First Confidential

THIS DAY IN HISTORY - MARCH 16th

James Madison, Quote

“If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”

~ James Madison

Wikiquote (James Madison (March 16, 1751 (O.S. March 5) – June 28, 1836) was an American statesman and political theorist, the fourth President of the United States (1809 – 1817). He is hailed as the “Father of the Constitution” for being instrumental in the drafting of the United States Constitution and as the key champion and author of the United States Bill of Rights.)

This Day in History

March 16th, 1190

York Castle: Yorkshire, England; Clifford's Tower, the keep of York Castle

Massacre of Jews at Clifford's Tower, York.

Wikipedia  Photo: York Castle: Yorkshire, England; Clifford's Tower, the keep of York Castle".


March 16th, 1244

Montsegur Castle - Siege of Montségur: Over 200 Cathars are burned after the Fall of Montségur

Siege of Montségur: Over 200 Cathars are burned after the Fall of Montségur.

Wikipedia  Photo: Montsegur Castle: The ruins of the Montsegur are perched at a precarious 3000 foot (1,207 m.) altitude in the south of France near the Pyrenees Mountains.


March 16th, 1521

Ferdinand Magellan sets sail from Sanlúcar de Barrameda with about 270 men on his expedition to circumnavigate the globe

Ferdinand Magellan reaches the Philippines.

Wikipedia  Painting: Magellan’s Globe; Hans Holbein used this globe as reference for the small terrestrial globe in his famous masterpiece painting entitled The Ambassadors. (left Jean de Dinteville, French Ambassador to the court of Henry VIII - right is his childhood friend, Georges de Selve, Bishop of Lavaur).


March 16th, 1621

Mayflower Collage: departs from Southampton, England on its travel to North America

Plymouth Colony:
1621 - Samoset, a Mohegan, visited the settlers of Plymouth Colony and greets them, "Welcome, Englishmen! My name is Samoset."

Wikipedia  Painting: "Mayflower", The Granger Collection, New York 1905; Pilgrims landing on Cape Cod in November of 1620; The Pilgrims on the Speedwell; Mayflower arrived inside the tip of Cape Cod fishhook, November 1620 (satellite image, 1997); Landing of the Pilgrims by Michele Felice Cornè, circa 1805. Displayed in the White House.


March 16th, 1660

English Civil War: (1642–1651) was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians (Roundheads) and Royalists (Cavaliers)

English Civil War:
1660 - England's Long Parliament is dissolved so as to prepare for the new Convention Parliament.

Wikipedia  Painting: English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians (Roundheads) and Royalists (Cavaliers);
John Milton publishes Areopagitica; Battle of Naseby, victory of the Parliamentarian New Model Army; Battle of Marston Moor, 1644; "Cromwell at Dunbar", by Andrew Carrick Gow; Oliver Cromwell; King Charles I, painted by Van Dyck; "And when did you last see your father?" by William Frederick Yeames.


March 16th, 1782

American Revolutionary War Collage American Revolutionary War, Grand Union - Stars and Stripes Flag

American Revolutionary War:
1782 - Battle of Roatán; Spanish troops capture the British-held island of Roatán

Wikipedia  Paintings: Washington Crossing the Delaware, by Emanuel Leutz; Battle of the Chesapeake, French (left) and British (right) lines; Battle of Bunker Hill, The Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker Hill by John Trumbull; The Defeat of the Floating Batteries at Gibraltar, September 13, 1782, by John Singleton Copley; Washington and the Comte de Rochambeau at Yorktown, 1781; "The surrender at Saratoga" shows General Daniel Morgan in front of a French de Vallière 4-pounder; Surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown by (John Trumbull, 1797).
Grand Union - Stars and Stripes Flag


March 16th, 1812

Napoleonic Wars: (1803–15) were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions French Revolutionary Wars, Battle of the Nile (Battle of Aboukir Bay): Battle begins when a British fleet engages the French Revolutionary Navy fleet in an unusual night action

French Revolutionary Wars / Napoleonic Wars:
1812 - Peninsular War; Battle of Badajoz (March 16 – April 6) - British and Portuguese forces besieged and defeated French garrison.

