Notable Historical Events on February 16th
February 16th Historical Events
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
374 |
9th recorded perihelion passage of Halley's Comet |
600 |
Pope Gregory the Great decree saying "God bless You" is the correct response to a sneeze |
1249 |
Andrew of Longjumeau is dispatched by Louis IX of France as his ambassador to meet with the Khan of the Mongols. |
1486 |
Diet of Frankfort |
1512 |
Battle at Valeggio: French troops beat Venetianen |
1559 |
Pope Paul IV calls for deposition of sovereigns supporting heresy |
1641 |
English king Charles I accepts Triennial Act |
1646 |
Battle of Great Torrington, Devon - the last major battle of the first English Civil War. |
1659 |
1st known cheque (£400) (on display at Westminster Abbey) |
1666 |
Netherlands & Brandenburg sign treaty |
1677 |
Earl of Shaftesbury arrested and confined in the Tower of London |
1741 |
Benjamin Franklin's General Magazine (2nd US Mag) begins publishing |
1742 |
Earl of Wilmington becomes British premier (First Lord of the Treasury) |
1751 |
1st publication of Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard" |
1760 |
Native American hostages killed in Fort Prince George, SC |
1771 |
Messier presents his original list of 45 M-objects to French Academy |
1777 |
Messier adds M53 to his catalog (globular cluster in Coma Berenice) |
1804 |
Lt Stephen Decatur raids Tripoli Harbor & burns Navy frigate "Philadelphia" after pirates seized it |
1824 |
Athenaeum club founded in London |
1832 |
HMS Beagle/Charles Darwin reaches St-Pauls (1°N, 29°W) |
1838 |
Kentucky passes law permitting women to attend school under conditions |
1838 |
Weenen Massacre: Hundreds of Voortrekkers along the Blaukraans River, Natal are killed by Zulus. |
1840 |
American Charles Wilkes discovers Shackleton Ice Shelf, Antarctica |
1846 |
Battle of Sobraon ends 1st Sikh War in India |
1852 |
Studebaker Brothers wagon company, precursor of the automobile manufacturer, is established. |
1854 |
Franz Liszts symphony "Orpheus," premieres |
1857 |
Gallaudet College (National Deaf Mute college) forms in Washington DC |
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. |
1860 |
Dutch Rochussen/Van Bosse government resigns |
1862 |
Ft Donelson captured by General Ulysses S. Grant (1,400 confederates surrender) |
1864 |
Battle of Mobile, AL - operations by Union Army |
1866 |
Spencer Compton Cavendish, Marquess of Hartington becomes the British Secretary of State for War. |
1868 |
Benevolent & Protective Order of Elks forms (NY) |
1878 |
Silver dollar became US legal tender |
1880 |
American Society of Mechanical Engineers forms (NYC) |
1883 |
"Ladies Home Journal" begins publishing |
1887 |
1st newspaper convention (Rochester NY) |
1887 |
Eduard Douwes Dekker writes his last text (Lf8-c5) |
1892 |
Opera "Werther," premieres in Vienna |
1894 |
British troops occupy Ilorin, Gold Coast |
1899 |
Pelham Warner scores 132 on Test Cricket debut (Eng v SA Johannesburg) |
1899 |
President Félix Faure of France dies in office. |
1899 |
Knattspyrnufélag Reykjavíkur Iceland's first football club is founded. |
1900 |
1st Chinese daily newspaper in US publishes (Chung Sai Yat Po-SF) |
1900 |
Stanley Cup: Montreal Shamrocks beat Winnipeg Victorias, 3 games to 1 |
1903 |
-59°F (-51°C), Pokegama Dam, Minnesota (state record) |
1905 |
1st US Esperanto club organizes in Boston |
1909 |
1st subway car with side doors goes into service (NYC) |
1909 |
Serbia mobilizes against Austria-Hungary |
1912 |
VSV soccer team forms in Ijmuiden |
1913 |
President Taft agrees not to intervene in Mexico |
1914 |
1st airplane flight from LA to SF |
1915 |
Frank Home Run Baker, 28, announces retirement following a contract dispute with Connie Mack. He sits out 1915 season |
1916 |
Russian troops conquer the Ottoman Empire city of Erzurum during WWI |
1916 |
The US rejects the right of Germany and Austria-Hungary to sink armed merchant ships |
1916 |
The German ambassador in Washington announces that Germany will pay an indemnity for American lives lost on the Lusitania |
1917 |
1st synagogue in 425 years opens in Madrid |
1918 |
Lithuania declares independence from Russia & Germany (National Day) |
1923 |
Allies accept Latvia's occupation of Memel territory |
1923 |
Howard Carter opens the inner burial chamber of the Pharaoh Tutankhamen's tomb and finds the sarcophagus |
1923 |
US female Figure Skating championship won by Theresa Weld Blanchard |
1923 |
US male Figure Skating championship won by Sherwin Badger |
1926 |
Suzanne Lenglen defeats Helen Wills in Tennis at Cannes France |
1927 |
Noel Coward's "Marquise," premieres in London |
1927 |
