is also known for voicing Big Smoke in the action-adventure game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004).
Yoriko Shono, Japanese writer
Yoriko Shono , born 16 March 1956, is a Japanese writer who describes her writing as 'avant-pop'.
Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, Swiss lawyer and politician
Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf is a Swiss politician and lawyer who served as a Member of the Swiss Federal Council from 2008 to 2015. A member of the Swiss People's Party (SVP/UDC) until 2008, she was then a member of the splinter Conservative Democratic Party (BDP/PBD) until 2021, when that party merged into The Centre. Widmer-Schlumpf was the head of the Federal Department of Justice and Police from 2008 to 2010, when she became head of the Federal Department of Finance. She served as President of the Swiss Confederation in 2012.
16/03/1955
Svetlana Alexeeva, Russian ice dancer and coach
Svetlana Lvovna Alekseeva is a Russian figure skating coach and former ice dancer.
Rimantas Astrauskas, Lithuanian physicist
Rimantas Astrauskas is a physicist, ecologist, and signatory of the 1990 Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania.
Bruno Barreto, Brazilian director, producer, and screenwriter
Bruno Villela Barreto Borges is a Brazilian film director.
Linda Lepomme, Belgian actress and singer
Linda Lepomme is a Belgian actress and singer who represented her country in the Eurovision Song Contest 1985 in which she sang "Laat me nu gaan". She earned seven points finishing in 19th (last) place overall.
Bob Ley, American sports anchor and reporter
Robert A. Ley is a retired American sports anchor and reporter, best known for his work at ESPN. A multiple Emmy Award-winner, he was the longest-tenured on-air employee of the network, having joined ESPN just three days after the network's 1979 launch and retiring from the network effective at the end of June 2019.
Andy Scott, Canadian politician (died 2013)
Robert Andrew Keith Scott was a Liberal Member of Parliament who represented the electoral district of Fredericton from 1993 to 2008. He was a member the Cabinet of Canada, most recently serving as the eighteenth Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (2004–2006).
Jiro Watanabe, Japanese boxer
Jiro Watanabe is a Japanese former boxer. Watanabe, who fought only in Japan and South Korea, was one of the first World super flyweight champions, as the division was relatively new when he was crowned.
16/03/1954
David Heath, English politician
David William St John Heath is a British optometrist and Liberal Democrat politician. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Somerton and Frome from 1997 to 2015. He served as the Minister of State for Agriculture and Food from September 2012 to October 2013 in the Cameron–Clegg coalition government.
Colin Ireland, English serial killer (died 2012)
Colin Ireland was a British serial killer known as the Gay Slayer, because his victims were gay men. Criminologist David Wilson believes that Ireland was a psychopath.
Jimmy Nail, English singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actor
James Michael Aloysius Bradford, known professionally Jimmy Nail, is an English singer-songwriter, actor, film producer, and television writer. He played the role of Leonard "Oz" Osborne in the television show Auf Wiedersehen, Pet (1983–1986), the title role in Spender (1991–1993) and Jed Shepperd in Crocodile Shoes (1994–1996). He also recorded a 1992 number one single, "Ain't No Doubt". His performance as Agustín Magaldi in the 1996 film Evita, gave him international recognition.
Tim O'Brien, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
Timothy O'Brien is an American country and bluegrass musician. In addition to singing, he plays guitar, fiddle, mandolin, banjo, bouzouki and mandocello. He has released more than ten studio albums, in addition to charting a duet with Kathy Mattea entitled "The Battle Hymn of Love", a No. 9 hit on the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks charts in 1990. In November 2013 he was inducted into the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame.
Dav Whatmore, Sri Lankan-Australian cricketer and coach
Davenell Frederick Whatmore is a Sri Lanka born Australian cricket coach and former cricketer.
Nancy Wilson, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, producer, and actress
Nancy Lamoureux Wilson is an American musician. She rose to fame alongside her older sister Ann Wilson as guitarist and second vocalist in the rock band Heart.
16/03/1953
Claus Peter Flor, German conductor
Claus Peter Flor is a German conductor.
Isabelle Huppert, French actress
Isabelle Anne Madeleine Huppert is a French actress who has appeared in more than 120 feature films, mostly in starring roles. Regarded as one of the most respected actresses in French cinema, she has appeared in films directed by Claude Chabrol, Jean-Luc Godard and Michael Haneke. She has also starred in numerous stage productions, in Paris and around the world.
Rainer Knaak, German chess player
Rainer Fritz Albert Knaak is a German chess player who holds the FIDE title of Grandmaster (GM).
Richard Stallman, American computer scientist and programmer
Richard Matthew Stallman, also known by his initials rms, is an American free software movement activist and programmer. He campaigns for software to be distributed in such a manner that its users have the freedom to use, study, distribute, and modify that software. Software which ensures these freedoms is termed free software. Stallman launched the GNU Project, founded the Free Software Foundation (FSF) in October 1985, developed the GNU C Compiler and GNU Emacs, and wrote all versions of the GNU General Public License.
16/03/1951
Ray Benson, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer
Ray Benson Seifert is an American musician, actor, and voice actor who is the frontman of the Western swing band Asleep at the Wheel.
Abdelmajid Bourebbou, Algerian footballer
Abdelmajid Bourebbou is an Algerian former footballer who played as a forward. He played as a striker for several French clubs as well as the Algeria national football team. He represented Algeria at the 1982 FIFA World Cup in Spain.
Oddvar Brå, Norwegian skier
Oddvar Brå is a Norwegian former cross-country skier. He was among the best skiers in Norway, the three-times winner of the World Cup and the winner of 16 national championships. His success in the major international championships was more modest.
Joe DeLamielleure, American football player
Joseph Michael DeLamielleure is an American former professional football player who was a guard in the National Football League (NFL). He was an All-American playing college football for the Michigan State Spartans. He was selected by the Buffalo Bills in the first round of the 1973 NFL draft. He won All-Rookie Honors, after finding out a physical condition with his irregular heartbeat was not serious. In 1973 the Buffalo Bills rushing offense led the NFL in yards, yards per carry, as well as rushing touchdowns. He is also one of the first living NFL players to be tested and diagnosed with CTE.
Alexandre Gonzalez, French long-distance runner
Alexandre Gonzalez is a French long-distance runner. He competed in the men's marathon at the 1988 Summer Olympics.
16/03/1950
Peter Forster, English bishop
Peter Robert Forster is a British former Anglican bishop. He was Bishop of Chester in the Church of England from 1996 and a Lord Spiritual from 2001 until his retirement in 2019. He was received into the Roman Catholic Church in 2021.
Kate Nelligan, Canadian actress
Patricia Colleen Nelligan, known professionally as Kate Nelligan, is a Canadian stage, film and television actress. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the 1991 film The Prince of Tides, and the same year won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Frankie and Johnny. She is also a four-time Tony Award nominee for her work on Broadway, receiving nominations for Plenty (1983), A Moon for the Misbegotten (1984), Serious Money (1988) and Spoils of War (1989).
Edhem Šljivo, Bosnian footballer
Edhem "Etko" Šljivo is a Bosnian former professional footballer. He started his career with FK Sarajevo, going on to become one of the best midfielders of the Yugoslav First League. At international level, he represented the Yugoslavia national team.
16/03/1949
Erik Estrada, American actor
Henry Enrique Estrada is an American actor. He is widely known for his co-starring lead role as California Highway Patrol officer Francis (Frank) Llewelyn "Ponch" Poncherello in the police drama television series CHiPs, which aired from 1977 to 1983. He later became known for his work in Spanish telenovelas, his appearances in reality television shows and infomercials, and as a regular voice on the series Sealab 2021, on Adult Swim.
Victor Garber, Canadian actor and singer
Victor Garber, is a Canadian stage and film actor, and a singer. Known for his work on stage and screen, he has been nominated for three Gemini Awards, four Tony Awards and six Primetime Emmy Awards. In 2022 he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada.
Elliott Murphy, American-French singer-songwriter and journalist
Elliott James Murphy is an American rock singer-songwriter, novelist, record producer, and journalist.
16/03/1948
Michael Owen Bruce, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
Michael Owen Bruce is an American rock musician who was a founding member of the original Alice Cooper band.
Richard Desjardins, Canadian singer-songwriter and director
Richard Desjardins is a Québécois folk singer and film director.
Catherine Quéré, French politician
Catherine Quéré is a French politician and a member of the Socialist Party.
16/03/1946
Sigmund Groven, Norwegian harmonica player and composer
Sigmund Groven is a Norwegian classical harmonica player, today considered one of the world's leading classical harmonica players. He plays with a large number of the world's leading musicians and orchestras, and he has made 23 recordings yet in his own name. His repertoire ranges from popular and folk music to his own compositions, from Bach to contemporary music.
Mary Kaldor, English economist and academic
Mary Henrietta Kaldor is a British academic, currently Professor of Global Governance at the London School of Economics, where she is also the Director of the Civil Society and Human Security Research Unit. She also teaches at the Institut Barcelona d'Estudis Internacionals (IBEI). Kaldor has been a key figure in the development of cosmopolitan democracy. She writes on globalisation, international relations and humanitarian intervention, global civil society and global governance, as well as what she calls New Wars.
J. Z. Knight, American New Age teacher and author
Judy "Zebra" Knight is an American spiritual teacher and author known for her purported channelling of a spiritual entity named Ramtha. Critics consider her to be a cult leader.
Guesch Patti, French singer
Patricia Porrasse, known professionally as Guesch Patti, is a French singer.
16/03/1945
Douglas Ahlstedt, American tenor (died 2023)
Douglas Ahlstedt was an American operatic tenor who had an international performance career with major opera houses from the 1970s through the 1990s. He was a member of the Metropolitan Opera and of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, performing leading roles of the lyric tenore repertoire, and also many supporting roles. He was professor of voice at Carnegie Mellon University from 1998 until 2020.
16/03/1944
Andrew S. Tanenbaum, American computer scientist and academic
Andrew Stuart Tanenbaum, sometimes referred to by the handle AST, is an American-born Dutch computer scientist and retired professor emeritus of computer science at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Netherlands.
16/03/1943
Álvaro de Soto, Peruvian diplomat
Álvaro de Soto Polar is a Peruvian diplomat. He ended a 25-year career with the United Nations in May 2007.
Ursula Goodenough, American biologist, zoologist, and author
Ursula W. Goodenough is a retired Professor of Biology Emerita at Washington University in St. Louis, where she researched on eukaryotic algae. She authored the textbook Genetics and the best-selling book The Sacred Depths of Nature and speaks regularly about religious naturalist orientation and evolution. She contributed to the NPR blog 13.7: Cosmos & Culture from 2009 to 2011.
Hans Heyer, German race car driver
Hans Heyer is a German retired racing driver who mainly raced touring cars. He is most commonly known for starting one Formula One World Championship race, the 1977 German Grand Prix, despite failing to qualify.
Harry van Hoof, Dutch conductor, composer, and music arranger (died 2024)
Harry van Hoof was a Dutch conductor, composer, and music arranger.
16/03/1942
Roger Crozier, Canadian-American ice hockey player (died 1996)
Roger Allan Crozier was a Canadian professional ice hockey player. He was a goaltender for fourteen seasons in the National Hockey League (NHL) for the Detroit Red Wings, Buffalo Sabres and Washington Capitals. During his career, Crozier was named to the NHL First All-Star Team once, was a Calder Memorial Trophy winner, and was the first player to win the Conn Smythe Trophy while playing for the losing team in the Stanley Cup Final. He was the last goaltender in the NHL to start all of his team's games in the regular season, in 1964–65.
Jean-Pierre Schosteck, French politician
Jean-Pierre Schosteck is a French politician. He is mayor of Châtillon and a member of The Republicans.
James Soong, Chinese-Taiwanese politician, Governor of Taiwan Province
Soong Chu-yu, also known by his English name James Soong, is a Taiwanese political scientist and politician who is the founder and chairman of the People First Party. Soong was the first and only elected governor of Taiwan Province from 1994 and 1998, after which he became a perennial candidate in Taiwanese politics.
Gijs van Lennep, Dutch race car driver
Gijsbert "Gijs" van Lennep is a Dutch racing driver who competed in eight Formula One races. However, his main achievements were in sports car racing. He is a member of the untitled Dutch nobility.
Jerry Jeff Walker, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (died 2020)
Jerry Jeff Walker was an American country and folk singer-songwriter. He was a leading figure in the progressive country and outlaw country music movement. He is best known for writing the 1968 song "Mr. Bojangles".
16/03/1941
Bernardo Bertolucci, Italian director and screenwriter (died 2018)
Bernardo Bertolucci was an Italian film director and screenwriter with a career that spanned 50 years. Considered one of the greatest directors in the history of cinema, Bertolucci's work achieved international acclaim. With The Last Emperor (1987) he became the first Italian filmmaker to win the Academy Award for Best Director, and he received many other accolades including a BAFTA Award, a César Award, two Golden Globes, a Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement, and an Honorary Palme d'Or.
Robert Guéï, Ivorian soldier and politician, 3rd President of Côte d'Ivoire (died 2002)
Robert Guéï was an Ivorian politician who served as the third president of the Ivory Coast from 24 December 1999 to 26 October 2000. He succeeded President Henri Konan Bédié after the 1999 Ivorian coup d'état and lost to Laurent Gbagbo in the ensuing 2000 Ivorian presidential election. Guéï, his wife Rose Doudou Guéï, and his children were killed on 19 September 2002 on the first day of the First Ivorian Civil War.
Chuck Woolery, American game show host and television personality (died 2024)
Charles Herbert Woolery was an American television host, actor, and musician. He had long-running tenures hosting several game shows. Woolery was the original host of the original daytime Wheel of Fortune from 1975 until 1981, when he was replaced by Pat Sajak.
16/03/1940
Vagif Mustafazadeh, Azerbaijani pianist and composer (died 1979)
Vagif Mustafazadeh, also known as Vaqif Mustafa-Zadeh, was a Soviet-Azerbaijani jazz pianist and composer, acclaimed for fusing jazz and the traditional Azerbaijani folk music, known as mugham. According to many world famous jazz musicians, Mustafazadeh is one of the pioneers and "the architect of jazz in Azerbaijan".
Jan Pronk, Dutch academic and politician, Dutch Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment
Johannes Pieter "Jan" Pronk Jr. is a retired Dutch politician and diplomat of the Labour Party (PvdA) and activist.
Keith Rowe, English guitarist
Keith Rowe is an English free improvisation tabletop guitarist and painter. Rowe is a founding member of both AMM in the mid-1960s and M.I.M.E.O. Having trained as a visual artist, his paintings have appeared on most of his albums. He is seen as a godfather of EAI, with many of his recordings having been released by Erstwhile.
Kaak, Indian cartoonist (died 2025)
Harish Chandra Shukla, known by his pen name Kaak, was an Indian editorial cartoonist and caricaturist who worked in Hindi-language media. He worked with leading newspapers such as Jansatta, Navbharat Times, Dainik Jagran, Rajasthan Patrika, and a few others, in a career spanning several decades. 'Kaak' means crow in Hindi, which according to a proverb, is the bird that raises its raucous voice when someone tells a lie.
16/03/1939
Yvon Côté, Canadian politician and teacher
Yvon Côté is a former member of the House of Commons of Canada from 1988 to 1993.
16/03/1938
Carlos Bilardo, Argentinian footballer and manager
Dr. Carlos Salvador Bilardo is an Argentine former physician, football player, and manager.
16/03/1937
David Frith, English historian, journalist, and author
David Edward John Frith is an English cricket writer and historian. Cricinfo describes him as "an author, historian, and founding editor of Wisden Cricket Monthly".
