Here’s a brief look back in time on this day, March 16. Note: content may be disturbing to some readers.
In 1850, American novelist Nathanial Hawthorne publishes The Scarlett Letter, becoming one of the first written works to be mass-published in the United States. It tells the story of a woman who gives birth out of wedlock, causing her to be permanently marked with the letter “A” (for adultery) on her bosom. She becomes marginalized within her own village due to the act being considered blasphemous; the first chapter even involves her botched execution at the gallows as the villagers demand to know who the father is. Having been born in Salem, Hawthorne’s work contains direct correlations to the Salem Witch Trials despite the events happening a century prior. The novel is still widely read today over 175 years later.
In 1926, the world’s first liquid-propelled rocket is developed by an American physicist named Robert H. Goddard in Worcester, MA. Aviation was still a very new concept during this period, making the mere possibility of space travel very exciting in the field of science. However, records indicate that this launch wasn’t widely publicized. Goddard was allegedly afraid of other inventors stealing his concept. Scientists in Nazi Germany would be the first developers to have a rocket reach space, however.
In 1968, one of the most infamous war crimes committed by the United States armed forces occurs in the Quảng Ngãi province during the Vietnam War. C Company, which was led by Captain Ernest Medina, murdered hundreds of unarmed men, women, and children as part of ongoing search-and-destroy campaigns. U.S. General William Westmoreland demanded more emphasis on body count, no matter whether the target was hostile or not. In response, regiments like C Company began to harm civilians and torch their villages. The actions by C Company was just one example of documented mass murder events in Vietnam. However, the public wouldn’t know about it were it not for the efforts of American journalists Ronald Ridenhour and Seymour Hersh, who broke the story almost two years later in November 1969. In total, around 400-500 civilians were murdered, leaving their corpses to lay in the middle of the streets. This is known as the My Lai massacre.