16 MARCH

1521 - Portuguese-born explorer for the Spanish crown Ferdinand Magellan sights the first islands of the archipelago of San Lazaro, what will later be called the Philippines; his ship will later successively land at the at the islands of Gada, Seilani, and Mazava, and pass by or anchor at Matan(=Mactan), Subu(=Cebu), Baibai(=Baybay), will pass by Panilongo and will anchor at Bohol.

1953 - Yugoslavia's leader, Marshal Josef Tito, arrives in Britain in the first ever visit of a Communist head of state to the Western country; Tito, who has developed his own form of communism independent of the USSR, has travelled by sea in the Yugoslavian Vessel Galeb (Seagull) in the bid to strengthen the ties of the two nations.

1968 - American soldiers brutally kill between 200 and 500 unarmed civilians at My Lai, a hamlet in South Vietnam, during the Vietnam War; the US soldiers had entered My Lai during an operation against forces of the Viet Cong but even when they found unarmed villagers, majority of whom were women, children, and old men, the Americans nonetheless raped, tortured and killed the Vietnamese.

1988 - At least 3,200 are reported to have been killed and some 7,000 injured in a poison gas attack on a Kurdish city in the northern region of Iraq; around 20 aircraft that might have dropped mustard gas and nerve agents tabun, sarin, and VX have been seen overhead in Halabja in an attack that followed major developments during the Iran-Iraq War.