[Amnorix]

March 16.

597 BC. King Nebuchadnezzar the Great, King of Babylon, captures Jerusalem for the first time, displacing Jehoiachin as King and putting in his stead Zedekiah. The Jewish state was then a tributary to Babylon. Zedekiah foments rebellion, allying with the Pharoah of Egypt to try to throw off the Babylonian chains. The Babylonians bring their host, and reportedly besiege Jerusalem for 30 months before capturing it for a second time. As a result, Zedekiah sees his sons put to death before his eyes are put out and he is carried to Babylon in chains to remain in captivity until his death. Jerusalem itself is razed to the ground, the First Temple (a/k/a Solomon's Temple) is destroyed, The Ark of the Covenant is lost to history, and the population of Judah is dispersed amongst the Babylonian Empire.

1521. Ferdinand Magellan, having gone through the Straits now named after him, arrives in the Phillipines -- the first European to do so -- where he is soon to die, never having completed the round-the-world voyage for which he is famous.

1621. Samoset, a Native American, makes first contact with the pilgrims at Plymouth, Massachusetts.

1812. British and Portugese forces besieging French troops in the city of Badajoz, Spain, finally win. After a long and arduous siege, the British troops under Wellington completely lose military discipline, sacking, pillaging and raping the city for the next three days.

1861. Edward Clark becomes governor of Texas, replacing Sam Houston who was ousted from office for refusing to take an oath of allegiance to the Confederacy.

1935. Adolf Hitler orders Germany to rearm, in violation of the Versailles Treaty. Conscription is reintroduced to bolster the Wehrmacht. The British and French sit on their thumbs like fools.

1968. The My Lai massacre occurs. 350-500 Vietnamese villagers -- men, women and children -- are killed by American troops. Some were sexually assaulted, and others mutilated. Of the 26 soldiers originally charged, only one is convicted, William Calley, and he serves only three years of his lifetime sentence. When the incident comes to light a year later, it has deep repercussions both in the United States, where waning support for the war takes a huge hit, and internationally.

Warrant Officer One Hugh Thompson, Jr., a helicopter pilot from an aero-scout team, witnessed a large number of dead and dying civilians as he began flying over the village — all of them infants, children, women and old men, with no signs of draft-age men or weapons anywhere. Thompson and his crew witnessed an unarmed passive woman kicked and shot at point-blank range by Captain Medina (Medina later claimed that he thought she had a grenade). The crew made several attempts to radio for help for the wounded. They landed their helicopter by a ditch, which they noted was full of bodies and in which there was movement. Thompson asked a sergeant he encountered there (David Mitchell of the 1st Platoon) if he could help get the people out of the ditch, and the sergeant replied that he would "help them out of their misery". Thompson, shocked and confused, had then a conversation with Second Lieutenant Calley, Platoon Leader of 1st Platoon, who claimed to be "just following orders". As the helicopter took off, they saw Mitchell firing into the ditch.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Lai_massacre

The army's effort to suppress the incident goes unpunished.

1984. William Buckley, CIA station chief in Beirut, Lebanon, is kidnapped by Islamic Fundamentalists, and later dies in captivitiy.

1995. Mississippi formally ratifies the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, becoming the last state to directly approve the abolition of slavery and thereby joining the latter half of the 19th century just before the 20th century ends.

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