Attilio Nicora, Italian cardinal (died 2017)
Attilio Nicora was an Italian prelate of the Catholic Church who held senior positions in the administration of the Roman Curia as president of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See from 2002 to 2011 and president of the four-person Executive Board of the Financial Information Authority (FIA) from 2011 to 2014. He was bishop of Verona from 1992 to 1997. He was given the personal title of archbishop in 2002 and was made a cardinal in 2003.
Amos Tversky, Israeli-American psychologist and academic (died 1996)
Amos Nathan Tversky was an Israeli cognitive and mathematical psychologist and a key figure in the discovery of systematic human cognitive bias and handling of risk.
16/03/1936
Raymond Vahan Damadian, Armenian-American inventor, invented the MRI (died 2022)
Raymond Vahan Damadian was an American physician, medical researcher, and inventor of the first nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) scanning machine.
Fred Neil, American folk singer-songwriter and guitarist (died 2001)
Fred Neil was an American folk singer-songwriter active in the 1960s and early 1970s. He is mainly known through other people's recordings of his material, particularly "Everybody's Talkin'", which became a hit for Harry Nilsson after it was used in the film Midnight Cowboy in 1969. Though highly regarded by contemporary folk singers, he was reluctant to tour and spent much of the last 30 years of his life assisting with the preservation of dolphins.
16/03/1935
Teresa Berganza, Spanish soprano and actress (died 2022)
Teresa Berganza Vargas OAXS was a Spanish mezzo-soprano. She is most closely associated with roles such as Rossini's Rosina and La Cenerentola, and later Bizet's Carmen, admired for her technical virtuosity, musical intelligence, and beguiling stage presence.
Pepe Cáceres, Colombian bullfighter (died 1987)
José Humberto Eslava "Pepe" Cáceres was a Colombian bullfighter.
16/03/1934
Jean Cournoyer, Canadian politician
Jean Cournoyer is a retired Quebec politician. He was a Member of the provincial legislature in Quebec.
Ray Hnatyshyn, Canadian lawyer and politician, 24th Governor General of Canada (died 2002)
Ramon John "Ray" Hnatyshyn was a Canadian lawyer and statesman who served as the 24th governor general of Canada from 1990 to 1995.
Roger Norrington, English violinist and conductor (died 2025)
Sir Roger Arthur Carver Norrington was an English conductor, best known for historically informed performances of baroque, classical, and romantic music, which often entailed minimal use of vibrato and applying historically informed principles to modern orchestras.
Howard Schnellenberger, American football player and coach (died 2021)
Howard Leslie Schnellenberger was an American football coach with long service at both the professional and college levels. He held head coaching positions with the National Football League (NFL)'s Baltimore Colts and in college for the University of Miami, University of Louisville, University of Oklahoma and Florida Atlantic University. He won a national championship with Miami in 1983.
16/03/1933
Keith Critchlow, English architect and academic, co-founded Temenos Academy (died 2020)
Keith Barry Critchlow was a British artist, lecturer, author, sacred geometer, professor of architecture, and a co-founder of the Temenos Academy in the UK.
Sanford I. Weill, American banker, financier, and philanthropist
Sanford I. "Sandy" Weill is an American banker, financier, and philanthropist. He is a former chief executive and chairman of Citigroup. He served in those positions from 1998 until October 1, 2003, and April 18, 2006, respectively.
16/03/1932
Don Blasingame, American baseball player and manager (died 2005)
Donald Lee Blasingame, nicknamed "Blazer", was an American professional baseball player. He played as a second baseman in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the St. Louis Cardinals (1955–1959), San Francisco Giants (1960–1961), Cincinnati Reds (1961–1963), Washington Senators (1963–1966), and Kansas City Athletics (1966). Blasingame threw right-handed, batted left-handed and was listed as 5 feet 10 inches (1.78 m) tall and 160 pounds (73 kg).
Walter Cunningham, American astronaut (died 2023)
Ronnie Walter Cunningham was an American astronaut, fighter pilot, physicist, entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and author of the 1977 book The All-American Boys. NASA's third civilian astronaut, he was a lunar module pilot on the Apollo 7 mission in 1968.
Kurt Diemberger, Austrian mountaineer and author
Kurt Diemberger is an Austrian mountaineer and author of several books. He is the only living person who has made the first ascents on two mountains over 8,000 metres: of Broad Peak in 1957 and of Dhaulagiri in 1960. In 2013, he won the Piolet d'Or Lifetime Achievement Award.
Herbert Marx, Canadian politician (died 2020)
Herbert Marx was a Canadian lawyer, university law professor, politician, and judge. He was a member of the National Assembly of Quebec from 1979 to 1989, a cabinet minister, and a Justice of the Quebec Superior Court.
16/03/1931
Augusto Boal, Brazilian theatre director, writer and politician (died 2009)
Augusto Boal was a Brazilian theatre practitioner, drama theorist, and political activist. He was the founder of Theatre of the Oppressed and Forum Theatre, a theatrical form originally used in popular education movements. Boal served one term as a Vereador in Rio de Janeiro from 1993 to 1997, where he developed legislative theatre.
Alan Heyman, American-South Korean musicologist and composer (died 2014)
Alan Charles Heyman, Korean name Hae Eui-man (Korean: 해의만), was a South Korean musicologist and composer. Born in the United States, he first came to South Korea in 1953 with the United States Army during the Korean War, and after completing a graduate degree in music education at Columbia University, moved to South Korea permanently in 1960 to devote himself to research and composition. He led traditional Korean music troupes on tours of North America and Europe, and made significant contributions to the preservation of Korean traditional music, for which he was recognised with awards from national and international organisations. He gave up his U.S. citizenship to become a South Korean citizen in 1995, and remained in the country until his death in 2014.
Anthony Kenny, English philosopher and academic
Sir Anthony John Patrick Kenny is a British philosopher whose interests lie in the philosophy of mind, ancient and scholastic philosophy, the philosophy of religion, and the philosophy of Wittgenstein of whose literary estate he is an executor. With Peter Geach, he has made a significant contribution to analytical Thomism, a movement whose aim is to present the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas in the style of analytic philosophy. He is a former president of the British Academy and the Royal Institute of Philosophy.
John Munro, Canadian lawyer and politician, 22nd Canadian Minister of Labour (died 2003)
John Carr Munro was a Canadian politician. He was first elected to the House of Commons of Canada in the 1962 election, and served continuously as a Member of Parliament (MP) for Hamilton, Ontario in the electoral riding of Hamilton East until his resignation in 1984, following his defeat for the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada which was eventually won by John Turner.
16/03/1930
Tommy Flanagan, American pianist and composer (died 2001)
Thomas Lee Flanagan was an American jazz pianist and composer. He grew up in Detroit, initially influenced by such pianists as Art Tatum, Teddy Wilson, and Nat King Cole, and then by bebop musicians. Within months of moving to New York in 1956, he had recorded with Miles Davis and on Sonny Rollins' album Saxophone Colossus. Recordings under various leaders, including Giant Steps of John Coltrane, continued well into 1962, when he became the full-time accompanist to Ella Fitzgerald. He worked with Fitzgerald for three years until 1965, and then in 1968 returned to be her pianist and musical director, this time for a decade.
Minoru Miki, Japanese composer (died 2011)
Minoru Miki was a Japanese composer and Artistic director. He was known for promoting Japanese, Chinese and Korean traditional instruments as well as some of their performers.
16/03/1929
Betty Johnson, American singer (died 2022)
Betty Johnson was an American traditional pop and cabaret singer who reached her career peak in the 1950s.
Tihomir Novakov, Serbian-American physicist and academic (died 2015)
Tihomir Novakov, also known as Tica Novakov was a Serbian-born American physicist. As a scientist, Novakov is known for his black carbon, air quality, and climate change research. James Hansen dubbed him "the godfather of black carbon".
Nadja Tiller, Austrian actress (died 2023)
Nadja Tiller was an Austrian actress in film, television, and on stage. She was one of the most popular German-speaking actresses in the international cinema of the 1950s and 1960s, receiving international recognition when she played the title role in the 1958 film Das Mädchen Rosemarie (Rosemary) in 1958, shown at the Venice Film Festival. It opened the way to international films. She often played alongside her husband, Walter Giller.
16/03/1928
Wakanohana Kanji I, Japanese sumo wrestler, the 45th Yokozuna (died 2010)
Wakanohana Kanji was a Japanese professional sumo wrestler. He was the sport's 45th yokozuna. He was a popular wrestler and was nicknamed the "Devil of the Dohyō" due to his great fighting spirit and endurance.
Christa Ludwig, German opera singer (died 2021)
Christa Ludwig was a German mezzo-soprano and sometime dramatic soprano, distinguished for her performances of opera, lieder, oratorio, and other major religious works like masses, passions, and solos in symphonic literature. Her performing career spanned almost half a century, from the late 1940s until the early 1990s.
16/03/1927
Vladimir Komarov, Russian pilot, engineer, and cosmonaut (died 1967)
Vladimir Mikhaylovich Komarov was a Soviet test pilot, aerospace engineer, and cosmonaut. In October 1964, he commanded Voskhod 1, the first spaceflight to carry more than one crew member. He became the first Soviet cosmonaut to fly in space twice when he was selected as the solo pilot of Soyuz 1, its first crewed test flight. A parachute failure caused his Soyuz capsule to crash into the ground after re-entry on 24 April 1967, making him the first human to die in a space flight incident.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan, American sociologist and politician, 12th United States Ambassador to the United Nations (died 2003)
Daniel Patrick "Pat" Moynihan was an American politician, diplomat and social scientist. A member of the Democratic Party, he represented New York in the United States Senate from 1977 until 2001 after serving as an adviser to President Richard Nixon, and as the United States' ambassador to India and to the United Nations.
Olga San Juan, American actress and dancer (died 2009)
Olga San Juan was an American actress and comedian. Born in Brooklyn, she began her brief film career with Paramount Pictures after being scouted at Copacabana. She performed in several Hollywood musicals in the 1940s and on Broadway in Paint Your Wagon (1951).
16/03/1926
Charles Goodell, American lawyer and politician (died 1987)
Charles Ellsworth Goodell Jr. was an American politician who represented New York in the United States House of Representatives from 1959 to 1968 and the United States Senate from 1968 to 1971. In both cases, he took office following the deaths of his predecessors, first in a special election and second as a temporary appointee succeeding Robert F. Kennedy.
Jerry Lewis, American actor and comedian (died 2017)
Jerry Lewis was an American comedian, actor, singer, filmmaker and humanitarian. Across his seven-decade career, he was regarded as one of the greatest comedians of the 20th century. He is nicknamed the "King of Comedy".
16/03/1925
Cornell Borchers, Lithuanian-German actress and singer (died 2014)
Cornell Borchers was a Lithuanian-German actress and singer, active in the late 1940s and 1950s. She is best remembered for her roles opposite Montgomery Clift in The Big Lift (1950) and Errol Flynn and Nat King Cole in Istanbul (1957). She was said to resemble Ingrid Bergman in mid-1950s reviews.
Mary Hinkson, American dancer and choreographer (died 2014)
Mary De Haven Hinkson was an African American dancer and choreographer known for breaking racial boundaries throughout her dance career in both modern and ballet techniques. She is best known for her work as a member of the Martha Graham Dance Company.
Ervin Kassai, Hungarian basketball player and referee (died 2012)
Ervin Kassai was a Hungarian basketball referee.
Luis E. Miramontes, Mexican chemist and engineer (died 2004)
Luis Ernesto Miramontes Cárdenas was a Mexican chemist known as co-inventor and the first to synthesize an oral contraceptive, progestin norethisterone.
16/03/1923
Heinz Wallberg, German conductor (died 2004)
Heinz Wallberg was a German conductor.
16/03/1922
Harding Lemay, American screenwriter and playwright (died 2018)
Harding Lemay, also known as Pete Lemay, was an American screenwriter and playwright who was the head writer for the soap opera Another World.
16/03/1920
John Addison, English-American soldier and composer (died 1998)
John Mervyn Addison was a British composer best known for his film scores.
Sid Fleischman, American author and screenwriter (died 2010)
Albert Sidney Fleischman was an American author of children's books, screenplays, novels for adults, and nonfiction books about stage magic. His works for children are known for their humor, imagery, zesty plotting, and exploration of the byways of American history. He won the Newbery Medal in 1987 for The Whipping Boy and the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award in 1979 for Humbug Mountain. For his career contribution as a children's writer he was U.S. nominee for the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award in 1994. In 2003, the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators inaugurated the Sid Fleischman Humor Award in his honor, and made him the first recipient. The Award annually recognizes a writer of humorous fiction for children or young adults. He told his own tale in The Abracadabra Kid: A Writer's Life (1996).
Traudl Junge, German secretary (died 2002)
Gertraud "Traudl" Junge was a German editor who worked as Adolf Hitler's last private secretary from December 1942 to April 1945. After typing Hitler's will, she remained in the Berlin Führerbunker until his death.
Leo McKern, Australian-English actor (died 2002)
Reginald "Leo" McKern was an Australian actor who appeared in numerous British, Australian and American television programmes and films, and in more than 200 stage roles. His notable roles include Clang in Help! (1965), Thomas Cromwell in A Man for All Seasons (1966), Tom Ryan in Ryan's Daughter (1970), Harry Bundage in Candleshoe (1977), Paddy Button in The Blue Lagoon (1980), Dr. Grogan in The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), Father Imperius in Ladyhawke (1985), and the role that made him a household name as an actor, Horace Rumpole, whom he played in the British television series Rumpole of the Bailey. He also portrayed Carl Bugenhagen in the first and second installments of The Omen series and Number Two in the TV series The Prisoner.
16/03/1918
Frederick Reines, American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1998)
Frederick Reines was an American physicist. He was awarded the 1995 Nobel Prize in Physics for his co-detection of the neutrino with Clyde Cowan in the neutrino experiment. He may be the only scientist in history "so intimately associated with the discovery of an elementary particle and the subsequent thorough investigation of its fundamental properties."
Aldo van Eyck, Dutch architect (died 1999)
Aldo van Eyck was a Dutch architect. He was one of the most influential protagonists of the architectural movement Structuralism.
16/03/1917
Mehrdad Pahlbod, Iranian politician (died 2018)
Mehrdad Pahlbod was an Iranian politician who served as the first culture minister of Iran from 1964 until 1978.
Laure Pillay, Mauritian lawyer and jurist (died 2017)
Laure Pillay was a Mauritian lawyer and jurist who was the country's first female barrister and first female magistrate.
Louis C. Wyman, American lawyer and politician (died 2002)
Louis Crosby Wyman was an American politician and lawyer. He was a United States representative and a U.S. senator from New Hampshire. He was a member of the Republican Party.
16/03/1916
Mercedes McCambridge, American actress (died 2004)
Carlotta Mercedes Agnes McCambridge was an American actress of radio, stage, film, and television. Orson Welles called her "the world's greatest living radio actress". She won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her screen debut in All the King's Men (1949) and was nominated in the same category for Giant (1956). She voiced the majority of dialogue for demon Pazuzu in The Exorcist (1973).
Tsutomu Yamaguchi, Japanese engineer and businessman (died 2010)
Tsutomu Yamaguchi was a Japanese marine engineer who survived and witnessed both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings during World War II. Although at least 160 people are known to have been affected by both bombings, he is the only person to have been officially recognized by the government of Japan as surviving both explosions.
16/03/1915
Kunihiko Kodaira, Japanese mathematician (died 1997)
Kunihiko Kodaira was a Japanese mathematician known for distinguished work in algebraic geometry and the theory of complex manifolds, and as the founder of the Japanese school of algebraic geometers. He was awarded a Fields Medal in 1954, being the first Japanese national to receive this honour.
16/03/1913
Rémy Raffalli, French soldier (died 1952)
Barthélémy "Rémy" Raffalli was a French Army major who fought in World War II and the First Indochina War.