Wikipedia  Painting: Battle of Trafalgar: The British HMS Sandwich fires to the French flagship Bucentaure (completely dismasted) in the battle of Trafalgar; Napoleon in Berlin (Meynier). After defeating Prussian forces at Jena, the French Army entered Berlin on 27 October 1806; Battle of the Bridge of Arcole Napoleon Bonaparte leading his troops over the bridge of Arcole, by Horace Vernet; Napoleon as King of Italy (Appiani); Napoleon Crossing the Alps (David). In 1800 Bonaparte took the French Army across the Alps, eventually defeating the Austrians at Marengo; Charge of the Russian Imperial Guard cavalry against French cuirassiers at the Battle of Friedland, 14 June 1807; Battle of Borodino as depicted by Louis Lejeune. The battle was the largest and bloodiest single-day action of the Napoleonic Wars; Napoleon's withdrawal from Russia, a painting by Adolph Northen; Wellington at Waterloo by Robert Alexander Hillingford; Napoleon is often represented in his green colonel uniform of the Chasseur à Cheval, with a large bicorne and a hand-in-waistcoat gesture.
Battle of the Nile (Battle of Aboukir Bay).


March 16th, 1818

Argentina: Buenos Aires, capital and largest city of Argentina; ● Perito Moreno Glacier Patagonia Argentina ● Iguazu Falls (Iguazu River forms the boundary between Argentina and Brazil) Argentina: Buenos Aires, capital and largest city of Argentina; ● Perito Moreno Glacier Patagonia Argentina ● Iguazu Falls (Iguazu River forms the boundary between Argentina and Brazil)

Argentine War of Independence:
1818 - Second Battle of Cancha Rayada; Spanish forces defeat Chileans under José de San Martín.

Wikipedia  Photo: Buenos Aires, capital and largest city of Argentina; ● Perito Moreno Glacier Patagonia Argentina ● Iguazu Falls (Iguazu River forms the boundary between Argentina and Brazil).
Crossing of the Andes ● Battle of Salta ● 22 May 1810 Open Cabildo ● Battle of San Lorenzo ● Battle of Suipacha ● 1813 Assembly ● Shooting of Liniers ● Jujuy Exodus.


March 16th, 1861

Lincoln Memorial: an American national monument built to honor the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln - located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. across from the Washington Monument American Civil War: Battle of Antietam; Stone Bridge at Antietam Battlefield - Sharpsburg, Maryland American Civil War: American Civil War: First Battle Between Ironclads; CSS Virginia/Merrimac (left) vs. USS Monitor, in 1862 at the Battle of Hampton Roads

American Civil War:
1861 - Edward Clark becomes Governor of Texas, replacing Sam Houston, who has been evicted from the office for refusing to take an oath of loyalty to the Confederacy.
1865 - Battle of Averasborough; begins as Confederate forces suffer irreplaceable casualties in the final months of the war.

Wikipedia  Image: ● Lincoln Memorial; an American national monument built to honor the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln - located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. across from the Washington Monument.
● The northern army led by George McClellan and the southern army led by Robert E. Lee met at Antietam Creek, Maryland in September, 1862. It was a bloody battle where 13,000 Confederates and 12,000 Union troops died in just one day. McClellan had hesitated to attack before the battle thus letting the southern troops regroup. Also, he had saved reserves and refused to use them at the end of the battle thinking that Lee was holding reserves for a counterattack, even though those reserves didn't exist. The Union victory stopped Lee's northward advance and was a turning point in the war.
Battle of Antietam / Stone Bridge at Antietam Battlefield - Sharpsburg, Maryland
● First Battle Between Ironclads: CSS Virginia/Merrimac (left) vs. USS Monitor, in 1862 at the Battle of Hampton Roads.
Although photography was still in its infancy, war correspondents produced thousands of images, bringing the harsh realities of the frontlines to those on the home front in a new and visceral way. The Atlantic.


March 16th, 1916

Mexican Revolution Collage: (Spanish: Revolución mexicana) was a major armed struggle that started in 1910, with an uprising led by Francisco I. Madero against longtime autocrat Porfirio Díaz, and lasted for the better part of a decade until around 1920

Mexican Revolution: The 7th and 10th U.S. cavalry regiments under John J. Pershing crossed the US-Mexico border to join the hunt for Pancho Villa.

