See what makes February 16 special at Famous Daily.
History, birthdays, holiday, and a quote!
What happened on February 16
- February 16, 0374 9th recorded perihelion passage of Halley's Comet
- February 16, 0600 "Pope Gregory the Great decrees saying ""God bless You"" is the correct response to a sneeze"
- February 16, 1249 Andrew of Longjumeau was dispatched by Louis IX of France as his ambassador to meet with the Khan of the Mongols.
- February 16, 1486 Diet of Frankfort
- February 16, 1512 Battle at Valeggio French troops beat Venetianen
- February 16, 1559 Pope Paul IV calls for deposition of sovereigns supporting heresy
- February 16, 1568 The entire population of the Netherlands - three million people - was sentenced to death by the Roman Catholic Church for heresy; see Eighty Years' War.
- February 16, 1641 English king Charles I accept Triennial Act
- February 16, 1646 "Battle of Great Torrington, Devon - the last major battle of the first English Civil War."
- February 16, 1655 Dutch Grand Pensionary advisor Johan de Witt marries Wendela Bicker
- February 16, 1659 "First known check (œ400), it is now (on display at Westminster Abbey"
- February 16, 1666 Netherlands & Brandenburg sign treaty
- February 16, 1677 Earl of Shaftesbury arrested/confined in London Tower
- February 16, 1741 Benjamin Franklin's General Magazine (2nd US Magazine) begins publishing
- February 16, 1742 Earl of Wilmington becomes British premier
- February 16, 1742 "Spencer Compton, Earl of Wilmington, becomes British Prime Minister."
- February 16, 1746 "Government forces under Lord Louden attempted to capture Prince Charles Edward stewart at Moy Hall but were surprised and routed by a handful of Jacobites. The only death in the Rout of Moy was Duncan Bam MacCrimmon, Hereditory Piper to the MacLeods of Dunvegan, who took the Hanoverian side in the 45."
- February 16, 1760 Native American hostages killed in Ft Prince George SC
- February 16, 1771 Messier presents his original list of 45 M-objects to French Academy
- February 16, 1777 Messier adds M53 to his catalog (globular cluster in Coma Berenice)
- February 16, 1804 First Barbary War: Stephen Decatur leads a raid to burn the pirate-held frigate USS Philadelphia.
- February 16, 1804 "Lieutenant Stephen Decatur, with volunteers from frigate Constitution and schooner Enterprise, enters Tripoli harbor by night in the ketch Intrepid to burn the captured frigate Philadelphia. Decatur's raid succeeds without American losses. England's Lord Nelson calls this ""the most daring act of the age."""
- February 16, 1824 Athenaeum founded
- February 16, 1825 "Explorer John Franklin 1786-1847 leaves England on second expedition, with George Back, John Richardson, and surveyor Edward Kendall, to explore from the Mackenzie Delta"
- February 16, 1838 Kentucky passes law permitting women to attend school under conditions
- February 16, 1838 "Weenen Massacre: Hundreds of Voortrekkers along the Blaukraans River, Natal were killed by Zulus."
- February 16, 1840 "American Charles Wilkes discovers Shackleton Ice Shelf, Antarctica"
- February 16, 1846 Battle of Sobraon ends first Sikh War in India
- February 16, 1852 "Studebaker Brothers wagon company, precursor of the automobile manufacturer, is established."
- February 16, 1857 "The National Deaf Mute College (later renamed Gallaudet University) is established in Washington, DC, becoming the first school for the advanced education of the deaf."
- February 16, 1859 "The French Government passes a law to set the A-note above middle C to a frequency of 435 Hz, in an attempt to standardize the pitch."
- February 16, 1860 Dutch Rochussen/Van Bosse government resigns
- February 16, 1862 "Ft Donelson captured by General Grant (1,400 confederates surrender)"
- February 16, 1864 "Battle of Mobile, AL - operations by Union Army"
- February 16, 1866 "Spencer Compton Cavendish, Marquess of Hartington becomes the British Secretary of State for War"
- February 16, 1868 In New York City the Jolly Corks organization is renamed the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks (BPOE).