16/03/1912
Pat Nixon, American teacher, First Lady of the United States (died 1993)
Thelma Catherine "Pat" Nixon was First Lady of the United States from 1969 to 1974 as the wife of Richard Nixon, the 37th U.S. president. From 1953 to 1961, she had been the second lady of the United States when her husband was Dwight D. Eisenhower's vice president.
16/03/1911
Pierre Harmel, Belgian lawyer and diplomat, Prime Minister of Belgium (died 2009)
Pierre Charles José Marie, Count Harmel was a Belgian lawyer, Christian Democratic politician and diplomat. Harmel served as the prime minister of Belgium from 1965 to 1966, leading a centre-left cabinet.
Josef Mengele, German physician, SS captain and mass-murderer (died 1979)
Josef Mengele, often dubbed the "Angel of Death", was a German military officer and physician during World War II at the Soviet front and then at Auschwitz during the Holocaust. He conducted research and experiments on prisoners at the Auschwitz II-Birkenau concentration camp, where he was a member of the team of doctors who selected victims to be murdered in the gas chambers.
Philip Pavia, American painter and sculptor (died 2005)
Philip Pavia (1911-2005) was a culturally influential American artist of Italian descent, known for his scatter sculpture and figurative abstractions, and the debate he fostered among many of the 20th century's most important art thinkers. A founder of the New York School of Abstract Expressionism, he "did much to shift the epicenter of Modernism from Paris to New York," both as founding organizer of The Club and as founder, editor and publisher of the short-lived but influential art journal It Is: A Magazine for Abstract Art. Reference to the magazine appears in the archives of more than two dozen celebrated art figures, including Picasso, Peggy Guggenheim, and art critic Clement Greenberg. The Club is credited with inspiring art critic Harold Rosenberg’s influential essay “The American Action Painters" and the historic 9th Street Show.
16/03/1910
Aladár Gerevich, Hungarian fencer (died 1991)
Aladár Gerevich was a Hungarian fencer, regarded as "the greatest Olympic swordsman ever". He won seven gold medals in sabre at six different Olympic Games.
Iftikhar Ali Khan Pataudi, Indian-English cricketer and politician, 8th Nawab of Pataudi (died 1952)
Nawab Mohammad Iftikhar Ali Khan Pataudi, sometimes I. A. K. Pataudi, was an Indian prince and cricket player.
16/03/1909
Don Raye, American songwriter (died 1985)
Don Raye was an American songwriter, best known for his songs for The Andrews Sisters such as "Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar", "The House of Blue Lights", "Just for a Thrill" and "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy." The latter was co-written with Hughie Prince.
16/03/1908
René Daumal, French author and poet (died 1944)
René Daumal was a French spiritual para-surrealist writer, critic and poet, best known for his posthumously published novel Mount Analogue (1952) as well as for being an early, outspoken practitioner of pataphysics.
Ernest Rogez, French water polo player (died 1986)
Ernest Rogez was a French water polo player who competed in the 1928 Summer Olympics.
Robert Rossen, American director, producer, and screenwriter (died 1966)
Robert Rossen was an American screenwriter, film director, and producer whose film career spanned almost three decades.
16/03/1906
Francisco Ayala, Spanish sociologist, author, and translator (died 2009)
Francisco Ayala García-Duarte was a Spanish writer, the last representative of the Generation of '27.
Maurice Turnbull, Welsh-English cricketer and rugby player (died 1944)
Maurice Joseph Lawson Turnbull was a Welsh cricketer who played in nine Test matches for the England cricket team between 1930 and 1936.
Lloyd Waner, American baseball player (died 1982)
Lloyd James Waner, nicknamed "Little Poison", was a Major League Baseball (MLB) center fielder. His small stature at 5 ft 9 in (1.75 m) and 132 lb (60 kg) made him one of the smallest players of his era. Along with his brother, Paul Waner, he anchored the Pittsburgh Pirates outfield throughout the 1920s and 1930s. After brief stints with four other teams late in his career, Waner retired as a Pirate.
Henny Youngman, English-American violinist and comedian (died 1998)
Henry "Henny" Youngman was an American comedian and musician famous for his mastery of the "one-liner", his best known being "Take my wife... please".
16/03/1904
Buddy Myer, American baseball player (died 1974)
Charles Solomon "Buddy" Myer was an American professional baseball player. He played in Major League Baseball as a second baseman from 1925 through 1941. A two-time All-Star, Myer was notable for being the 1935 American League batting champion and led the American League in stolen bases in 1928. An excellent hitter, he batted .300 or better nine times, and retired with a career average of .303. Myer walked more than twice as many times as he struck out. Apart from a brief period with the Boston Red Sox in 1927–28, he spent his entire career with the Washington Senators.
16/03/1903
Mike Mansfield, American politician and diplomat, 22nd United States Ambassador to Japan (died 2001)
Michael Joseph Mansfield was an American Democratic Party politician and diplomat who represented Montana in the United States House of Representatives from 1943 to 1953 and United States Senate from 1953 to 1977. As the leader of the Senate Democratic Caucus from 1961 to 1977, Mansfield shepherded Great Society programs through the Senate; his tenure of exactly sixteen years was the longest of any party leader in Senate history, until the record was broken by Mitch McConnell in 2023.
16/03/1901
Alexis Chantraine, Belgian footballer (died 1987)
Joseph Dieudonné Alexis Chantraine was a Belgian footballer.
16/03/1900
Cyril Hume, American novelist and screenwriter (died 1966)
Cyril Hume was an American novelist and screenwriter. Hume was a graduate of Yale University, where he edited campus humor magazine The Yale Record. He was an editor of the collection The Yale Record Book of Verse: 1872–1922 (1922).
Mencha Karnicheva, Macedonian revolutionary and assassin (died 1964)
Melpomena Dimitrova Karnicheva, commonly known as Mencha Karnicheva, was a revolutionary of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO). The wife of IMRO leader Ivan Mihaylov, she is known for assassinating IMRO left-wing activist Todor Panitsa.
16/03/1897
Antonio Donghi, Italian painter (died 1963)
Antonio Donghi was an Italian painter of scenes of popular life, landscapes, and still life.
Conrad Nagel, American actor (died 1970)
John Conrad Nagel was an American film, stage, television and radio actor. He was considered a famous matinée idol and leading man of the 1920s and 1930s. He was given an Honorary Academy Award in 1940, and three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960.
16/03/1895
Ernest Labrousse, French historian (died 1988)
Camille-Ernest Labrousse was a French historian specializing in social and economic history who was born in Barbezieux, Charente and died in Paris.
16/03/1892
César Vallejo, Peruvian poet (died 1938)
César Abraham Vallejo Mendoza was a Peruvian poet, writer, playwright, and journalist. Although he published only two books of poetry during his lifetime, he is considered one of the great poetic innovators of the 20th century in any language. Thomas Merton called him "the greatest universal poet since Dante". The late British poet, critic and biographer Martin Seymour-Smith, a leading authority on world literature, called Vallejo "the greatest twentieth-century poet in any language." He was a member of the intellectual community called North Group formed in the Peruvian north coastal city of Trujillo.
16/03/1889
Reggie Walker, South African athlete (died 1951)
Reginald Edgar Walker was a South African athlete and the 1908 Olympic champion in the 100 metres.
16/03/1887
Emilio Lunghi, Italian runner (died 1925)
Emilio Lunghi was an Italian athlete. He won the silver medal in the men's 800 metres race at the 1908 Summer Olympics in London, making him the first Italian to win an Olympic medal.
S. Stillman Berry, American marine zoologist (1984)
Samuel Stillman Berry was an American marine zoologist who specialized in cephalopods.
16/03/1886
Herbert Lindström, Swedish tug of war player (died 1951)
Carl Herbert Lindström was a Swedish fisherman who won a gold medal in the tug of war competition at the 1912 Summer Olympics.
16/03/1885
Giacomo Benvenuti, Italian composer and musicologist (died 1943)
Giacomo Benvenuti was an Italian composer and musicologist.
Sydney Chaplin, English actor (died 1965)
Sydney John Chaplin was an English actor. Chaplin was the elder half-brother of actor and filmmaker Charlie Chaplin and in later life, served as his business manager.
16/03/1884
Eric P. Kelly, American journalist and author (died 1960)
Eric Philbrook Kelly was an American journalist, academic and author of children's books. He was a professor of English at Dartmouth College and briefly a lecturer at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. He won the 1929 Newbery Medal recognizing his first published book, The Trumpeter of Krakow, as the preceding year's most distinguished contribution to American children's literature.
J. Alfred Tanner, Finnish singer and songwriter (died 1927)
Johan Alfred Tanner, better known as J. Alfred Tanner, was a Finnish singer and songwriter. He is considered as one of Finland's most important songwriters ever, he wrote the lyrics to over 100 songs and recorded about 70 of them.
16/03/1883
Ethel Anderson, Australian poet, author, and painter (died 1958)
Ethel Campbell Louise Anderson was an early twentieth century Australian poet, essayist, novelist and painter. She considered herself to be mainly a poet, but is now best appreciated for her witty and ironic stories. Anderson has been described as "a high-profile author, artist, art commentator and emissary for modernism".
16/03/1882
James Lightbody, American runner (died 1953)
James Davies Lightbody was an American middle distance runner, winner of six Olympic medals in the early 20th century.
16/03/1881
Fannie Charles Dillon, American composer (died 1947)
Fannie Charles Dillon was an American pianist, music educator and composer.
16/03/1878
Clemens August Graf von Galen, German cardinal (died 1946)
Clemens Augustinus Emmanuel Joseph Pius Anthonius Hubertus Marie Graf von Galen, better known as Clemens August Graf von Galen, was a German count, Bishop of Münster, and cardinal of the Catholic Church. During World War II, Galen led Catholic protests against Nazi euthanasia and denounced Gestapo lawlessness and the persecution of the Church in Nazi Germany. He was appointed a cardinal by Pope Pius XII in 1946, shortly before his death, and was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI in 2005.
Paul Jouve, French painter (died 1973)
Pierre-Paul Jouve was a French painter, sculptor and illustrator. He was notable for his paintings and sculptures of Africa's animals. He was first recipient of the Prix Abd-el-Tif in 1907, and later of the Prix d'Indochine in 1921.
16/03/1877
Léo-Ernest Ouimet, Canadian director and producer (died 1972)
Léo-Ernest Ouimet was a Canadian film pioneer. He was a theater operator, filmmaker, producer, and distributor.
16/03/1874
Frédéric François-Marsal, French prime minister (died 1958)
Frédéric François-Marsal was a French politician of the Third Republic, who served briefly as Prime Minister in 1924. Due to his premiership he also served for two days as the Acting President of the French Republic between the resignation of Alexandre Millerand and the election of Gaston Doumergue.
16/03/1871
Hans Merensky, South African geologist and philanthropist (died 1951)
Hans Merensky was a South African geologist, prospector, scientist, conservationist and philanthropist.
Frantz Reichel, French rugby player and hurdler (died 1932)
François Étienne "Frantz" Reichel was a French sports administrator, athlete, cyclist and journalist. He competed at the 1896 Summer Olympics in Athens as a runner and at the 1900 Summer Olympics in Paris as a rugby union player. He co-founded the International Sports Press Association (AIPS), and served as its first president in 1924–1932.
16/03/1869
Willy Burmester, German violinist (died 1933)
Carl Adolph Wilhelm “Willy” Burmester was a German violinist.
16/03/1865
Patsy Donovan, Irish-American baseball player and manager (died 1953)
Patrick Joseph Donovan was an Irish born right fielder and manager in Major League Baseball who played for several teams from 1890 to 1907, most notably the Pittsburgh Pirates. Donovan started his career with Boston in 1890 but shuffled over to Brooklyn before the season ended, which saw him win the National League pennant. He played for Louisville and Washington of the American Association for a season each before he found himself with the Pirates in 1892, where he would play for the next seven years. In his first full season with the team, he had his first .300 season as a National League player, batting .317 with 46 stolen bases and 158 hits in 113 games. He batted .300 in each of the next five seasons with Pittsburgh before his tenure ended in 1899. He joined St. Louis in 1900 and played the next four seasons for the team, which saw him bat .300 three straight times and lead the NL in stolen bases with 45 in 1900. He played a season in Washington before sitting out 1905; he played eight combined games in 1906 and 1907 with Brooklyn to end his career.
16/03/1859
Alexander Stepanovich Popov, Russian physicist and inventor (died 1906)
Alexander Stepanovich Popov was a Russian physicist who was one of the first people to invent a radio receiving device.
16/03/1857
Charles Harding Firth, English historian (died 1936)
Sir Charles Harding Firth was a British historian. He was one of the founders of the Historical Association in 1906. Esmond de Beer wrote that Firth "knew the men and women of the seventeenth century much as a man knows his friends and acquaintances, not only as characters but also in the whole moral and intellectual world in which they lived."
16/03/1856
Napoléon, Prince Imperial of France (died 1879)
Louis-Napoléon, Prince Imperial, also known as Louis-Napoléon, was the only child of Napoleon III, Emperor of the French, and Empress Eugénie. After his father was dethroned in 1870, he moved to England with his family. On his father's death in January 1873, he was proclaimed by the Bonapartist faction as Napoléon IV.
16/03/1851
Otto Bardenhewer, German theologian (died 1935)
Bertram Otto Bardenhewer was a German Catholic patrologist. His Geschichte der altkirchlichen Literatur is a standard work, re-issued in 2008. For Bardenhewer, a patrologist was not a literary historian of the Church Fathers, but a historian of dogmatic definitions.
Martinus Beijerinck, Dutch microbiologist and botanist (died 1931)
Martinus Willem Beijerinck was a Dutch microbiologist and botanist who was one of the founders of virology and environmental microbiology. He is credited with the co-discovery of viruses (1898), which he called "contagium vivum fluidum".
16/03/1848
Axel Heiberg, Norwegian financier and diplomat (died 1932)
Axel Heiberg was a Norwegian diplomat and financier as well as a patron of the arts and sciences.
16/03/1846
Gösta Mittag-Leffler, Swedish mathematician and academic (died 1927)
Magnus Gustaf "Gösta" Mittag-Leffler was a Swedish mathematician. His mathematical contributions are connected chiefly with the theory of functions that today is called complex analysis. He founded the prestigious mathematical periodical Acta Mathematica and was its editor for 40 years.
Rebecca Cole, American physician and social reformer (died 1922)
Rebecca J. Cole was an American physician, organization founder and social reformer. In 1867, she became the second African-American woman to become a doctor in the United States, after Rebecca Lee Crumpler three years earlier. Throughout her life she faced racial and gender-based barriers to her medical education, training in all-female institutions which were run by the first generation of graduating female physicians.
Jurgis Bielinis, Lithuanian book smuggler (died 1918)
Jurgis Bielinis was one of the main organizers of the illegal book-smuggling at the time of the Lithuanian press ban (1864–1904). Bielinis is informally referred to as the King of Book Smugglers. Since 1989, Bielinis's birthday is commemorated as the Day of Book Smugglers.
16/03/1845
Umegatani Tōtarō I, Japanese sumo wrestler, the 15th Yokozuna (died 1928)
Umegatani Tōtarō I was a Japanese professional sumo wrestler from the town of Haki, Chikuzen Province, now Shiwa, Fukuoka Prefecture. He was the sport's 15th yokozuna. He was generally regarded as the strongest wrestler to emerge since the era of Tanikaze and Raiden.
16/03/1840
Shibusawa Eiichi, Japanese industrialist (died 1931)
Shibusawa Eiichi, 1st Viscount Shibusawa was a Japanese business magnate widely known today as the "Father of Japanese capitalism", having introduced Western capitalism to Japan after the Meiji Restoration. He introduced many economic reforms including use of double-entry accounting, joint-stock corporations and modern note-issuing banks.