Wikipedia  Photo: Satellite view of Mexico; American forces at Veracruz; Pancho Villa And Army; Peasant soldiers patrol the town of Tampico during the Mexican Revolution; Zapata's soldiers breakfast at Sanborns, Mexico City, 1914.


March 16th, 1935

World War II: Second firestorm raid on Germany, the Royal Air Force conducts an air raid on the town of Kassel, killing 10,000 and rendering 150,000 homeless World War II: Battle of Leyte Gulf; Battle of Leyte Gulf; The first kamikaze attack: A Japanese plane carrying a 200-kilogram (440 lb) bomb attacks HMAS Australia off Leyte Island World War II: German V1 flying-bomb and V2 Rockets - Preparations for a Salvo Launch of V-2 Rockets in the Heidelager near Blizna (Poland) (1944) World War II: Eastern Front (World War II); was a theatre of World War II between the European Axis powers and co-belligerent Finland against the Soviet Union, Poland, and some other Allies which encompassed Northern, Southern and Eastern Europe from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945 World War II: Battle of Iwo Jima - World War II Memorial, Fall River, Massachusetts, © James Wellman Photography

Pre-World War II:
1935 - Adolf Hitler ordered Germany to rearm herself in violation of the Treaty of Versailles. Conscription is reintroduced to form the Wehrmacht. World War II:
1939 - From Prague Castle, Hitler proclaimed Bohemia and Moravia a German protectorate.
1940 - First person killed in a German bombing raid on the UK in World War II during a raid on Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands, James Isbister.
1942 - The first V-2 rocket test launch. It exploded at lift-off.
1945 - Battle of Iwo Jima; ended, but small pockets of Japanese resistance persist.
1945 - Ninety percent of Würzburg;, Germany is destroyed in only 20 minutes by British bombers. 5,000 are killed.

Wikipedia  Photo: Bombing of Dresden in World War II; August Schreitmüller's sculpture 'Goodness' surveys Dresden after a firestorm started by Allied bombers in 1945. USS Bunker Hill was hit by kamikazes piloted by Ensign Kiyoshi Ogawa and another airman on 11 May 1945. 389 personnel were killed or missing from a crew of 2,600; Ensign Kiyoshi Ogawa, who flew his aircraft into the USS Bunker Hill during a Kamikaze mission on 11 May 1945; Kamikaze Missions - Lt Yoshinori Yamaguchi's Yokosuka D4Y3 (Type 33 Suisei) "Judy" in a suicide dive against USS Essex. The dive brakes are extended and the non-self-sealing port wing tank is trailing fuel vapor and/or smoke 25 November 1944.
German V1 flying-bomb and V2 Rockets - Preparations for a Salvo Launch of V-2 Rockets in the Heidelager near Blizna (Poland) (1944), credit German History in Documents and Images GHDI.

Eastern Front (World War II); Germans race towards Stalingrad. August 1942; Soviet children during a German air raid in the first days of the war, June 1941, by RIA Novosti archive; Soviet sniper Roza Shanina in 1944. About 400,000 Soviet women served in front-line duty units Caucasus Mountains, winter 1942/43; Finnish ski patrol: the invisible enemy of the Soviet Army with an unlimited supply of skis; Men of the German Engineers Corps cross a river which is swollen after the first autumn rains, to strengthen bridges linking the German positions on the central front in Russia. by Keystone / Getty Images. October 1942; Russian snipers fighting on the Leningrad front during a blizzard. Photo by Hulton Archive / Getty Images, 1943; German soldiers surrendering to the Russians in Stalingrad, the soldier holding the white flag of surrender is dressed in white so that there could be no doubt of his intentions, a Russian soldier is on the right of the photograph. by Keystone / Getty Images, January 1943.
Battle of Iwo Jima World War II Memorial, Fall River, Massachusetts, © James Wellman Photography.


March 16th, 1958

The Ford Motor Company produced its 50 millionth automobile, the Thunderbird, averaging almost a million cars a year since the company's founding

The Ford Motor Company produced its 50 millionth automobile, the Thunderbird, averaging almost a million cars a year since the company's founding.

Wikipedia  Photo: Thunderbird; 1955-1957 "Classic Two-Seat Thunderbird" ● 2002 Ford Thunderbird.