- February 16, 1878 The Silver Dollar was introduced as a U.S. coin.
- February 16, 1880 "American Society of Mechanical Engineers founded, New York NY"
- February 16, 1881 In Montreal Quebec George Stephen signs charter and incorporates Canadian Pacific Railway and in 2001 the company said it will break up into it's parts
- February 16, 1883 """Ladies Home Journal"" begins publication"
- February 16, 1899 Knattspyrnuflag Reykjavkur Iceland's first football club is founded.
- February 16, 1899 Pelham Warner scores 132 on Test Cricket debut (England vs South Africa Johannesburg)
- February 16, 1899 President Flix Faure of France dies in office.
- February 16, 1900 The first Chinese daily newspaper in US publishes first issue (Chung Sai Yat Po-San Francisco)
- February 16, 1903 "-59§ F (-51§ C), Pokegama Dam MN (state record)"
- February 16, 1909 Serbia mobilizes against Austria-Hungary
- February 16, 1909 Subway car with side doors goes into service (New York NY)
- February 16, 1913 President Taft agrees not to intervene in Mexico
- February 16, 1914 First airplane flight from to Los Angeles from San Francisco
- February 16, 1916 Russian troops conquer Erzurum Armenia
- February 16, 1917 First synagogue in 425 years opens in Madrid
- February 16, 1918 Lithuania declares independence from Russia & Germany (National Day)
- February 16, 1918 "The Council of Lithuania unanimously adopts the Act of Independence, declaring Lithuania an independent state."
- February 16, 1923 Allies accept Latvia's occupation of Memel territory
- February 16, 1923 Howard Carter unseals the burial chamber of Pharaoh Tutankhamun.
- February 16, 1923 The burial vault of King Tutankhamen's tomb is unsealed in Egypt by Howard Carter
- February 16, 1926 Suzanne Lenglen defeats Helen Wills in Tennis at Cannes France
- February 16, 1927 "No‰l Coward's ""Marquise,"" premieres in London"
- February 16, 1927 US restores diplomatic relations with Turkey
- February 16, 1931 Extreme right wing Svinhufvud becomes President of Finland
- February 16, 1932 "Patent issued for a tree, to James Markham for a peach tree"
- February 16, 1933 Catholic newspaper Germania warns against Nazis/communists
- February 16, 1934 Austrian Civil War ends with the defeat of the Social Democrats and the Republican Schutzbund
- February 16, 1934 Commission of Government sworn in as form of direct rule for the Dominion of Newfoundland.
- February 16, 1936 Elections bring the Popular Front to power in Spain.
- February 16, 1936 Spanish Frente Popular (People's Front) wins elections
- February 16, 1937 "DuPont Corp patents nylon, developed by employee Wallace H Carothers"
- February 16, 1937 Wallace H. Carothers receives a patent for nylon.
- February 16, 1938 US Federal Crop Insurance program authorized
- February 16, 1940 British search plane finds German Altmark off Norway
- February 16, 1940 RCAF's No. 110 Army Cooperation Squadron sails for Britain; first of 48 squadrons to go overseas
- February 16, 1940 World War II: Altmark Incident: The German tanker Altmark is boarded by sailors from the British destroyer HMS Cossack. 299 British prisoners are freed.
- February 16, 1942 German submarines attack Aruba oil refinery
- February 16, 1942 "Massacre of 22 members of the Australian Army Nursing Service and other survivors of the SS Vyner Brooke, on Banka Island, Straits of Sumatra"
- February 16, 1943 "-32§ F (-36§ C), Falls Village CT (state record)"
- February 16, 1943 British premier Winston Churchill gets pneumonia
- February 16, 1943 Red army conquers Kharkov
- February 16, 1943 "Sign on Munich facade ""Out with Hitler! Long live freedom!"" done by ""White Rose"" student group, caught on 2/18, beheaded on 2/22"
- February 16, 1943 Withdrawing Africa Corps reaches Mareth-line in North-Africa
- February 16, 1943 World War II: USSR reconquers Kharkov.