Georg von der Gabelentz, German linguist and sinologist (died 1893)
Georg von der Gabelentz was a German general linguist and sinologist. His Chinesische Grammatik (1881), according to a critic, "remains until today recognized as probably the finest overall grammatical survey of the Classical Chinese language to date."
16/03/1839
Sully Prudhomme, French poet and critic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1907)
René François Armand "Sully" Prudhomme was a French poet and essayist. He was the first winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, in 1901.
John Butler Yeats, Irish painter (died 1922)
John Butler Yeats RHA was an Irish artist and the father of W. B. Yeats, Lily Yeats, Elizabeth Corbett "Lollie" Yeats and Jack Butler Yeats. The National Gallery of Ireland holds a number of his portraits in oil and works on paper, including one of his portraits of his son William, painted in 1900.
16/03/1836
Andrew Smith Hallidie, English-American engineer and inventor (died 1900)
Andrew Smith Hallidie was an American entrepreneur who was the promoter of the Clay Street Hill Railroad in San Francisco. This was the world's first practical cable car system, and Hallidie is often therefore regarded as the inventor of the cable car and father of the present day San Francisco cable car system, although both claims are open to dispute. He also introduced the manufacture of wire rope to California, and at an early age was a prolific builder of bridges in the Californian interior.
16/03/1834
James Hector, Scottish geologist and surgeon (died 1907)
Sir James Hector was a Scottish-New Zealand geologist, naturalist, and surgeon who accompanied the Palliser Expedition as a surgeon and geologist. He went on to have a lengthy career as a government employed man of science in New Zealand, and during this period he dominated the colony's scientific institutions in a way that no single person has since.
16/03/1828
Émile Deshayes de Marcère, French politician (died 1918)
Émile-Louis-Gustave Deshayes de Marcère was a French politician.
16/03/1825
Camilo Castelo Branco, Portuguese writer (died 1890)
Camilo Castelo Branco, 1st Viscount of Correia Botelho, was a prolific Portuguese writer of the 19th century, having produced over 260 books. His writing is considered original in that it combines the dramatic and sentimental spirit of Romanticism with a highly personal combination of sarcasm, bitterness and dark humour. He is also celebrated for his peculiar wit and anecdotal character, as well as for his turbulent life.
16/03/1823
William Henry Monk, English organist and composer (died 1889)
William Henry Monk was an English organist, Anglican church musician, and music editor who composed popular hymn tunes, including "Eventide", used for the hymn "Abide with Me", and "All Things Bright and Beautiful". He also wrote music for church services and anthems.
16/03/1822
Rosa Bonheur, French painter and sculptor (died 1899)
Rosa Bonheur was a French artist known best as a painter of animals (animalière). She also made sculptures in a realist style. Her paintings include Ploughing in the Nivernais, first exhibited at the Salon of 1849, and now in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, and The Horse Fair, which was exhibited at the Salon of 1853 and is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Bonheur was widely considered to be the most famous female painter of the nineteenth century.
John Pope, American general (died 1892)
John Pope was a career United States Army officer and Union general in the American Civil War. He had a brief successful stint in the Western Theater, but he is best known for his defeat at the Second Battle of Bull Run in the East.
16/03/1821
Eduard Heine, German mathematician and academic (died 1881)
Heinrich Eduard Heine was a German mathematician.
16/03/1820
Enrico Tamberlik, Italian tenor (died 1889)
Enrico Tamberlik was an Italian dramatic tenor who sang to great acclaim at Europe and America's leading opera venues. He excelled in the heroic roles of the Italian and French repertories and was renowned for his powerful declamation and clarion high notes.
16/03/1819
José Paranhos, Brazilian politician (died 1880)
José Maria da Silva Paranhos, Viscount of Rio Branco, was a Brazilian politician, monarchist, diplomat, teacher and journalist. Rio Branco was born in Salvador, in what was then the Captaincy of Bahia, to a wealthy family, but most of the fortune was lost after his parents' deaths early in his childhood. In 1871, Rio Branco became the president of the Council of Ministers. He would be the Council's longest-serving president, and his cabinet the second longest, in Brazilian history. His government was marked by economic prosperity and several reforms. The most important of these initiatives was the Law of Free Birth, which granted freeborn status to children born to slave women. Rio Branco led the government that enacted this law, and its passage increased his popularity. His government was plagued by a long crisis with the Catholic Church that resulted from the expulsion of Freemasons from its lay brotherhoods. After more than four years heading the Cabinet, Rio Branco resigned in 1875. Following a long vacation in Europe, his health swiftly declined and he was diagnosed with oral cancer. Rio Branco died in 1880 and was widely mourned throughout the country. He is regarded by most historians as one of Brazil's greatest statesmen.
16/03/1813
Gaëtan de Rochebouët, French prime minister (died 1899)
Gaëtan de Grimaudet, comte de Rochebouët was a French general who served as Prime Minister for less than a month in late 1877.
16/03/1808
Hannah T. King, British-born American writer and pioneer (died 1886)
Hannah Dorcas Tapfield King was a 19th-century British-born American writer and pioneer. After converting to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in England in 1850, her family emigrated to Utah in 1853 where she became endeared to the people of that state. She was the author of Songs of the Heart, several poems, and writings addressed to young readers. She was the last of 56 women sealed to Brigham Young.
16/03/1806
Félix De Vigne, Belgian painter (died 1862)
Félix De Vigne was a Belgian painter. He was a history painter, engraver, art historian, and instructor at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent, Belgium, the city of his birth. In 1847, he published Recherches historiques sur les costumes civils et militaires, an illustrated compendium of the flags, shields and costumes of medieval guilds and military groups.
16/03/1805
Ernst von Lasaulx, German philologist and politician (died 1861)
Peter Ernst von Lasaulx, known as Ernst von Lasaulx was a German philologist and politician.
16/03/1800
Emperor Ninkō of Japan (died 1846)
Emperor Ninkō was the 120th emperor of Japan according to the traditional order of succession. Ninkō's reign spanned the years from 1817 until his death in 1846, and saw further deterioration of the power of the ruling shōgun. Disasters, which included famine, combined with corruption and increasing Western interference, helped to erode public trust in the bakufu government. Emperor Ninkō revived certain court rituals and practices upon the wishes of his father. However, it is unknown what role, if any, the Emperor had in the turmoil which occurred during his reign.
16/03/1799
Anna Atkins, English botanist and photographer (died 1871)
Anna Atkins was an English botanist and photographer. She is often considered the first person to publish a book illustrated with photographic images. Some sources say that she was the first woman to create a photograph.
16/03/1797
Alaric Alexander Watts, English poet and journalist (died 1864)
Alaric Alexander Watts was a British poet and journalist, born in London. His life was dedicated to newspaper creation and editing, and he was seen as a conservative writer. His newspaper ventures failed and led him to bankruptcy, until he received a pension from his friend, Lord Aberdeen.
16/03/1794
Ami Boué, Austrian geologist and ethnographer (died 1881)
Ami Boué was a geologist of French Huguenot origin. Born at Hamburg, he was trained in Edinburgh and across Europe. Based on fossil and the strata in which he observed them, he suggested that there were continuous change in the animal forms that existed over time and opposed the theories of catastrophism of the period. He travelled across Europe, studying geology, as well as ethnology, and is considered to be among the first to produce a geological map of the world.
16/03/1789
Francis Rawdon Chesney, English general and explorer (died 1872)
Francis Rawdon Chesney was a British general and explorer.
Georg Ohm, German physicist and mathematician (died 1854)
Georg Simon Ohm was a German mathematician and physicist. As a school teacher, Ohm began his research with the new electrochemical cell, invented by Italian scientist Alessandro Volta. Using equipment of his own creation, Ohm found that there is a direct proportionality between the potential difference (voltage) applied across a conductor and the resultant electric current; this relation is known as Ohm's law.
16/03/1776
Johan Gijsbert Verstolk van Soelen, Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs (died 1845)
Johan Gijsbert Verstolk van Soelen was a Dutch politician. Between 1825 and 1841 he served as Minister of Foreign Affairs.
16/03/1774
Matthew Flinders, English navigator and cartographer (died 1814)
Captain Matthew Flinders was an English Royal Navy officer, navigator and cartographer who led the first inshore circumnavigation of mainland Australia, then called New Holland. He is also credited as being the first person to utilise the name Australia to describe the entirety of that continent including Van Diemen's Land, a title he regarded as being "more agreeable to the ear" than previous names such as Terra Australis.
16/03/1773
Juan Ramón Balcarce, Argentinian general and politician, 6th Governor of Buenos Aires Province (died 1836)
Juan Ramón González de Balcarce was an Argentine military leader and politician.
16/03/1771
Antoine-Jean Gros, French painter (died 1835)
Antoine-Jean Gros was a French painter of historical subjects. He was granted the title of Baron Gros in 1824.
16/03/1766
Jean-Frédéric Waldeck, French antiquarian, cartographer, artist and explorer (died 1875)
Jean-Frédéric Maximilien de Waldeck was a French antiquarian, cartographer, artist and explorer. He was a man of talent and accomplishment, but his love of self-promotion and refusal to let the truth get in the way of a good story leave some aspects of his life in mystery.
16/03/1760
Johann Heinrich Meyer, Swiss painter and writer (died 1832)
Johann Heinrich Meyer was a Swiss painter, engraver and art critic. He served as the second Director of the Weimar Princely Free Drawing School. A close associate of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, he was often referred to as "Goethemeyer".
16/03/1753
François Amédée Doppet, French general (died 1799)
François Amédée Doppet was a Savoyard who briefly commanded three French armies during the French Revolutionary Wars without distinction. During the 1770s he enlisted in the French cavalry. Quitting the army after three years, he became a physician after studying medicine at Turin. Later moving to Paris, he became a writer of poems, romances and medical works while also dabbling in aphrodisiacs and mesmerism.
16/03/1751
James Madison, American academic and politician, 4th President of the United States (died 1836)
James Madison was an American statesman, diplomat, and Founding Father who served as the fourth president of the United States from 1809 to 1817. Madison was popularly acclaimed as the "Father of the Constitution" for his pivotal role in drafting and promoting the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights.
16/03/1750
Caroline Herschel, German-English astronomer (died 1848)
Caroline Lucretia Herschel was a German astronomer, whose most significant contributions to astronomy were the discoveries of several comets, including the periodic comet 35P/Herschel–Rigollet, which bears her name. She was the younger sister of astronomer William Herschel, with whom she worked for most of her career.
16/03/1744
Nicolas-Germain Léonard, Guadeloupean poet and novelist (died 1793)
Nicolas-Germain Léonard was a poet and one of Guadeloupe's first writers.
16/03/1741
Carlo Amoretti, Italian scientist (died 1816)
Carlo Amoretti was an ecclesiastic, scholar, writer, and scientist. He entered the Augustinian order in 1757. To further his studies, he went to Pavia and Parma where he also taught ecclesiastical law and he perfected his knowledge of ancient languages and modern ones.
16/03/1729
Maria Louise Albertine (died 1818)
Countess Maria Louise Albertine of Leiningen-Dagsburg-Falkenburg ; also known as Princess George, was heiress to the barony of Broich and by marriage Princess of Hesse-Darmstadt. She was the grandmother and educator of Princess Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, who later became Queen consort of Prussia.
16/03/1701
Daniel Lorenz Salthenius, Swedish theologian (died 1750)
Daniel Lorenz Salthenius was a professor of theology at the University of Königsberg from 1732 until his death.
16/03/1693
Malhar Rao Holkar, Indian nobleman (died 1766)
Malhar Rao Holkar was a noble subedar of the Maratha Empire and the first Ruler of Indore from 1732 until his death in 1766. He was one of the early officers along with Ranoji Scindia, appointed by shrimant Peshwa Bajirao prime minister of maratha empire Bajirao I to help spread the Maratha rule to northern states and was given the estate of Indore to rule. He was founder of the Holkar dynasty that ruled Malwa.
16/03/1687
Sophia Dorothea of Hanover, queen consort of Frederick William I (died 1757)
Sophia Dorothea of Hanover was Queen in Prussia and Electress of Brandenburg during the reign of her husband, King Frederick William I, from 1713 to 1740. She was the mother of Frederick the Great.
16/03/1673
Jean Bouhier, French jurist and scholar (died 1746)
Jean Bouhier was a French magistrate, jurisconsultus, historian, translator, bibliophile and scholar. He served as the first président à mortier to the parlement de Bourgogne from 1704 to 1728, when he resigned to devote himself to his historic and literary work following his 1727 election to the Académie française.
16/03/1670
François de Franquetot de Coigny, French general (died 1759)
François de Franquetot de Coigny was a Marshal of France, Count, and from 1747, the Duke of Coigny.
16/03/1654
Andreas Acoluthus, German scholar (died 1704)
Andreas Acoluthus was a German scholar of orientalism and professor of theology at Breslau (Wrocław). A native of Bernstadt (Bierutów), Lower Silesia, he was the son of Johannes Acoluthus, pastor of St. Elisabeth and superintendent of the churches and schools of Breslau.
16/03/1638
François Crépieul, Jesuit missionary (died 1702)
François Crépieul was a Jesuit missionary in Canada and vicar apostolic for the Montagnais Indians.
16/03/1631
René Le Bossu, French literary critic (died 1680)
René Le Bossu or le Bossu was a French literary critic.
16/03/1621
Georg Neumark, German poet and composer of hymns (died 1681)
Georg Neumark was a German poet and composer of hymns.
16/03/1609
Michael Franck, German poet and composer of hymns (died 1667)
Michael Franck was a German poet, composer and Protestant hymnwriter. He was born in Schleusingen, and died in Coburg.
Agostino Mitelli, Italian painter (died 1660)
Agostino Mitelli was an Italian painter of the Baroque period and best known as a fresco painter of quadratura or illusionistic perspectival architectural frameworks.
16/03/1596
Ebba Brahe, Swedish countess (died 1674)
Ebba Magnusdotter Brahe was a Swedish countess, landowner, and courtier. She is foremost known for being the love object of King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, who wished to marry her prior to his own marriage, a plan which was however never realized. Their love affair, the subject of fiction, has become famous in Swedish romantic history and is documented in their preserved correspondence.
16/03/1590
Ii Naotaka, Japanese daimyō (died 1659)
Ii Naotaka was a Japanese daimyō of the early Edo period who served under the Tokugawa shogunate. He was the son of the famous Tokugawa general Ii Naomasa. His childhood name was Bennosuke (弁之介).
16/03/1585
Gerbrand Bredero, Dutch poet and playwright (died 1618)
Gerbrand Adriaenszoon Bredero was a Dutch poet and playwright in the period known as the Dutch Golden Age.
16/03/1581
Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft, Dutch historian and poet (died 1647)
Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft - Knight in the Order of Saint Michael - was a Dutch historian, poet and playwright who lived during the Dutch Golden Age in literature.
16/03/1559
Amar Singh I, successor of Maharana Pratap of Mewar (died 1620)
Maharana Amar Singh I the Sisodia-Rajput ruler of the Mewar Kingdom, was the eldest son and successor of Maharana Pratap I. He was the 14th Rana of Mewar, ruling from 19 January 1597 until his death on 26 January 1620.
16/03/1473
Henry IV, Duke of Saxony (died 1541)
Henry IV the Pious, Duke of Saxony was a Duke of Saxony from the House of Wettin. Succeeding his brother George, Duke of Saxony, a fervent Catholic who sought to extinguish Lutheranism by any means possible, Henry established the Lutheran church as the state religion in his domains.
16/03/1465
Kunigunde of Austria, Duchess of Bavaria (died 1520)
Kunigunde of Austria, a member of the House of Habsburg, was Duchess of Bavaria from 1487 to 1508 by her marriage to the Wittelsbach duke Albert IV.
