TODAY IN HISTORY: FEBRUARY 16

 

February 16

 

1249 – Andrew of Longjumeau is dispatched by Louis IX of France as his ambassador to meet with the Khagan of the Mongol Empire.

1270 – Grand Duchy of Lithuania defeats the Livonian Order in the Battle of Karuse.

1630 – Dutch forces led by Hendrick Lonck capture Olinda in what was to become part of Dutch Brazil.

1646 – Battle of Torrington, Devon: The last major battle of the First English Civil War.

1699 – First Leopoldine Diploma is issued by the Holy Roman Emperor, recognizing the Greek Catholic clergy enjoyed the same privileges as Roman Catholic priests in the Principality of Transylvania.

1742 – Spencer Compton, Earl of Wilmington, becomes British Prime Minister.

1796 – Colombo in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) falls to the British, completing their invasion of Ceylon.

1804 – First Barbary War: Stephen Decatur leads a raid to burn the pirate-held frigate USS Philadelphia.

1862 – American Civil War: General Ulysses S. Grant captures Fort Donelson, Tennessee.

1866 – Spencer Compton Cavendish, Marquess of Hartington becomes British Secretary of State for War.

1881 – The Canadian Pacific Railway is incorporated by Act of Parliament at Ottawa (44th Vic., c.1).

1899 – Iceland's first football club, Knattspyrnufélag Reykjavíkur, is founded.

1900 – The Southern Cross expedition led by Carsten Borchgrevink achieved a new Farthest South of 78° 50'S, making the first landing at the Great Ice Barrier.

1918 – The Council of Lithuania unanimously adopts the Act of Independence, declaring Lithuania an independent state.

1923 – Howard Carter unseals the burial chamber of Pharaoh Tutankhamun.

1930 – The Romanian Football Federation joins FIFA.

1934 – The Austrian Civil War ends with the defeat of the Social Democrats and the Republikanischer Schutzbund.

1936 – The Popular Front wins the 1936 Spanish general election.

1937 – Wallace H. Carothers receives a United States patent for nylon.

1940 – World War II: Altmark incident: The German tanker Altmark is boarded by sailors from the British destroyer HMS Cossack. A total of 299 British prisoners are freed.

1942 – World War II: In Athens, the Greek People's Liberation Army is established

1942 – World War II: Attack on Aruba, first World War II German shots fired on a land based object in the Americas.

1943 – World War II: In the early phases of the Third Battle of Kharkov, Red Army troops re-enter the city.

1945 – World War II: American forces land on Corregidor Island in the Philippines.

1945 – The Alaska Equal Rights Act of 1945, the first anti-discrimination law in the United States, was signed into law.

1959 – Fidel Castro becomes Premier of Cuba after dictator Fulgencio Batista was overthrown on January 1.

1960 – The U.S. Navy submarine USS Triton begins Operation Sandblast, setting sail from New London, Connecticut, to begin the first submerged circumnavigation of the globe.

1961 – Explorer program: Explorer 9 (S-56a) is launched.

1962 – The Great Sheffield Gale impacts the United Kingdom, killing nine people; the city of Sheffield is devastated, with 150,000 homes damaged.

1962 – Flooding in the coastal areas of West Germany kills 315 and destroys the homes of about 60,000 people.

1968 – In Haleyville, Alabama, the first 9-1-1 emergency telephone system goes into service.

1968 – Civil Air Transport Flight 010 crashes near Shongshan Airport in Taiwan, killing 21 of the 63 people on board and one more on the ground.

1978 – The first computer bulletin board system is created (CBBS in Chicago).

1983 – The Ash Wednesday bushfires in Victoria and South Australia kill 75.

1985 – Hezbollah is founded.

1986 – The Soviet liner MS Mikhail Lermontov runs aground in the Marlborough Sounds, New Zealand.

1986 – China Airlines Flight 2265 crashes into the Pacific Ocean near Penghu Airport in Taiwan, killing all 13 aboard.

1991 – Nicaraguan Contras leader Enrique Bermúdez is assassinated in Managua.

1996 – A Chicago-bound Amtrak train, the Capitol Limited, collides with a MARC commuter train bound for Washington, D.C., killing 11 people.

1998 – China Airlines Flight 676 crashes into a road and residential area near Chiang Kai-shek International Airport in Taiwan, killing all 196 aboard and seven more on the ground.

2000 – Emery Worldwide Airlines Flight 17 crashes near Sacramento Mather Airport in Rancho Cordova, California, killing all three aboard.

2005 – The Kyoto Protocol comes into force, following its ratification by Russia.

2005 – The National Hockey League cancels the entire 2004–05 regular season and playoffs.

2006 – The last Mobile army surgical hospital (MASH) is decommissioned by the United States Army.

2013 – A bomb blast at a market in Hazara Town, Quetta, Pakistan kills more than 80 people and injures 190 others.

2021 – Five thousand people gathered in the town of Kherrata, Bejaia Province to mark the two year anniversary of the Hirak protest movement. Demonstrations had been suspended because of the COVID-19 pandemic in Algeria.