- February 16, 1945 American forces recapture the Bataan Peninsula.
- February 16, 1945 American troops begin their reoccupation of the Philippine island of Corregidor during WWII.
- February 16, 1945 Venezuela declares war on Nazi-Germany
- February 16, 1945 World War II: First American Aircraft carrier strikes on Tokyo.
- February 16, 1946 "First commercially designed helicopter tested, Bridgeport CT"
- February 16, 1947 Canadians granted Canadian citizenship after 80 years of being British subjects. Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King becomes the first Canadian citizen.
- February 16, 1947 "Morton Gould's 3rd Symphony, premieres"
- February 16, 1948 "Miranda, famous moon of Uranus, photographed for first time"
- February 16, 1949 "House of Commons passes the Newfoundland Union Act by a vote of 140-47. Newfoundland officially joins Canada March 31, 1949"
- February 16, 1950 "Longest-running prime-time game show, ""What's My Line"" begins on CBS"
- February 16, 1951 NYC passes bill prohibiting racism in city-assisted housing
- February 16, 1952 Ian Craig makes New South Wales cricket debut aged 16 years 249 days (New South Wales record)
- February 16, 1956 Britain abolishes the death penalty
- February 16, 1957 "The ""Toddlers' Truce"", a controversial television closedown between 6.00pm and 7.00pm was abolished in the United Kingdom"
- February 16, 1957 "UK hist BBC TV started to broadcast Six-Five Special, breaking the 'Toddlers' Truce' of no broadcasting 6-7pm"
- February 16, 1959 Fidel Castro becomes premier of Cuba after overthrowing Batista.
- February 16, 1960 US nuclear submarine USS Triton set off on underwater round-world trip
- February 16, 1961 China uses it's first nuclear reactor
- February 16, 1961 "First all-solid-propellant rocket put in orbit, Wallops Island VA"
- February 16, 1961 US satellite Explorer 9 is launched
- February 16, 1963 C & A Building in Amsterdam burns down
- February 16, 1963 "Please, Please Me, by The Beatles, moves to #1 on the British pop music charts, just a month after it was released."
- February 16, 1964 "Beatles' 2nd appearance on ""Ed Sullivan Show"""
- February 16, 1965 Pegasus 1 launched to detect micro-meteors
- February 16, 1966 "Bob Cowper makes 307 vs England at the MCG, 727 minute s, 20 fours"
- February 16, 1966 "End of Wally Grout's Test Cricket career, 187 dismissals as Australia WK"
- February 16, 1966 France performs underground nuclear test at Ecker Algeria
- February 16, 1967 Number one hit on UK music charts - Petula Clark - This Is My Song
- February 16, 1967 Operation River Raider begins in Mekong Delta
- February 16, 1968 Beatles George Harrison & John Lennon & wives fly to India for transcendental meditation study with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
- February 16, 1968 Country's first 911 phone system went into service in Haleyville AL
- February 16, 1968 "Elvis Presley receives gold record for ""How Great Thou Art"""
- February 16, 1968 "In Haleyville, Alabama the first 9-1-1 emergency telephone system goes into service."
- February 16, 1970 Joe Frazier KOs Jimmy Ellis in 5 for undisputed heavyweight boxing crown
- February 16, 1971 "Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, under opposition attack in the Commons, utters an apparently unparliamentary expression that he later describes as ""fuddle-duddle"" we all know what it really was"
- February 16, 1972 "German mass murderers ""Three of Breda"" freed"
- February 16, 1972 "NBA basketball player Wilt Chamberlain scores 30,000th point."
