📅 On This Day in Military History

March 16

1 event across history

⚔️📍 My Lai, South Vietnam1968

My Lai Massacre — Vietnam War

U.S. Army soldiers from Charlie Company systematically murdered between 347 and 504 unarmed South Vietnamese civilians, including women, children, and elderly, in the village of My Lai. Lieutenant William Calley ordered the killings; other soldiers refused to participate or attempted to stop them.

When the massacre was exposed 18 months later, it became the defining atrocity of the Vietnam War and turned many Americans against the conflict.

Outcome

347–504 civilians killed; Calley convicted, later pardoned