news/notes 2009.03.16

[Born This Day] from [Britannica]
James Madison
Born this day in 1751, James Madison, the fourth U.S. president and an architect of the U.S. Constitution and its ratification, collaborated in the publication of the Federalist papers and sponsored the Bill of Rights.

[On This Day] from [Britannica]
1968: My Lai Massacre
On this day in 1968, during the Vietnam War, U.S. soldiers dispatched on a search-and-destroy mission killed as many as 500 unarmed villagers in the hamlet of My Lai, considered a stronghold of the Viet Cong.