- February 16, 1973 "West Indies vs Australia at Kingston, first time since 1955 without Sobers"
- February 16, 1973 William Calley's murder conviction for the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam
- February 16, 1978 "The first Computer Bulletin Board System (Ward & Randy's CBBS, Chicago)"
- February 16, 1978 "The first computer bulletin board system is created (CBBS in Chicago, Illinois)."
- February 16, 1980 "Continuous traffic jam extends 176 km north of Lyons, France"
- February 16, 1980 Eric Heiden skates 5k in 7 02.29 (Olympics Record)
- February 16, 1980 Number one hit on UK music charts - Kenny Rogers - Coward Of The County
- February 16, 1982 Agatha Barbara elected as first female President of Malta
- February 16, 1982 Assembled STS-3 vehicle moves from Vandenberg AFB to launch pad
- February 16, 1982 Lee Majors & Farrah Fawcett Majors divorce
- February 16, 1983 The Ash Wednesday bushfires in Victoria and South Australia claim the lives of 71 people in Australia's worst ever fires.
- February 16, 1984 Bill Johnson becomes first American to win Olympics downhill skiing gold
- February 16, 1984 Canada's Brian Orser wins Silver Medal in Figure Skating at the same Olympics; highest Olympic award ever to a Canadian male
- February 16, 1984 In Sarajevo Bosnia Canada's Gaetan Boucher wins second Gold Medal in Speedskating at the 14th Winter Games
- February 16, 1985 "Livingston Bramble defeats Ray ""Boom Boom"" Mancini to win WBA champion"
- February 16, 1985 The founding of Hezbollah.
- February 16, 1986 French air force bombs Ouadi Doum airport in Chad
- February 16, 1986 Hein Vergeer becomes world champion skater
- February 16, 1986 M rio Soares (Socialist) elected Portugal's first civilian president
- February 16, 1986 "The Soviet liner Mikhail Lermontov runs aground in the Marlborough Sounds, New Zealand."
- February 16, 1987 "John Demjanjuk, accused of being ""Ivan the Terrible"" trial begins"
- February 16, 1987 "The trial of John Demjanjuk, accused of being a Nazi guard dubbed ""Ivan the Terrible"" in Treblinka extermination camp, starts in Jerusalem."
- February 16, 1988 First documented combat action by US military advisors in El Salvador
- February 16, 1989 "Egypt, Iraq, Jordan & North Yemen form common market"
- February 16, 1989 Jane Fonda & Tom Hayden separate after 16 years of marriage
- February 16, 1989 William Hayden becomes governor-General of Australia
- February 16, 1991 "Dutch PPR, Political Party Radicals, disbands"
- February 16, 1992 Former silver Goodyear blimps are now painted yellow & blue
- February 16, 1994 "6.5 earthquake strikes SE Sumatra, kills 200"
- February 16, 1994 Over 200 people die as a powerful earthquake rocks the Indonesian island of Sumatra.
- February 16, 1994 Premier Alfonso Bustamente ends government in Peru
- February 16, 1996 Gary Kirsten scores 188 for South Africa vs UAE at Rawalpindi
- February 16, 1997 "At age 25, Jeff Gordon is youngest winner in Daytona 500 history"
- February 16, 1998 A China Airlines Airbus A300-600 crashes at Taipei Airport on Taiwan and hit a house- 202 killed.
- February 16, 1998 Tellabs Inc acquires Coherent Communications Systems for $670 million
- February 16, 1999 "Across Europe, Kurdish rebels take over embassies and hold hostages after Turkey arrested one of their rebel leaders, Abdullah calan."
- February 16, 1999 In Uzbekistan a bomb explodes and gunfire is heard at the government headquarters in an apparent assassination attempt against President Islom Karimov.
- February 16, 1999 "Testimony begins in the Jasper, TX, murder trial of John William King, charged in the dragging death of James Byrd, Jr."
- February 16, 2003 Serbian Wikipedia is born.
- February 16, 2005 "The Kyoto Protocol comes into force, following its ratification by Russia."
- February 16, 2006 The last Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH) is decommissioned by the United States Army.
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