March 16

Samoset greeting the Pilgrims

• 597 BC – Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II captured Jerusalem and installed Zedekiah as King of Judah.
• 1621 – Samoset, a member of the Abenaki tribe, walked into Plymouth Colony and greeted the Pilgrims in English (depicted).
• 1960 – African American civil rights activists in Savannah, Georgia, conducted a sit-in, commencing the Savannah Protest Movement.
• 2001 – A series of bomb blasts in the city of Shijiazhuang, China, killed 108 people.
• 2002 – Sofia Gubaidulina's Johannes-Ostern was premiered in Hamburg, together with her Johannes-Passion, by soloists, choirs and orchestras from the Mariinsky Theatre and the NDR.

Smiljan Radić Clarke

• The Winter Paralympics close in northern Italy.
• Chilean Smiljan Radić Clarke (pictured) is awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize.
• In cricket, the Men's T20 World Cup concludes with India defeating New Zealand in the final.
• Mojtaba Khamenei is elected Supreme Leader of Iran following the assassination of his father, Ali Khamenei.
• Flooding in Kenya leaves at least 43 people dead.

Advertisement for the film

Yan Ruisheng is a 1921 Chinese silent film directed by Ren Pengnian, starring Chen Shouzi and Wang Caiyun. A docudrama based on the murder of Wang Lianying the previous year, it follows a young man named Yan Ruisheng who kills a courtesan to steal her jewellery. When the crime is discovered, he and his accomplices flee, but Yan is captured and executed. China's first full-length feature film, Yan Ruisheng was produced as domestic short films were becoming increasingly common. It emphasized accuracy to real life in its casting and setting; the stars were chosen based on their physical resemblance to those involved, while extensive use of location shooting allowed scenes to be set in places associated with the murder. A commercial success upon release, the critical reception of its technical aspects was positive but the subject matter was challenged and the film faced several calls for banning. The film is thought to be lost. (Full article...)

Shorty Gallagher

• ... that there was a decades-long search for a photograph of Shorty Gallagher (pictured)?
• ... that, by establishing diplomatic missions like an embassy in Fiji, the Philippine government hopes to play a bigger role in international politics?
• ... that the head of one piano department called Lucie Stern "the rarest talent of any child I ever heard"?
• ... that a carnival group in Brazil plays songs by the Beatles in carnival march rhythms?
• ... that Francisco Batista, the brother of ousted president Fulgencio Batista, fled to the Palm Beach Biltmore immediately after the Cuban Revolution and stated "We'll be back after the trouble is over"?
• ... that a review of Chronicles from the Siege called it "a meditation on the endurance and fragmentation of Palestinian life under siege"?
• ... that the Shaker leader Rebecca Landon said in 1842 that she experienced a vision that warned that the United States would face divine judgment for practicing slavery?
• ... that a 2018 data breach at British Airways was traced to just 22 lines of injected JavaScript on its payment pages?
• ... that in 1988 a young nun was kidnapped from her convent by her own family?