March 16th, 1962

Airliners Crash: ● Pan AM 747 ● U.S. Airways flight 1549 also known as the 'Miracle on the Hudson' navigates an exit ramp near Burlington, New Jersey, June 5, 2011 ● Passengers stand on the wings of a U.S. Airways plane as a ferry pulls up to it after it landed in the Hudson River in New York, Reuters ● US Airways plane crashes into New York Hudson River, Photo: AP

Aviation accidents and incidents:
1962 - A Flying Tiger Line Super Constellation disappeared in the western Pacific Ocean, with 107 missing.

Wikipedia  Photo: ● Pan AM 747 ● U.S. Airways flight 1549 also known as the "Miracle on the Hudson" navigates an exit ramp near Burlington, New Jersey, June 5, 2011 ● Passengers stand on the wings of a U.S. Airways plane as a ferry pulls up to it after it landed in the Hudson River in New York, Reuters ● US Airways plane crashes into New York Hudson River, Photo: AP


March 16th, 1988

Iran-Contra Affair: Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, December 22, 1986; Oliver North testifying at the Iran-Contra hearings in Washington, D.C., 1987

Iran-Contra Affair:
1988 - Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North and Vice Admiral John Poindexter are indicted on charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States.

Wikipedia  Photo: Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, December 22, 1986; Oliver North testifying at the Iran-Contra hearings in Washington, D.C., 1987. credit Associated Press.


March 16th, 1988

Iran–Iraq_War: (also known as the First Persian Gulf War and by various other names) was an armed conflict between the armed forces of Iraq and Iran, lasting from September 1980 to August 1988, making it the longest conventional war of the 20th century

Iran–Iraq War:
1988 - Halabja poison gas attack; The Kurdish town of Halabjah in Iraq is attacked with a mix of poison gas and nerve agents on the orders of Saddam Hussein, killing 5000 people and injuring about 10000 people.

Wikipedia  Photo: Iran–Iraq War (also known as the First Persian Gulf War and by various other names) was an armed conflict between the armed forces of Iraq and Iran, lasting from September 1980 to August 1988, making it the longest conventional war of the 20th century.


March 16th, 2005

Israel officially hands over Jericho to Palestinian control.

Wikipedia  Image: Dwelling foundations unearthed at Tell es-Sultan in Jericho ● Arabic Umayyad mosaic from Hisham's Palace in Jericho ● Roman aqueduct near Jericho ● 14th century map of Jericho in Farchi Bible


March 16th, 2014

Crimea votes in a controversial referendum to secede from Ukraine to join Russia.

Crimean status referendum, 2014: Crimea votes in a controversial referendum to secede from Ukraine to join Russia.

Wikipedia  Photo: Pro-Russian people celebrate in Lenin Square, in Simferopol, Ukraine, Sunday, March 16, 2014. (Associated Press / Vadim Ghirda)


March 16th, 2016

List of modern conflicts in the Middle East

Modern conflicts in the Middle East, social unrest and terrorist attacks:
2016 - Peshawar bus bombing; A bomb detonates in a bus carrying government employees in Peshawar, Pakistan, killing 15 and injuring at least 54.
2016 - Maiduguri suicide bombings; Two suicide bombers detonate their explosives at a mosque during morning prayer on the outskirts of Maiduguri, Nigeria, killing 22 and injuring 18.

Wikipedia  Photo: Middle East satellite image, NASA. ● Camels are seen early morning on a beach in the Marina area of Dubai October 16, 2008. (Steve Crisp, Reuters) ● A portrait of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad burns during clashes between rebels and Syrian troops in Selehattin, near Aleppo, on July 23, 2012. (Bulent Kilic, AFP / GettyImages) ● Egyptians gather in their thousands in Tahrir Square to mark the one year anniversary of the revolution on Jan. 25, 2012 in Cairo Egypt. Tens of thousands have gathered in the square on the first anniversary of the Arab uprising which toppled President Hosni Mubarak. (Jeff J Mitchell, Getty Images) ● Black smoke rises above the Tehran skyline as supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi burn tires and other material in the streets as they fight running battles with police to protest the declared results of the Iranian presidential election in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, June 13, 2009. (Ben Curtis, AP) ● The Iron Dome defense system fires to interecpt incoming missiles from Gaza in the port town of Ashdod, Thursday, Nov. 15, 2012. (Tsafrir Abayov, AP)