16/03/1445
Johann Geiler von Kaysersberg, Swiss priest and theologian (died 1510)
Johann Geiler von Kaysersberg was a priest, considered one of the greatest of the popular preachers of the 15th century. He was closely connected with the Renaissance humanists of Strasbourg, whose leader was the well-known Jakob Wimpfeling (1450–1528), called "the educator of Germany". Like Wimpfeling, Geiler was a secular priest; both fought the ecclesiastical abuses of the age, but not in the spirit of Martin Luther and his adherents. They looked, instead, for salvation and preservation only in the restoration of Christian morals in Church and State through the faithful maintenance of the doctrines of the Church. However the moral reforms of Johann Geiler laid the groundwork for the Protestant reformation in Strasbourg.
16/03/1399
The Xuande Emperor, ruler of Ming China (died 1435)
The Xuande Emperor, personal name Zhu Zhanji, was the fifth emperor of the Ming dynasty, reigning from 1425 to 1435. He succeeded his father, the Hongxi Emperor.
Lives Remembered on 16th March
On 16th March, 118 remarkable people passed away — from 37 to 2025. Remember the lives and legacies of those we lost on this day.
16/03/2025
Émilie Dequenne, Belgian actress (born 1981)
Émilie Dequenne was a Belgian actress. She first gained recognition for her role in the Dardenne brothers' film Rosetta (1999), which earned her the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress. The film also won the Palme d'Or at the festival.
Jesse Colin Young, American singer and songwriter (born 1941)
Perry Miller, known professionally as Jesse Colin Young, was an American singer and songwriter. He was a founding member and lead singer of the 1960s group the Youngbloods. After their dissolution in 1972, Young embarked on a solo career, releasing a series of albums through Warner Bros. Records, including Song for Juli (1973), Light Shine (1974), Songbird (1975), and the live album On the Road (1976). Young continued to release music in the 1980s with Elektra Records and Cypress Records, before deciding to release music through his personal label, Ridgetop Music, in 1993. After the Mount Vision Fire in 1995, Young relocated with his family to a coffee plantation in Hawaii, periodically releasing music. Young was diagnosed with chronic Lyme disease in 2012, and decided to retire from music. He began performing again in 2016 with his son Tristan, releasing a new album Dreamers in 2019 through BMG.
16/03/2019
Dick Dale, American surf-rock guitarist, singer, and songwriter (born 1937)
Richard Anthony Monsour, known professionally as Dick Dale, was an American rock guitarist. He was a pioneer of surf music, drawing on Middle Eastern music scales and experimenting with reverb. Dale was known as "The King of the Surf Guitar," which was also the title of his second studio album.
16/03/2018
Louise Slaughter, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New York (born 1929)
Dorothy Louise Slaughter was an American politician elected to 16 terms as a United States representative from New York, serving from 1987 until her death in 2018.
16/03/2017
Lewis Rowland, American neurologist (born 1925)
Lewis Phillip "Bud" Rowland was an American neurologist. He served as president of the American Neurological Association (1980–81) and the American Academy of Neurology (1989–91). He was editor of the journal Neurology from 1977 to 1987 and of the newspaper Neurology Today from 2000 to 2009. He authored over 500 scientific articles, with a research emphasis on amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and muscular dystrophy. He was chair of the neurology department at Columbia University for 25 years, where he established the H. Houston Merritt Clinical Research Center for Muscular Dystrophy and Related Diseases as well as the Eleanor and Lou Gehrig ALS Center.
16/03/2016
Alexander Esenin-Volpin, Russian-American mathematician and poet (born 1924)
Alexander Sergeyevich Esenin-Volpin was a Russian-American poet and mathematician known for his foundational role in ultrafinitism. Esenin-Volpin was a prominent Soviet dissident and a leader of the Soviet human rights movement during the 1960s.
Frank Sinatra Jr., American singer and actor (born 1944)
Francis Wayne Sinatra, known professionally as Frank Sinatra Jr., was an American jazz and big band singer, songwriter, conductor and actor. He was the second child and only son of singer and actor Frank Sinatra and his first wife, Nancy Barbato Sinatra, the younger brother of singer and actress Nancy Sinatra, and the older brother of television producer Tina Sinatra.
16/03/2015
Jack Haley, American basketball player and sportscaster (born 1964)
Jack Kevin Haley was an American professional basketball player.
Don Robertson, American pianist and composer (born 1922)
Donald Irwin Robertson was an American songwriter and pianist, in country and popular music genres. He was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1972. As a performer, he hit the US Top 10 with "The Happy Whistler" in 1956. The track reached No. 8 in the UK Singles Chart the same year. It sold more than one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc.
16/03/2014
Gary Bettenhausen, American race car driver (born 1941)
Gary Bettenhausen was an American racing car driver. He was the winner the 1967 and 1970 Turkey Night Grand Prix, the 1972 Astro Grand Prix, and the 1976 Hut Hundred.
Donald Crothers, American chemist and academic (born 1937)
Donald Crothers was a professor of chemistry at Yale University in the United States. He was best known for his work on nucleic acid structure and function.
Yulisa Pat Amadu Maddy, Sierra Leonean author, poet, and playwright (born 1936)
Yulisa Amadu Pat Maddy was a Sierra Leonean writer, poet, actor, dancer, director and playwright. Known by his friends and colleagues as Pat Maddy or simply Prof, he had an "immense impact" on theatre in Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Zambia.
Steve Moore, English author and illustrator (born 1949)
Steve Moore was a British comics writer.
Alexander Pochinok, Russian economist and politician (born 1958)
Alexander Petrovich Pochinok was a Russian economist and politician. He was the minister of taxes and levies from 1999 to 2000 and minister of labor and social development from 2000 to 2004.
16/03/2013
Jamal Nazrul Islam, Bangladeshi physicist and cosmologist (born 1939)
Jamal Nazrul Islam FRAS was a Bangladeshi mathematical physicist and cosmologist. He was a professor at University of Chittagong, served as a member of the advisory board at Shahjalal University of Science and Technology and member of the syndicate at Chittagong University of Engineering & Technology until his death. He also served as the director of the Research Center for Mathematical and Physical Sciences (RCMPS) at the University of Chittagong. He was awarded Ekushey Padak in 2000 by the Government of Bangladesh.
José Alfredo Martínez de Hoz, Argentinian economist and politician, Minister of Economy of Argentina (born 1925)
José Alfredo Martínez de Hoz was an Argentine lawyer, businessman, and economist. He was the Minister of Economy of Argentina during the country's last military dictatorship (1976—1983), and shaped the economic policy of the dictatorship until its end.
Yadier Pedroso, Cuban pitcher (born 1986)
Yadier Pedroso González, was a right-handed professional baseball pitcher. He played for the Cuban national baseball team and La Habana of the Cuban National Series. Pedroso was part of the Cuban team at the 2006 and 2013 World Baseball Classics.
Ruchoma Shain, American-born teacher and author (born 1914)
Ruchoma Shain (Hebrew: רוחומה שיין; 6 December 1914 – 16 March 2013) was an American-born rebbetzin, English teacher, and author. She is best known for her first book, All for the Boss (1984), a biography of her father, Yaakov Yosef Herman, which she wrote in her late sixties. In detailing her father's life, she also describes Orthodox Jewish life in America in the early 1900s. All for the Boss became one of the all-time best-sellers for Feldheim Publishers, and Shain's stories and observations are quoted by numerous authors.
Marina Solodkin, Russian-Israeli academic and politician (born 1952)
Marina Solodkin was an Israeli politician and member of the Knesset for Yisrael BaAliyah, Likud and Kadima.
Frank Thornton, English actor (born 1921)
Frank Thornton Ball, professionally known as Frank Thornton, was an English actor. He was best known for playing Captain Peacock in the television sitcom Are You Being Served? and its sequel Grace & Favour and as Herbert "Truly" Truelove in television sitcom Last of the Summer Wine.
16/03/2012
Donald E. Hillman, American colonel and pilot (born 1918)
Donald Edison Hillman was an American World War II flying ace and prisoner of war credited with five enemy aircraft destroyed. He was also the first American pilot, in 1952, to make a deep-penetration overflight of Soviet territory for the purpose of aerial reconnaissance.
Takaaki Yoshimoto, Japanese poet, philosopher, and critic (born 1924)
Takaaki Yoshimoto , also known as Ryūmei Yoshimoto, was a Japanese poet, philosopher, and literary critic. As a philosopher, he is remembered as a founding figure in the emergence of the New Left in Japan, and as a critic, he was at the forefront of a movement to force writers to confront their responsibility as wartime collaborators.
16/03/2011
Richard Wirthlin, American religious leader (born 1931)
Richard Bitner Wirthlin was a prominent American pollster, who is best known as Ronald Reagan's chief strategist, serving as his political consultant and pollster for twenty years, from 1968 through the end of his presidency. He became a senior adviser and member of Reagan's inner circle and is known to have helped him shape his political message and strategies, both in presidential campaigns and in the White House. Wirthlin also was a general authority of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a member of its Second Quorum of the Seventy from 1996 to 2001.
16/03/2010
Ksenija Pajčin, Serbian singer, dancer and model (born 1977)
Ksenija Pajčin was a Serbian singer, dancer and model popular in Serbia and the other former Yugoslav republics. Sometimes referred to as Xenia or Ksenia.
16/03/2008
Bill Brown, Australian cricketer and soldier (born 1912)
William Alfred Brown, was an Australian cricketer who played 22 Test matches between 1934 and 1948, captaining his country in one Test. A right-handed opening batsman, his partnership with Jack Fingleton in the 1930s is regarded as one of the finest in Australian Test history. After the interruption of World War II, Brown was a member of the team dubbed "The Invincibles", who toured England in 1948 without defeat under the leadership of Don Bradman. In a match in November 1947, Brown was the unwitting victim of the first instance of "Mankading".
Ivan Dixon, American actor, director, and producer (born 1931)
Ivan Nathaniel Dixon III was an American actor, director, and producer best known for his series role in the 1960s sitcom Hogan's Heroes, and for his starring roles in the 1964 independent drama Nothing But a Man and the 1967 television film The Final War of Olly Winter. In addition, he directed many episodes of television series.
Gary Hart, American wrestler and manager (born 1942)
Gary Richard Williams was an American professional wrestling manager, as well as a professional wrestler in his early career, best known by his ring name Gary Hart. Hart was one of the pivotal driving forces behind what is considered to be World Class Championship Wrestling's "golden years" in the early 1980s.
16/03/2007
Manjural Islam Rana, Bangladeshi cricketer (born 1984)
Manjural Islam Rana, also known as Qazi Manjural Islam, was a Bangladeshi cricketer who played six Tests and 25 One Day Internationals for Bangladesh. Born in Khulna, he was a slow left-arm orthodox spin bowler. He played for Khulna Division at domestic level and made his One Day International (ODI) debut in November 2003 against England. Three months later, Rana played his first Test against Zimbabwe. On 16 March 2007, he died of severe head injuries sustained in a road accident in Khulna at the age of 22.
16/03/2005
Todd Bell, American football player (born 1958)
Todd Anthony Bell was an American professional football player who was a safety for the Chicago Bears of the National Football League (NFL) during the early 1980s. He played college football for the Ohio State Buckeyes.
Ralph Erskine, English architect, designed The London Ark (born 1914)
Ralph Erskine ARIBA was a British architect and planner who lived and worked in Sweden for most of his life.
Dick Radatz, American baseball player (born 1937)
Richard Raymond Radatz was an American relief pitcher in Major League Baseball. Nicknamed "The Monster", the 6 ft 6 in (1.98 m), 230 lb (100 kg) right-hander had a scorching but short-lived period of dominance for the Boston Red Sox in the early 1960s. Radatz is reported to have gotten his nickname during a game against the New York Yankees in Boston in 1963 in which he came in to pitch with the bases loaded and no one out. He consecutively struck out Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, and Elston Howard, after which Mantle grumbled about Radatz being "that monster". Over his career, Radatz struck out Hall of Famer Mantle 44 times in 63 at-bats.
16/03/2004
Vilém Tauský, Czech conductor and composer (born 1910)
Vilém Tauský CBE was a Czech conductor and composer. From the advent of the Second World War, he lived and worked in the United Kingdom, and was one of a significant group of émigré composers and musicians who settled there.
16/03/2003
Rachel Corrie, American activist (born 1979)
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 Palestinian territories. In 2003, she was in Rafah, a city in the Gaza Strip then under Israeli occupation, where the demolishment of Palestinian houses by Israeli forces was taking place at the height of the Second Intifada. While protesting the demolitions as they were being carried out, she was killed by an Israeli driving an armored bulldozer that crushed her.
Ronald Ferguson, English captain, polo player, and manager (born 1931)
Major Ronald Ivor Ferguson was a British Army officer and polo manager, initially to the Duke of Edinburgh and later, for many years, to the then Charles, Prince of Wales. His daughter, Sarah Ferguson, is the former wife of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly Prince Andrew, Duke of York. He was the maternal grandfather of Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie.
16/03/2001
Bob Wollek, French race car driver (born 1943)
Robert Jean "Bob" Wollek, nicknamed "Brilliant Bob", was a race car driver from Strasbourg, France. He won a total of 76 races in his career, 71 in Porsche cars, including four editions of the 24 Hours of Daytona and one edition of the 12 Hours of Sebring. He died in a road accident in Florida while riding a bicycle back to his accommodation after the day's practice sessions for the following day's race, the 12 Hours of Sebring.
16/03/2000
Thomas Ferebee, American colonel and pilot (born 1918)
Thomas Wilson Ferebee was the bombardier aboard the B-29 Superfortress, Enola Gay, which dropped the atomic bomb "Little Boy" on Hiroshima in 1945.
Pavel Prudnikau, Belarusian poet and author (born 1911)
Pavel Ivanovich Prudnikau was a Belarusian writer. He was a cousin of another Belarusian writer, Ales Prudnikau.
Michael Starr, Canadian judge and politician, 16th Canadian Minister of Labour (born 1910)
Michael Starr, was a Canadian politician and the first Canadian cabinet minister of Ukrainian descent, his parents having emigrated from Halychyna (Galicia), then a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and is now Western Ukraine.
Carlos Velázquez, Puerto Rican pitcher (born 1948)
Carlos Quiñones Velázquez [″Carlín″] was a relief pitcher in Major League Baseball. Listed at 5' 11", 180 lb., he batted and threw right handed.
16/03/1999
Gratien Gélinas, Canadian actor, director, and playwright (born 1909)
Gratien Gélinas, was a Canadian writer, playwright, actor, director, producer and administrator who is considered one of the founders of modern Canadian theatre and film.
16/03/1998
Derek Barton, English-American chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1918)
Sir Derek Harold Richard Barton was an English organic chemist and Nobel Prize laureate for 1969.
Esther Bubley, American photographer (born 1921)
Esther Bubley was an American photographer who specialized in expressive photos of ordinary people in everyday lives. She worked for several agencies of the American government and her work also featured in several news and photographic magazines.
16/03/1994
Eric Show, American baseball player (born 1956)
Eric Vaughn Show was an American professional baseball player who was a pitcher in Major League Baseball (MLB). He spent most of his career with the San Diego Padres and holds the team record for most career wins (100). Show was a member of the first Padres team to play in the World Series in 1984. On September 11, 1985, he surrendered Pete Rose's record-breaking 4,192nd career hit.
16/03/1992
Yves Rocard, French physicist and engineer (born 1903)
Yves-André Rocard was a French physicist who helped develop the atomic bomb for France.
16/03/1991
Chris Austin, American country singer (born 1964)
Christopher Clay Austin was an American country music singer. Austin was signed to Warner Bros. Records in 1988 and charted three singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart. His highest-charting single, "Blues Stay Away from Me," was included on the 1989 compilation album New Tradition Sings the Old Tradition. Austin also co-wrote Ricky Skaggs' 1991 single "Same Ol' Love."