US restores diplomatic relations with Turkey |
1929 |
KID-AM in Idaho Falls ID begins radio transmissions |
1931 |
Extreme right wing Pehr Evind Svinhufvud becomes president of Finland |
1932 |
1st patent issued for a tree, to James Markham for a peach tree |
1933 |
Catholic newspaper Germania warns against nazis/communists |
1933 |
England regains the Ashes, thanks to bodyline tactics |
1934 |
Austrian Civil War ends with the defeat of the Social Democrats and the Republican Schutzbund. |
1934 |
Commission of Government is sworn in as form of direct rule for the Dominion of Newfoundland. |
1936 |
4th Winter Olympic games close at Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany |
1936 |
Spanish Frente Popular (People's Front) wins elections |
1937 |
DuPont Corp patents nylon, developed by employee Wallace H Carothers |
1937 |
Jean Anouilh's "Le Voyageur Sans Baggage," premieres in Paris |
1938 |
US Federal Crop Insurance program authorized |
1940 |
British search plane finds German Altmark off Norway |
1942 |
German submarines attack Aruba oil refinery |
1943 |
-32°F (-36°C), Falls Village, Connecticut (state record) |
1943 |
British premier Winston Churchill gets pneumonia |
1943 |
Red army conquers Kharkov |
1943 |
Withdrawing Afrika Korps reaches Mareth-line in North-Africa |
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 |
1943 |
World War II: The USSR reconquers Kharkov. |
1945 |
US forces land on Corregidor, complete conquest on March 3 |
1945 |
Venezuela declares war on Nazi Germany |
1946 |
"Duchess Misbehaves" closes at Adelphi Theater NYC after 5 perfs |
1946 |
1st commercially designed helicopter tested, Bridgeport Ct |
1947 |
Morton Gould's 3rd Symphony, premieres |
1948 |
1st newsreel telecast, "20th Century Fox-Movietone News" shown on NBC |
1948 |
Miranda, famous moon of Uranus, photographed for 1st time |
1950 |
Longest-running prime-time game show, "What's My Line" begins on CBS |
1950 |
Writers fail to elect anyone to Baseball's Hall of Fame |
1951 |
NYC passes bill prohibiting racism in city-assisted housing |
1951 |
SF City Hall dome fire |
1952 |
Hall of Famer Honus Wagner, 77, retires; Pirates retire his #33 |
1952 |
Ian Craig makes NSW cricket debut aged 16 years 249 days (NSW record) |
1953 |
Ted Williams safely crash-lands his damaged Panther jet, later awarded the Air medal |
1954 |
WNEM TV channel 5 in Bay City, MI (NBC) begins broadcasting |
1957 |
The "Toddlers' Truce", a controversial television closedown between 6.00pm and 7.00pm was abolished in the United Kingdom. |
1958 |
Betsy Rawls wins LPGA St Petersburg Golf Open |
1959 |
Fidel Castro names himself Cuba's premier after overthrowing Batista |
1959 |
Leonard Spigelgass' "Majority of One," premieres in NYC |
1960 |
US nuclear submarine USS Triton set off on underwater round-world trip |
1961 |
1st all-solid-propellant rocket put in orbit, Wallops Island, Va |
1961 |
China uses its 1st nuclear reactor |
1961 |
US satellite Explorer 9 is launched |
1962 |
Darius Milhaud's 12th Symphony, premieres |
1962 |
US Open Tennis: Jimmy Bostwick defeats brother Pete to win |
1963 |
1st round-trip swim of Strait of Messina, Italy (Mary Revell of US) |
1963 |
Beatles top British rock charts with "Please, Please Me" |
1963 |
C & A Building in Amsterdam burns down |
1963 |
North Carolina forward Billy Cunningham grabs a record 27 rebounds in a game vs Clemson |
1964 |
"Foxy" opens at Ziegfeld Theater NYC for 72 performances |
1964 |
Beatles' 2nd appearance on "Ed Sullivan Show" |
1965 |
"Baker Street" opens at Broadway Theater NYC for 313 performances |
1965 |
Pegasus 1 launched to detect micro-meteors |
1966 |
Bob Cowper makes 307 v England at the MCG, 727 mins, 20 fours |
1966 |
End of Wally Grout's Test Cricket career, 187 dismissals as Aust WK |
1966 |
France performs underground nuclear test at Ecker Algeria |
1967 |
Red Ruffing selected to Hall of Fame |
1968 |
US 1st 911 phone system went into service in Haleyville, Ala |
1968 |
Elvis Presley receives gold record for "How Great Thou Art" |
1968 |
Beatles George Harrison, John Lennon and their wifes fly to India for transcendental meditation study with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi |
1970 |
Joe Frazier TKOs Jimmy Ellis in 5 for heavyweight boxing title |
1972 |
German mass murderers "Three of Breda" freed |
1972 |
Test Cricket debut of Lawrence Rowe WI v NZ Kingston, 214 & 100 |
1972 |
Wilt Chamberlain hit 30,000 point mark during a game with Phoenix Suns |
1973 |
WI v Australia at Kingston, 1st time since 1955 without Sobers |
1975 |
Washington Capitals 1st NHL shutout, beating KC Scouts 3-0 |
1977 |
USSR performs nuclear test at Sary Shagan |
