Today is Monday, March 16, the 75th day of 2009. There are 290 days left in the year.
1190 ― Jews of York England commit mass suicide rather than submit to baptism
1521 ― Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan reaches Philippines
1621 ― Native American chief visits colony of Plymouth, Mass.
1827 ― First U.S. black newspaper, ``Freedom's Journal," begins publishing
1850 ― Nathaniel Hawthorne's ``Scarlet Letter" published
1941 ― Dmitri Shostakovich receives the Stalin Prize
1945 ― U.S. defeats Japan at Iwo Jima
1955 ― President Eisenhower upheld the use of atomic weapons in case of war
1977 ― U.S. President Carter pleads for Palestinian homeland
1978 ― Red Brigade kidnaps former premier Aldo Moro in Italy, five killed