Jean Bellette, Australian artist (born 1908)
Jean Bellette was an Australian artist. Born in Tasmania, she was educated in Hobart and at Julian Ashton's art school in Sydney, where one of her teachers was Thea Proctor. In London she studied under painters Bernard Meninsky and Mark Gertler.
16/03/1990
Ernst Bacon, American pianist, composer, and conductor (born 1898)
Ernst Lecher Bacon was an American composer, pianist, and conductor. A prolific composer, Bacon wrote over 250 songs over his career. He was awarded three Guggenheim Fellowships and a Pulitzer Scholarship in 1932 for his Second Symphony.
16/03/1988
Jigger Statz, American baseball player (born 1897)
Arnold John "Jigger" Statz was an American professional baseball outfielder, manager and scout. He threw and batted right-handed and was listed as 5 feet 7 inches (1.70 m) tall and 150 pounds (68 kg).
Mickey Thompson, American race car driver (born 1928)
Marion Lee "Mickey" Thompson was an American auto racing builder and promoter.
16/03/1985
Roger Sessions, American composer, critic, and educator (born 1896)
Roger Huntington Sessions was an American composer, teacher, and writer on music. He had started his career writing in a neoclassical style, but gradually moved towards complex harmonies and postromanticism, and finally the twelve-tone serialism of the Second Viennese School. Sessions's friendship with Arnold Schoenberg influenced him, but he modified his technique to a unique style involving rows to supply melodic themes, while composing subsidiary parts freely.
Eddie Shore, Canadian-American ice hockey player (born 1902)
Edward William Shore was a Canadian professional ice hockey defenceman, principally for the Boston Bruins of the National Hockey League, and the longtime owner of the Springfield Indians of the American Hockey League. Iconic for his aggressiveness, toughness and defensive skill, he was called both "Old Blood and Guts" and "the Edmonton Express". In 2017, Shore was named one of the '100 Greatest NHL Players' in history.
16/03/1983
Arthur Godfrey, American actor and television host (born 1903)
Arthur Morton Godfrey was an American radio and television broadcaster and entertainer. At the peak of his success, in the early to mid-1950s, Godfrey was heard on radio and seen on television up to six days a week, at times for as many as nine separate broadcasts for CBS. His programs included Arthur Godfrey Time, Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts, Arthur Godfrey and His Friends, The Arthur Godfrey Digest and King Arthur Godfrey and His Round Table.
Fred Rose, Polish-Canadian politician (born 1907)
Fred Rose was a Polish-Canadian politician and trade union organizer, best known for being the only member of the Canadian Parliament to ever be convicted of a charge related to spying for a foreign country. A member of the Communist Party of Canada and Labor-Progressive Party, he served as the MP for Cartier from 1943 to 1947. He was expelled from his seat after being found guilty of conspiring to steal weapons research for the Soviet Union.
16/03/1979
Jean Monnet, French economist and politician (born 1888)
Jean Omer Marie Gabriel Monnet was a French civil servant, entrepreneur, diplomat, financier, and administrator. An influential supporter of European unity, he is considered one of the founding fathers of the European Union.
16/03/1977
Kamal Jumblatt, Lebanese lawyer and politician (born 1917)
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 as the executive leader of the Lebanese National Movement (LNM) during the early phase of the Lebanese Civil War. A staunch pan-Arabist and supporter of the Palestinian national movement, he was a key ally of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) until his assassination in 1977.
16/03/1975
T-Bone Walker, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (born 1910)
Aaron Thibeaux "T-Bone" Walker was an American blues musician, composer, songwriter and bandleader, who was a pioneer and innovator of the jump blues, West Coast blues, and electric blues sounds. In 2018 Rolling Stone magazine ranked him number 67 on its list of "The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".
16/03/1972
Pie Traynor, American baseball player (born 1898)
Harold Joseph "Pie" Traynor was an American third baseman, manager, scout and radio broadcaster in Major League Baseball (MLB) who played his entire career between 1920 and 1937 for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Traynor had a .320 career batting average, batting over .300 ten times with seven seasons with over 100 runs batted in (RBI). With home runs limited by playing in Forbes Field, the most difficult park for power hitting in the National League (NL), he compensated by reaching double digits in triples eleven times, leading the league in 1923. He batted .346 in the 1925 World Series to help the Pirates take their first championship in 16 years.
16/03/1971
Bebe Daniels, American actress (born 1901)
Phyllis Virginia "Bebe" Daniels was an American actress, singer, dancer, writer, and producer.
Thomas E. Dewey, American lawyer and politician, 47th Governor of New York (born 1902)
Thomas Edmund Dewey was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 47th governor of New York from 1943 to 1954. He was the Republican Party's nominee for president of the United States in 1944 and 1948, losing the former election to Franklin D. Roosevelt and the latter election to Harry S. Truman in a major upset.
16/03/1970
Tammi Terrell, American singer (born 1945)
Thomasina Winifred Montgomery, professionally known as Tammi Terrell, was an American singer-songwriter, widely known as a star singer for Motown Records during the 1960s, notably for a series of duets with singer Marvin Gaye.
16/03/1968
Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Italian-American pianist and composer (born 1895)
Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco was an Italian composer, pianist and writer. He was known as one of the foremost guitar composers in the twentieth century with almost one hundred compositions for that instrument. In 1939 he emigrated to the United States and became a film composer for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for some 200 Hollywood movies for the next fifteen years. He also wrote concertos for Jascha Heifetz and Gregor Piatigorsky.
Gunnar Ekelöf, Swedish poet and translator (born 1907)
Bengt Gunnar Ekelöf was a Swedish poet and writer. He was a member of the Swedish Academy from 1958 and was awarded an honorary doctorate in philosophy by Uppsala University in 1958. He won a number of prizes for his poetry.
16/03/1967
Thomas MacGreevy, Irish poet (born 1893)
Thomas MacGreevy was a pivotal figure in the history of Irish literary modernism. A poet, he was also director of the National Gallery of Ireland from 1950 to 1963 and served on the first Irish Arts Council.
16/03/1965
Alice Herz, German activist (born 1882)
Alice Jeanette Herz was a German feminist, anti-fascist and peace activist. She was the first person in the United States known to have immolated herself in protest of the escalating Vietnam War, following the example of Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức who immolated himself in protest of the oppression of Buddhists under the South Vietnamese government of Catholic President Ngo Dinh Diem.
16/03/1963
Laura Adams Armer, American author and photographer (born 1874)
Laura Adams Armer was an American artist and writer. In 1932, her novel Waterless Mountain won the Newbery Medal. She was also an early photographer in the San Francisco Bay Area.
16/03/1961
Chen Geng, Chinese general and politician (born 1903)
Chen Geng was a Chinese military officer who served as a senior general in the People's Liberation Army. Enlisting in a warlord's army at the age of 13, Chen Geng joined the Chinese Communist Party in 1922 and was accepted into Whampoa Military Academy in 1924. He approached Chiang Kai-shek and even saved his life by preventing him from committing suicide. He served as a Communist spy in the National Revolutionary Army for 6 years. After being discovered, he joined the Communist base in Jiangxi and participated in the Long March. He fought the Imperial Japanese Army during the Second Sino-Japanese War and then the Nationalists during the Chinese Civil War. Once victory was obtained, he went to Vietnam to help Hồ Chí Minh against the French during the First Indochina War and then participated in the Korean War with the People's Volunteer Army. He became a Senior General in 1955. He then founded an academy of military technologies but died before finalizing the ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programs.
Václav Talich, Czech violinist and conductor (born 1883)
Václav Talich was a Czech conductor, violinist and later a musical pedagogue. He is remembered today as one of the greatest conductors of the 20th century, the object of countless reissues of his many recordings.
16/03/1958
Leon Cadore, American baseball player (born 1891)
Leon Joseph Cadore was an American right-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball from 1915 to 1924.
16/03/1957
Constantin Brâncuși, Romanian-French sculptor, painter, and photographer (born 1876)
Constantin Brâncuși was a Romanian sculptor, painter and photographer who made his career in France.
16/03/1955
Nicolas de Staël, French-Russian painter and illustrator (born 1914)
Nicolas de Staël was a French painter of Russian origin known for his use of a thick impasto and his highly abstract landscape painting. He also worked with collage, illustration, and textiles.
16/03/1945
Börries von Münchhausen, German poet (born 1874)
Börries Albrecht Conon August Heinrich Freiherr von Münchhausen was a German poet and Nazi activist.
16/03/1940
Selma Lagerlöf, Swedish author and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1858)
Selma Ottilia Lovisa Lagerlöf was a Swedish writer. She published her first novel, Gösta Berling's Saga, at the age of 33. She was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, which she was awarded in 1909. In 1914, she was the first woman to be granted a membership of the Swedish Academy.
16/03/1937
Austen Chamberlain, English politician, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1863)
Sir Joseph Austen Chamberlain was a British statesman, Nobel Peace Prize winner, son of Joseph Chamberlain and older half-brother of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. He served as a Member of Parliament (MP) for 45 years, as Chancellor of the Exchequer (twice) and was briefly Conservative Party leader before serving as Foreign Secretary.
Alexander von Staël-Holstein, Estonian orientalist and sinologist (born 1877)
Alexander Wilhelm Freiherr Staël von Holstein was a Baltic German aristocrat, Russian and Estonian orientalist, sinologist, and Sanskritologist specializing in Buddhist texts.
16/03/1936
Marguerite Durand, French actress, journalist, and activist (born 1864)
Marguerite Durand was a French stage actress, journalist, and a leading suffragette. She founded her own newspaper, and ran for election. She is also known for having a pet lion. The Bibliothèque Marguerite Durand was named in her honour for her contributions to the women's suffrage movement in France.
16/03/1935
John Macleod, Scottish physician and physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1876)
John James Rickard Macleod, was a Scottish biochemist and physiologist. He devoted his career to diverse topics in physiology and biochemistry, but was chiefly interested in carbohydrate metabolism. He is noted for his role in the discovery and isolation of insulin during his tenure as a lecturer at the University of Toronto, for which he and Frederick Banting received the 1923 Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine. Awarding the prize to Macleod was controversial at the time, because according to Banting's version of events, Macleod's role in the discovery was negligible. It was not until decades after the events that an independent review acknowledged a far greater role than was attributed to him at first.
Aron Nimzowitsch, Latvian-Danish chess player (born 1886)
Aron Nimzowitsch was a Russian-born Danish chess player and writer. In the late 1920s, Nimzowitsch was one of the best chess players in the world. He was the foremost figure amongst the hypermoderns and wrote a very influential book on chess theory: My System (1925–1927). Nimzowitsch's seminal work Chess Praxis, originally published in Germany, in 1929, was purchased by a pre-teen and future World Champion Tigran Petrosian and was to have a great influence on his development as a chess player.
16/03/1930
Miguel Primo de Rivera, Spanish general and politician, Prime Minister of Spain (born 1870)
Miguel Primo de Rivera y Orbaneja, 2nd Marquis of Estella, GE, was a Spanish dictator and military officer who ruled as prime minister of Spain from 1923 to 1930 during the last years of the Bourbon Restoration.
16/03/1925
August von Wassermann, German bacteriologist and hygienist (born 1866)
August Paul von Wassermann was a German bacteriologist and hygienist.
16/03/1914
Gaston Calmette, French journalist (born 1858)
Gaston Calmette was a French journalist and newspaper editor, whose murder was the subject of a notable murder trial.
Charles Albert Gobat, Swiss lawyer and politician, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1843)
Charles Albert Gobat was a Swiss lawyer, educational administrator, and politician who jointly received the Nobel Peace Prize with Élie Ducommun in 1902 for their leadership of the Permanent International Peace Bureau.
John Murray, Scottish oceanographer, biologist, and limnologist (born 1841)
Sir John Murray was a pioneering Canadian-born British oceanographer, marine biologist and limnologist. He is considered to be the father of modern oceanography.
16/03/1912
Max Burckhard, Austrian theater director (born 1854)
Max Eugen Burckhard was director of the Burgtheater, Vienna, from 1890 to 1898.
16/03/1907
John O'Leary, Irish republican and journalist (born 1830)
John O'Leary was an Irish separatist and a leading Fenian. He studied both law and medicine but did not take a degree and for his involvement in the Irish Republican Brotherhood, he was imprisoned for five years in England during the nineteenth century.
16/03/1903
Roy Bean, American justice of the peace (born 1825)
Phantly Roy Bean Jr. was an American saloon-keeper and Justice of the Peace in Val Verde County, Texas, who called himself "The Only Law West of the Pecos." He held court in his saloon along the Rio Grande in a desolate stretch of the Chihuahuan Desert. Legend records his jurisprudence as thoroughly abnormal and in many instances comical. Although remembered as a hanging judge who said "hang 'em first and try 'em later," he never had anyone hanged.
16/03/1899
Joseph Medill, American journalist and politician, 26th Mayor of Chicago (born 1823)
Joseph Medill was a Canadian-American newspaper editor, publisher, and Republican Party politician. He was co-owner and managing editor of the Chicago Tribune, and he was Mayor of Chicago from after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 until 1873.
16/03/1898
Aubrey Beardsley, English author and illustrator (born 1872)
Aubrey Vincent Beardsley was an English illustrator and author. His black ink drawings were influenced by Japanese woodcuts, and depicted the grotesque, the decadent, and the erotic. He was a leading figure in the aesthetic movement, which also included Oscar Wilde and James McNeill Whistler. Beardsley's contribution to the development of the Art Nouveau and poster styles was significant despite his early death from tuberculosis. He is one of the important Modern Style figures.
16/03/1892
Samuel F. Miller, American politician (born 1827)
Samuel Franklin Miller was a United States representative from New York during the latter half of the American Civil War.
16/03/1888
Hippolyte Carnot, French politician (born 1801)
Lazare Hippolyte Carnot was a French politician. He was the younger brother of the founder of thermodynamics Sadi Carnot and the second son of the revolutionary politician and general Lazare Nicolas Marguerite Carnot, who also served in the government of Napoleon, as well as the father of French president Marie François Sadi Carnot.
16/03/1884
Art Croft, American baseball player (born 1855)
Arthur F. Croft was an American Major League Baseball player. He played for three teams during three-year professional and Major League career.
16/03/1868
David Wilmot, American politician, sponsor of Wilmot Proviso (born 1814)
David Wilmot was an American politician and judge from Pennsylvania who served in the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate, and as a judge of the Court of Claims. He is best known for being the prime sponsor and eponym of the Wilmot Proviso, a failed legislative proposal to ban the expansion of slavery into western territories gained in the Mexican Cession. A northern Democrat when he introduced and supported the Proviso, he subsequently became a notable member of the anti-slavery Free Soil Party. Later, Wilmot was instrumental in establishing the Pennsylvania Republican Party.
16/03/1841
Félix Savart, French physicist and psychologist (born 1791)
Félix Savart was a French physicist and mathematician who is primarily known for the Biot–Savart law of electromagnetism, which he discovered together with his colleague Jean-Baptiste Biot. His main interest was in acoustics and the study of vibrating bodies. A particular interest in the violin led him to create an experimental trapezoidal model. He gave his name to the savart, a unit of measurement for musical intervals, and to Savart's wheel—a device he used while investigating the range of human hearing.
16/03/1838
Nathaniel Bowditch, American ocean navigator and mathematician (born 1773)
Nathaniel Bowditch was an early American mathematician remembered for his work on ocean navigation. He is often credited as the founder of modern maritime navigation; his book The New American Practical Navigator, first published in 1802, is still carried on board every commissioned U.S. Naval vessel.
16/03/1804
Henrik Gabriel Porthan, Finnish professor and historian (born 1739)
Henrik Gabriel Porthan was a professor and rector at the Royal Academy of Turku, Finland, which was then part of the Kingdom of Sweden. He was a scholar sometimes known as The Father of Finnish History. Porthan's legacy greatly influenced the rise of the Finnish national culture and romanticism of the early 19th century.