1978 |
1st Computer Bulletin Board System (Ward & Randy's CBBS, Chicago) |
1979 |
George Harrison releases "Blow Away" |
1979 |
USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk |
1980 |
Continuous traffic jam extends 176 km north of Lyons, France |
1980 |
Eric Heiden skates 5k in 7:02.29 (Olympic Record) |
1982 |
Agatha Barbara elected as 1st female president of Malta |
1982 |
Assembled STS-3 vehicle moves from Vandenberg AFB to launch pad |
1983 |
The Ash Wednesday bushfires in Victoria and South Australia claim the lives of 75 people in Australia's worst ever fires. |
1984 |
Bill Johnson becomes 1st American to win Olympic downhill skiing gold |
1984 |
NJ Devils 1st OT goal, Jan Ludvig beats Hartford Whalers 6-5 |
1985 |
Largest NBA crowd to date, 43,816, sees Phila at Detroit |
1985 |
Livingston Bramble defeats Ray "Boom Boom" Mancini to win WBA champ |
1985 |
NJ Devils score their fastest hat trick in 42 seconds |
1985 |
The founding of Hezbollah. |
1986 |
"Uptown... It's Hot!" closes at Lunt-Fontanne NYC after 24 perfs |
1986 |
French air force bombs Ouadi Doum airport in Chad |
1986 |
Hein Vergeer becomes world champion skater |
1986 |
Karlstad skates world record 10 km (14:12.14) |
1986 |
Mario Soares (Socialist) elected Portugal's 1st civilian pres |
1987 |
John Demjanjuk, accused of being "Ivan the Terrible" trial begins |
1988 |
1st documented combat action by US military advisors in El Salvador |
1989 |
Egypt, Iraq, Jordan & North Yemen form common market |
1989 |
Orel Hershiser, Dodger pitcher signs $7.9M-3 year contract |
1989 |
Roger Clemens, Red Sox pitcher signs $7.5M-3 year contract |
1989 |
William Hayden becomes governor-general of Australia |
1991 |
Dutch PPR, Political Party Radicals, disbands |
1991 |
US female Figure Skating championship won by Tonya Harding |
1992 |
Former silver Goodyear blimps are now painted yellow & blue |
1992 |
LA Lakers retire Magic Johnson's #32 uniform |
1993 |
Sandra Völker swims world record 50m backstroke (28.33 sec) |
1993 |
Western Australia's and Australia's first woman Premier, Carmen Lawrence, is voted out of office. |
1994 |
6.5 earthquake strikes SE Sumatra, kills 200 |
1994 |
Johann Olav Koss skates world record 1500m (1:51.29) |
1994 |
Premier Alfonso Bustamente ends government in Peru |
1996 |
Gary Kirsten scores 188* for South Africa v UAE at Rawalpindi |
1997 |
At age 25, Jeff Gordon is youngest winner in Daytona 500 history |
1997 |
GTE Suncoast Senior Golf Classic |
1997 |
Paul Stankowski wins Hawaiian Golf Open |
1997 |
Terry-Jo Myers wins LPGA Los Angeles Women's Championship |
1998 |
Tellabs Inc acquires Coherent Communications Systems for $670 million |
1999 |
O.J. Simpson's 1968 Heisman Trophy is sold for $230,000 to help settle a $33.5 million civil judgement against Simpson for the deaths of his ex-wife and her friend |
1999 |
Across Europe, Kurdish rebels take over embassies and hold hostages after Turkey arrested one of their rebel leaders, Abdullah Öcalan. |
2003 |
Michael Waltrip wins motor racing's Daytona 500 after rain stops the race for a second time at lap 109 |
2004 |
The Pittsburgh Penguins lose their 12th consecutive home game, a NHL record |
2005 |
2004-05 NHL season is canceled by league commissioner Gary Bettman. This was the first time that a North American professional sports league had to cancel a season due to a labor dispute |
2005 |
The Kyoto Protocol comes into force, following its ratification by Russia. |
2005 |
The UK version of "The Apprentice" with British business magnate Alan Sugar premieres on the BBC |
2006 |
The last Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH) is decommissioned by the United States Army. |
2013 |
Angelina Jolie undergoes a preventive double mastectomy after learning she had an 87% risk of developing breast cancer due to a defective BRCA1 gene |
2013 |
84 people are killed and 190 are injured after a market bombing in Hazara Town, Pakistan |
2013 |
Anthony Carmona is elected President of Trinidad and Tobago |
2013 |
Lionel Messi scores his 14th consecutive goal in La Liga and his 300th goal in 365 appearances for Barcelona |
2014 |
67th British Academy Film Awards: 12 Years a Slave, Chiwetel Ejiofor, & Cate Blanchett win |
2017 |
Businesses across US close for 'Day Without Immigrants' |
2017 |
Trump meets Netanyahu, avoids pledge to two-state solution |
2017 |
Puzder Withdraws Nomination to Be Trump's Labor Secretary |
2017 |
Malaysia Arrests Second Woman in Killing of Kim Jong-un's Half Brother |
2018 |
Survivors of Florida high school shooting call for action on gun control |
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