This day in history - March 16

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1881 - The Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus performed for the first time.

1926 - Robert Goddard launched the first successful liquid-fuel rocket.

Goddard had been fascinated by rockets his entire life. A professor of physics at Clark University, he developed his rockets with grants from private foundations.

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Goddard single-handedly invented the precursors of missiles and rockets capable of leaving the atmosphere. The U.S. government was uninterested until after WW II, but the Germans used his work as the basis of the V-2 missile.

Goddard should be as famous as the Wright Brothers, but for some reason he isn't.

1968 - The My Lai massacre took place in Vietnam.

1978 - The Red Brigades kidnapped former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro, beginning a 55-day worldwide drama. This event and other left-wing terrorist incidents took place at a time when the Communist Party held one-third of the seats in the Italian parliament, and communist takeovers were a realistic possibility in several countries.

1984 - William Buckley, the CIA chief in Beirut, was kidnapped by terrorists associated with Hezbollah.

1985 - Terry Anderson, the chief Middle East correspondent for Associated Press, was kidnapped by terrorists associated with Hezbollah. He was in captivity for over five years.

- Jim