16/03/1747
Christian August, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst (born 1690)
Christian Augustus, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst was a German prince of the House of Ascania, and the father of Catherine the Great of Russia.
16/03/1738
George Bähr, German architect, designed the Dresden Frauenkirche (born 1666)
George Bähr was a German architect.
16/03/1737
Benjamin Wadsworth, American minister and academic (born 1670)
Benjamin Wadsworth was an American Congregational clergyman and educator. He was trained at Harvard College. He served as minister of the First Church in Boston; and as president of Harvard from 1725 until his death.
16/03/1736
Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, Italian composer (born 1710)
Giovanni Battista Draghi, usually referred to as Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, was an Italian Baroque composer, violinist, and organist, leading exponent of the Baroque; he is considered one of the greatest Italian musicians of the first half of the 18th century and one of the most important representatives of the Neapolitan school.
16/03/1721
James Craggs the Elder, English politician, Postmaster General of the United Kingdom (born 1657)
James Craggs the Elder, of Jermyn Street, Westminster and Charlton, Lewisham, Kent, was an English financier and Whig politician who sat in the English and British House of Commons from 1702 to 1713.
16/03/1698
Leonora Christina Ulfeldt, Danish countess, author of Jammers Minde (born 1621)
Leonora Christina, Countess Ulfeldt, born "Countess Leonora Christina Christiansdatter" til Slesvig og Holsten, was daughter to King Christian IV of Denmark and Kirsten Munk and wife of the Steward of the Realm, the traitor Count Corfitz Ulfeldt. Renowned in Denmark since the 19th century for her posthumously published autobiography Jammers Minde, written secretly during two decades of solitary confinement in a royal dungeon, her intimate version of the major events she witnessed in Europe's history, interwoven with ruminations on her woes as a political prisoner, still commands popular interest and scholarly respect, and has virtually become the stuff of legend as retold and enlivened in Danish literature and art.
16/03/1679
John Leverett, English general and politician, 19th Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony (born 1616)
John Leverett was an English colonial magistrate, merchant, soldier and the penultimate governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Born in England, he migrated to Massachusetts as a teenager. He was a leading merchant in the colony, and served in its military. In the 1640s he went back to England to fight in the English Civil War.
16/03/1649
Jean de Brébeuf, French-Canadian missionary and saint (born 1593)
Jean de Brébeuf was a French Jesuit missionary who travelled to New France (Canada) in 1625. There he worked primarily with the Huron for the rest of his life, except for a few years in France from 1629 to 1633. He learned their language and customs, writing extensively about each to aid other missionaries.
16/03/1559
Anthony St. Leger, English-Irish politician Lord Deputy of Ireland (born 1496)
Sir Anthony St Leger, KG, of Ulcombe and Leeds Castle in Kent, was an English politician and Lord Deputy of Ireland during the Tudor period.
16/03/1485
Anne Neville, queen of Richard III of England (born 1456)
Anne Neville was Queen of England from 26 June 1483 until her death in 1485 as the wife of King Richard III. She was the younger of the two daughters and co-heiresses of Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, and Anne de Beauchamp. Before her marriage to Richard, she had been Princess of Wales as the wife of Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales, the only son and heir apparent of King Henry VI.
16/03/1457
Ladislaus Hunyadi, Hungarian politician (born 1433)
László Hunyadi or Ladislaus Hunyadi was a Hungarian nobleman.
16/03/1410
John Beaufort, 1st Earl of Somerset, French-English admiral and politician, Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports (born 1373)
John Beaufort, 1st Earl of Somerset, known as the Marquess of Somerset and Marquess of Dorset from 1397 to 1399, was an English-French nobleman and politician. Beaufort was the second son of John of Gaunt, eldest of the four children by his mistress Katherine Swynford, whom he later married in 1396.
16/03/1405
Margaret III, Countess of Flanders (born 1350)
Margaret III was a ruling Countess of Flanders, Countess of Artois, and Countess of Auvergne and Boulogne between 1384 and 1405. She was the last ruler of Flanders of the House of Dampierre.
16/03/1279
Jeanne of Dammartin, Queen consort of Castile and León (born 1216)
Joan of Dammartin was Queen of Castile and León by marriage to Ferdinand III of Castile. She also ruled as Countess of Ponthieu (1251–1279) and Aumale (1237–1279). Her daughter, the English queen Eleanor of Castile, was her successor in Ponthieu. Ferdinand II, Count of Aumale, her son and co-ruler in Aumale, predeceased her, thus she was succeeded by her grandson John I, Count of Aumale.
16/03/1185
Baldwin IV of Jerusalem (born 1161)
Baldwin IV (1161–1185), known as the Leper King, was the king of Jerusalem from 1174 until his death in 1185. Baldwin ascended to the throne when he was thirteen despite having leprosy. He launched several attempts to curb the increasing power of the Muslim ruler Saladin, though much of his life was marked by infighting amongst the kingdom's nobles. Throughout his reign, and especially at the end of his life, he was troubled by his succession, working to select a suitable heir and prevent a succession crisis. Choosing competent advisers, Baldwin ruled a thriving crusader state, protecting it from Saladin.
16/03/1181
Henry I, Count of Champagne
Henry I, known as the Liberal, was count of Champagne from 1152 to 1181. He was the eldest son of Count Theobald II of Champagne, who was also count of Blois, and his wife, Matilda of Carinthia.
16/03/1072
Adalbert of Hamburg, German archbishop (born 1000)
Adalbert was Archbishop of Bremen from 1043 until his death. Called Vikar des Nordens, he was an important political figure of the Holy Roman Empire, papal legate, and one of the regents for Emperor Henry IV.
16/03/1021
Heribert of Cologne, German archbishop and saint (born 970)
Heribert of Cologne, also known as Saint Heribert, was a German prelate of the Catholic Church who served as the Archbishop of Cologne from 999 until his death. He was chancellor of Italy for Otto III, Holy Roman Emperor from 994 and for the Kingdom of Germany from 998. He became an advisor and ally to Henry II, Holy Roman Emperor; their relationship began poorly, but strengthened over time.
16/03/0943
Pi Guangye, Chinese official and chancellor (born 877)
Pi Guangye, courtesy name Wentong (文通), was an official of the Chinese Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period state Wuyue, serving as a chancellor during the reign of its second king Qian Yuanguan.
16/03/0933
Takin al-Khazari, Egyptian commander and politician, Abbasid Governor of Egypt
Takin al-Khassa Abu Mansur Takin ibn Abdallah al-Harbi al-Khazari was an Abbasid commander of Khazar origin who served thrice as governor of Egypt.
16/03/0842
Xiao Mian, chancellor of the Tang dynasty
Xiao Mian, courtesy name Siqian (思謙), noble title Duke of Xu (徐公), was a Chinese politician of the Tang dynasty, serving as a chancellor during the reign of Emperor Muzong. In traditional histories, he was praised for his integrity but blamed for faulty decisions that led to the imperial government's loss of control over the circuits north of the Yellow River.
16/03/0455
Valentinian III, Roman emperor (assassinated; b. 419)
Valentinian III was Roman emperor in the West from 425 to 455. Starting in childhood, his reign over the Roman Empire was one of the longest, but was dominated by civil wars among powerful generals and the barbarian invasions. He was the youngest sole emperor in the Western Roman Empire.
Heraclius, Roman courtier (primicerius sacri cubiculi )
Heraclius was an influential eunuch of the Western Roman Emperor Valentinian III.
16/03/0037
Tiberius, Roman emperor (born 42 BC)
AD 37 (XXXVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Proculus and Pontius. The denomination AD 37 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.
Celebrations & Special Days Worldwide on 16th March
Christian feast day: Eusebia of Hamage
Eusebia, was a Frankish abbess of Hamage and is venerated as a saint whose feast day is 16 March. Versions of her name include Eusoye or Ysoie, which was the name of a village in the diocese of Beauvais, France.
Christian feast day: Finian Lobhar (Finian the Leper)
Saint Finian the Leper was an early Irish saint credited by some sources with founding a church and monastery at Innisfallen in Killarney.
Christian feast day: Heribert of Cologne
Heribert of Cologne, also known as Saint Heribert, was a German prelate of the Catholic Church who served as the Archbishop of Cologne from 999 until his death. He was chancellor of Italy for Otto III, Holy Roman Emperor from 994 and for the Kingdom of Germany from 998. He became an advisor and ally to Henry II, Holy Roman Emperor; their relationship began poorly, but strengthened over time.
Christian feast day: Hilarius of Aquileia
Hilarius of Aquileia, also Hilary of Aquileia was an early Bishop of Aquileia, a martyr and saint.
Christian feast day: Jean de Brébeuf
Jean de Brébeuf was a French Jesuit missionary who travelled to New France (Canada) in 1625. There he worked primarily with the Huron for the rest of his life, except for a few years in France from 1629 to 1633. He learned their language and customs, writing extensively about each to aid other missionaries.
Christian feast day: Blessed John Amias and Robert Dalby
Beatification is a recognition accorded by the Catholic Church of a deceased person's entrance into Heaven and capacity to intercede on behalf of individuals who pray in their name. Beati is the plural form, referring to those who have undergone the process of beatification; they possess the title of "Blessed" before their names and are often referred to in English as "a Blessed" or, plurally, "Blesseds".
Christian feast day: Julian of Antioch
Julian of Antioch, variously distinguished as Julian the Martyr, Julian of Tarsus, Julian of Cilicia, and Julian of Anazarbus, was a 4th-century Christian martyr and saint. He is sometimes confused with the St Julian who was martyred with his wife Basilissa.
Christian feast day: March 16 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
March 15 - Eastern Orthodox liturgical calendar - March 17
Day of the Book Smugglers (Lithuania)
Lithuanian book smugglers or Lithuanian book carriers smuggled Lithuanian language books printed in the Latin alphabet into Lithuanian-speaking areas of the Russian Empire, defying a ban on such materials in force from 1864 to 1904. In Lithuanian, knygnešys literally means "the one who carries books". Opposing imperial Russian authorities' efforts to replace the traditional Latin orthography with Cyrillic, and transporting printed matter from as far away as the United States to do so, the book smugglers became a symbol of Lithuanians' resistance to Russification.
Remembrance day of the Latvian legionnaires (Latvia)
Remembrance Day of the Latvian Legionnaires, often known simply as the Legionnaire Day or 16 March in Latvia, is a day when soldiers of the Latvian Legion, part of the Waffen-SS, are commemorated. From 1998 until 2000, it was officially recognized as a "Remembrance Day for Latvian soldiers" by the Saeima.
Saint Urho's Day (Finnish Americans and Finnish Canadians)
Saint Urho is a fictional saint of Finland, created and elaborated by Finnish Americans in Northern Minnesota in the 1950s, to celebrate their heritage and extend celebrations of Saint Patrick's Day. His celebration day is set to March 16, the day before the March 17 feast day of Saint Patrick. Saint Patrick's feast day is celebrated by Irish Americans, of whom there are also many in Minnesota.
What Happened on 16th March?
54 significant events took place on Thursday, 16th March — stretching from -597 to 2026. Explore the moments that shaped history on this day.
16/03/2026
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 least 27 people were killed and 146 others were injured. No group has claimed responsibility, but Nigerian authorities suspect Boko Haram is behind the attack.
16/03/2025
A fire breaks out in a nightclub in Kočani, North Macedonia, killing at least 59 people and injuring 155 others.
On 16 March 2025, a fire at the Pulse nightclub in Kočani, North Macedonia, killed 63 people and injured 193. The fire started when sparks from indoor fireworks hit the ceiling and set it alight, rapidly enveloping the venue in thick and toxic smoke. The nightclub was unlicenced and broke numerous safety standards: among other things, it lacked sprinklers and sufficient emergency exits and only had a single fire extinguisher. Rescue efforts were hampered by the nightclub's location in a densely populated neighbourhood, which caused firetrucks difficulty in reaching it.
16/03/2022
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 United States Geological Survey (USGS) gave an estimate of 7.3. Immediately after the event a 30‑cm tsunami was reported. The event is known in Japanese as Fukushima-ken Oki Jishin . As a result of this natural disaster, four people died and 247 were injured.
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, sheltering a large number of civilians. The estimations of the number of deaths that occurred due to the bombing have varied, from at least 12 and "likely many more" to as many as 600.
16/03/2021
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 shooter, 21-year-old Robert Aaron Long, was taken into custody later that day.
16/03/2020
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 0–0.25%.
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.
16/03/2016
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 hidden on the bus, and was apparently detonated remotely. A group aligned with the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the bombing.
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 detonated at around 5am as worshipers were beginning their early morning prayers.
16/03/2014
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 peninsula to Kherson Oblast in mainland Ukraine. To the east, the Crimean Bridge, constructed in 2018, spans the Strait of Kerch, linking the peninsula with Krasnodar Krai in Russia. The Arabat Spit, located to the northeast, is a narrow strip of land that separates the Syvash lagoons from the Sea of Azov. Across the Black Sea to the west lies Romania and to the south is Turkey. The population is 2.4 million, and the largest city is Sevastopol. The region, internationally recognised as part of Ukraine, has been under Russian occupation since 2014.
16/03/2012
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" in India, he is widely regarded as one of the greatest cricketers of all time. He holds several world records, including being the all-time highest run-scorer in international cricket, receiving the most player of the match awards in international cricket, and being the only batsman to score 100 international centuries. Tendulkar was a Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha by presidential nomination from 2012 to 2018.
16/03/2010
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 political site for the Ganda people, as well as an important example of traditional architecture. It became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in December 2001, when it was described as "one of the most remarkable buildings using purely vegetal materials in the entire region of sub-Saharan Africa".
16/03/2005
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 southwest. Israel's western coast lies on the Mediterranean Sea, its southern tip reaches the Red Sea, and to the east is Earth's lowest point near the Dead Sea. Jerusalem is the government seat and proclaimed capital, while Tel Aviv is Israel's largest urban area and economic centre.
16/03/2003
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 Palestinian territories. In 2003, she was in Rafah, a city in the Gaza Strip then under Israeli occupation, where the demolishment of Palestinian houses by Israeli forces was taking place at the height of the Second Intifada. While protesting the demolitions as they were being carried out, she was killed by an Israeli driving an armored bulldozer that crushed her.
16/03/2002
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 described as exploring the tensions between Western and Eastern music, and has been characterised by "innovative use of microtonality and chromaticism, rhythm over form and use of contrasting tonalities.
16/03/2001
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 North China. A total of 108 people were killed, and 38 others injured when within a short period of time several bombs exploded near four apartment buildings.
16/03/1995
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 southwest, and Arkansas to the northwest. Mississippi's western boundary is largely defined by the Mississippi River, or its historical course. Mississippi is the 32nd largest by area and 35th-most populous of the 50 U.S. states and has the lowest per-capita income. Jackson is both the state's capital and largest city. Greater Jackson is the state's most populous metropolitan area, with a population of 591,978 in 2020. Other major cities include Gulfport, Southaven, Hattiesburg, Biloxi, Olive Branch, Tupelo, Meridian, and Greenville.
16/03/1988
Iran–Contra affair: Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North and Vice Admiral John Poindexter are indicted on charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States.
The Iran–Contra affair, also referred to as the Iran–Contra scandal, the Contragate, Iran Initiative, or simply Iran–Contra, was a political scandal in the United States that centered on arms trafficking to Iran between 1981 and 1986, facilitated by senior officials of the Reagan administration. The administration hoped to use the proceeds of the arms sale to fund the Contras, an anti-Sandinista rebel group in Nicaragua. Under the Boland Amendments, a series of laws passed by Congress and signed by Ronald Reagan, further funding of the Contras by legislative appropriations was prohibited by Congress, but the Reagan administration continued funding them secretly using non-appropriated funds.
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 during the Anfal campaign, which was led by Iraqi military officer Ali Hassan al-Majid. Two days before the attack, the city had been captured by Iran as part of Operation Zafar 7 of the Iran–Iraq War. Following the incident, the United Nations launched an investigation and concluded that mustard gas as well as unidentified nerve agents had been used against Kurdish civilians. The BBC later reported that a mixture of mustard, tabun, sarin, and VX, was used. The United States Defense Intelligence Agency initially blamed Iran for the attack, though the majority of evidence later revealed that Iraq had used the chemical weapons to bolster an ongoing military offensive against Iran, pro-Iranian Kurdish fighters, and ordinary Halabja residents.
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 in the late 1960s and is usually deemed to have ended with the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. Although the Troubles mostly took place in Northern Ireland, at times violence spilled over into parts of the Republic of Ireland, England, and mainland Europe.
16/03/1985
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 reports that are distributed to its members, major U.S. daily newspapers and radio and television broadcasters. Since the Pulitzer Prize was established in 1917, the AP has earned 60 of them, including 36 for photography. The AP distributes its widely used AP Stylebook, its AP polls tracking NCAA sports, and its election polls and results during U.S. elections. It sponsors the National Football League's annual awards.
16/03/1984
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.
16/03/1979
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, which ended the rule of the Khmer Rouge. The conflict lasted for about a month, with China withdrawing its troops in March 1979.
16/03/1978
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 from November 1974 to July 1976.
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 financial instability following the fall of communism in Central and Eastern Europe. Despite managing to continue operations, following the start of the 21st century and a controversial privatisation, it declared bankruptcy in 2002. Balkan was liquidated in late October 2002. Balkan's assets and operations were transferred to Balkan Air Tour in December 2002.
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, 2 km (1.2 mi) from the coast of Brittany, France. Ultimately she split in three and sank, resulting in the largest oil spill of its kind to that date.
16/03/1977
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 as the executive leader of the Lebanese National Movement (LNM) during the early phase of the Lebanese Civil War. A staunch pan-Arabist and supporter of the Palestinian national movement, he was a key ally of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) until his assassination in 1977.
16/03/1969
A Viasa McDonnell Douglas DC-9 crashes in Maracaibo, Venezuela, killing 155.
Venezolana Internacional de Aviación Sociedad Anónima was the Venezuelan flag carrier airline between 1960 and 1997. It was headquartered in the Torre Viasa in Caracas. Launched in November 1960 , it was nationalised in 1975 due to financial problems, and re-privatised in 1991, with the major stake going to Iberia. The company ceased operations in January 1997 , and went into liquidation.
16/03/1968
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 South Vietnam was supported by the United States and other anti-communist nations. The conflict was the second of the Indochina wars and a proxy war of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and US. The Vietnam War was one of the postcolonial wars of national liberation, a theater in the Cold War, and a civil war, with civil warfare a defining feature from the outset. Direct US military involvement escalated from 1965 until US forces were withdrawn in 1973. The fighting spilled into the Laotian and Cambodian civil wars, which ended with all three countries becoming communist in 1975.
16/03/1966
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 conducted the first U.S. docking of two spacecraft in orbit, but also suffered the first critical in-space system failure of a U.S. spacecraft. Astronauts Neil Armstrong and David Scott temporarily lost attitude control of their craft during the docking procedure, which threatened their lives and resulted in an immediate abort of the mission. The crew returned to Earth safely.
16/03/1962
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 United States Army, was transporting ninety-six military passengers from Travis Air Force Base in California to Tan Son Nhut International Airport in Saigon, South Vietnam. After refueling at Andersen Air Force Base in Guam, the Super Constellation disappeared while en route to Clark Air Base in the Philippines. All 107 aboard were declared missing and presumed dead.
16/03/1945
World War II: The Battle of Iwo Jima ends, but small pockets of Japanese resistance persist.
World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated. Tanks and aircraft played major roles, the latter enabling the strategic bombing of cities and delivery of the only nuclear weapons used in war. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the death of 60 to 75 million people. Millions died as a result of massacres, starvation, disease, and genocides, including the Holocaust. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes.
World War II: Ninety percent of Würzburg, Germany is destroyed in only 20 minutes by British bombers, resulting in at least 4,000 deaths.
The city of Würzburg was attacked as part of the strategic bombing campaign in World War II by the Allies against Nazi Germany. Although lacking major armaments industries and hosting around 40 hospitals at the time, Würzburg was targeted as a traffic hub and as part of the attempt by Bomber Command to break the spirit of the German people. The major raid occurred on March 16, 1945, when Royal Air Force bombers dropped incendiary bombs that set fire to much of the city, killing an estimated 5,000 people and almost completely obliterating the historic town. Almost 90% of the buildings were destroyed by a raid that lasted less than 20 minutes.
16/03/1941
Operation Appearance takes place to re-establish British Somaliland.
Operation Appearance was a British landing in the British Somaliland Protectorate against troops of the Italian Army. The Italian conquest of British Somaliland had taken place in August 1940, seven months earlier. The British had withdrawn from the protectorate after a delaying action at the Battle of Tug Argan. This withdrawal, after the disastrous conclusion of the Battle of France and the Italian declaration of war on 10 June 1940, had repercussions among British leaders. It led the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, to lose confidence in General Archibald Wavell, the British commander in the Middle East, which culminated in Wavell's sacking on 20 June 1941.
16/03/1939
From Prague Castle, Hitler proclaims Bohemia and Moravia a German protectorate.
Prague Castle is a castle complex in Prague, Czech Republic serving as the official residence and workplace of the president of the Czech Republic. Built in the 9th century, the castle has long served as the seat of power for kings of Bohemia, Holy Roman emperors, and presidents of Czechoslovakia. As such, the term "Prague Castle" or simply "Hrad" are often used as metonymy for the president and his staff and advisors. The Bohemian Crown Jewels are kept within a hidden room inside it.
16/03/1936
Warmer-than-normal temperatures rapidly melt snow and ice on the upper Allegheny and Monongahela rivers, leading to a major flood in Pittsburgh.
The Allegheny River is a 325-mile-long (523 km) river that is located in western Pennsylvania and western New York in the United States. The chief tributary of the Ohio River, the Allegheny runs from its headwaters just below the center of Pennsylvania’s northern border, heads northwest into Western New York, then zigzags southwesterly back across the border to flow through Western Pennsylvania and finally join the Monongahela River at Forks of the Ohio near Downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
16/03/1935
Adolf Hitler orders Germany to rearm itself in violation of the Treaty of Versailles. Conscription is reintroduced to form the Wehrmacht.
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Germany during the Nazi era from 1933 until his suicide in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor of Germany in 1933 and then taking the title of Führer und Reichskanzler in 1934. Germany's invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 under his leadership marked the outbreak of the Second World War. Throughout the ensuing conflict, Hitler was closely involved in the direction of German military operations and was central to the perpetration of the genocide of about six million Jews in the Holocaust as well as the deaths of millions of other victims.
16/03/1926
History of rocketry: Robert Goddard launches the first liquid-fueled rocket, at Auburn, Massachusetts.
A rocket is an elongated flying vehicle that uses a rocket engine to accelerate without using any surrounding air. A rocket engine produces thrust by reaction to exhaust expelled at high speed. Unlike jet engines, rockets are fuelled entirely by propellant which they carry, without the need for oxygen from air; consequently a rocket can fly in the vacuum of space, indeed rocket engines operate more efficiently outside the atmosphere.
16/03/1925
An earthquake (measuring around 7.0 magnitude) occurs in Dali, China, killing an estimated 5,000 people.
The 1925 Dali earthquake occurred at 14:42 UTC on 16 March. It had an estimated magnitude of 7.0 on the surface-wave magnitude scale and a maximum perceived intensity of at least IX (Violent) on the Mercalli intensity scale. It had an epicenter in the province of Yunnan in southern China and killed an estimated 5,000 people.
16/03/1924
In accordance with the Treaty of Rome, Fiume becomes annexed as part of Italy.
The Treaty of Rome was agreed on 27 January 1924, when Italy and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes agreed that Fiume would be annexed to Italy as the Province of Fiume, and the town of Sušak would be part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.
16/03/1918
Finnish Civil War: Battle of Länkipohja is infamous for its bloody aftermath as the Whites execute 70–100 capitulated Reds.
The Finnish Civil War was a civil war in 1918 fought for the leadership and control of recently independent Finland between White Finland and the Finnish Socialist Workers' Republic. The clashes took place in the context of the national, political, and social turmoil caused by World War I in Europe. The belligerents were the paramilitary Red Guards, led by a section of the Social Democratic Party with backup of the Russian bolsheviks, and the paramilitary White Guards of the senate. General C. G. E. Mannerheim led the White Guards with major assistance by both the Finnish Jäger Battalion trained in Germany and the German Imperial Army, along the German goal to control Fennoscandia and Petrograd of Russia. The Reds, composed of industrial and agrarian working class people, controlled the cities and industrial centres of southern Finland. The Whites, composed of land owners and the middle and upper class, controlled the rural central and northern Finland.
16/03/1916
The 7th and 10th US cavalry regiments under John J. Pershing cross the US–Mexico border to join the hunt for Pancho Villa.
John Joseph Pershing, nicknamed "Black Jack", was an American army general, educator, and founder of the Pershing Rifles. He served as the commander of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) during World War I from 1917 to 1920. In addition to leading the AEF to victory in World War I, Pershing served as a mentor to many in the generation of generals who led the United States Army during World War II, including George C. Marshall, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Omar Bradley, Lesley J. McNair, George S. Patton, and Douglas MacArthur.
16/03/1898
In Melbourne, the representatives of five colonies adopt a constitution, which would become the basis of the Commonwealth of Australia.[page needed]
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria and the second most-populous city in Australia. The city's name generally refers to a 9,993-square-kilometre (3,858 sq mi) area, comprising an urban agglomeration of 31 local government areas. The name is also used to specifically refer to the local government area named City of Melbourne, whose area is centred on the Melbourne central business district and some immediate surrounds.
16/03/1872
The Wanderers F.C. win the first FA Cup, the oldest football competition in the world, beating Royal Engineers A.F.C. 1–0 at The Oval in Kennington, London.
Wanderers Football Club was an English association football club. It was founded as "Forest Football Club" in 1859 in Leytonstone. In 1864, it changed its name to "Wanderers", a reference to it never having a home stadium, instead playing at various locations in London and the surrounding area. Comprising mainly former pupils of the leading English public schools, Wanderers was one of the dominant teams in the early years of organised football and won the inaugural Football Association Challenge Cup in 1872. The club won the competition five times in total, including three in succession from 1876 to 1878, a feat which has been repeated only once.
16/03/1815
Prince Willem proclaims himself King of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, the first constitutional monarch in the Netherlands.
William I was King of the Netherlands and Grand Duke of Luxembourg from 1815 until his abdication in 1840.
16/03/1802
The Army Corps of Engineers is established to found and operate the United States Military Academy at West Point.
The United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is the military engineering branch of the United States Army. A Direct Reporting Unit (DRU), it has three primary mission areas: Engineer Regiment, military construction, and civil works. USACE has 37,000 civilian and military personnel, making it one of the world's largest public engineering, design, and construction management agencies. The USACE workforce is approximately 97% civilian and 3% active duty military. The civilian workforce is mainly located in the United States, Europe, and in select Middle East office locations. Civilians do not function as active duty military and are not required to be in active war and combat zones; however, volunteer opportunities do exist for civilians to do so.
16/03/1792
King Gustav III of Sweden is shot; he dies on March 29.
Gustav III, also called Gustavus III, was King of Sweden from 1771 until his assassination in 1792. He was the eldest son of King Adolf Frederick and Queen Louisa Ulrika of Sweden.
16/03/1696
The Dutch bombard Givet during the Nine Years' War.
The Bombardment of Givet took place during the Nine Years' War on 16 March 1696. A Dutch army under Menno van Coehoorn and the Earl of Athlone closed in on the French town of Givet with the aim of destroying the supplies held there. In this way, they hoped that the French would not be able to mount an offensive that year. The action was a success and prevented the French from launching a major offensive.
16/03/1660
The Long Parliament of England is dissolved so as to prepare for the new Convention Parliament.
The Long Parliament was an English Parliament which nominally lasted from 1640 until 1660, making it the longest-lasting Parliament in English and British history. It followed the fiasco of the Short Parliament, which had convened for only three weeks during the spring of 1640 after an 11-year parliamentary absence. In September 1640, King Charles I issued writs summoning a parliament to convene on 3 November 1640. He intended it to pass financial bills, a step made necessary by the costs of the Bishops' Wars against Scotland. The Long Parliament received its name from the fact that, by an act of Parliament, the Parliament Act 1640, it stipulated it could be dissolved only with agreement of the members; and those members did not agree to its dissolution until 16 March 1660, after the English Civil War and near the close of the Interregnum.
16/03/1621
Samoset, an Abenaki, visits the settlers of Plymouth Colony and greets them, "Welcome, Englishmen! My name is Samoset."
Samoset was an Abenaki sagamore and the first American Indian to make contact with the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony in New England. He startled the colonists on March 16, 1621, by walking into Plymouth Colony and greeting them in English, saying "Welcome, Englishmen."
16/03/1355
Amidst the Red Turban Rebellions, Han Lin'er, a claimed descendant of Emperor Huizong of Song, is proclaimed emperor of the restored Song dynasty in Bozhou.
The Red Turban Rebellions were uprisings against the Yuan dynasty between 1351 and 1368, eventually leading to its collapse. Remnants of the Yuan imperial court retreated northwards and is thereafter known as the Northern Yuan in historiography.
16/03/1244
Over 200 Cathars who refuse to recant are burnt to death after the Fall of Montségur.
Catharism was a Christian quasi-dualist and pseudo-Gnostic movement which thrived in northern Italy and southern France between the 12th and 14th centuries. Denounced as a heretical sect by the Catholic Church, its followers were attacked first by the Albigensian Crusade and later by the Medieval Inquisition, which eradicated them by 1350. Thousands were slaughtered, hanged, or burned at the stake.
16/03/1190
Massacre of Jews at Clifford's Tower, York.
York Castle is a fortified complex in the city of York, England. It consists of a sequence of castles, prisons, law courts and other buildings, which were built over the last nine centuries on the north-west side of the River Foss. The now ruined keep of the medieval Norman castle is commonly referred to as Clifford's Tower. Built originally on the orders of William I to dominate the former Viking city of Jórvík, the castle suffered a tumultuous early history before developing into a major fortification with extensive water defences. After a major explosion in 1684 rendered the remaining military defences uninhabitable, York Castle continued to be used as a jail and prison until 1929.
16/03/0445
Western Roman Emperor Valentinian III is assassinated while practising on the Campus Martius on behalf of Petronius Maximus.
The Roman emperor was the ruler and monarchical head of state of the Roman Empire, starting with the granting of the title augustus to Octavian in 27 BC. The title of imperator, originally a military honorific, was usually used alongside caesar, originally a cognomen. When a given Roman is described as becoming emperor in English, it generally reflects his accession as augustus, and later as basileus. Early emperors also used the title princeps alongside other Republican titles, notably consul and pontifex maximus.
18/03/2007
The first siege of Jerusalem by the Neo-Babylonian Empire ends with the city surrendering to king Nebuchadnezzar II.
The siege of Jerusalem was a military campaign carried out by Nebuchadnezzar II, king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, in which he besieged Jerusalem, then capital of the Kingdom of Judah. The city surrendered, and its king Jeconiah was deported to Babylon and replaced by his Babylonian-appointed uncle, Zedekiah. The siege is recorded in both the Hebrew Bible and the Babylonian Nebuchadnezzar Chronicle.