Historical Events on February 16

Events 1 - 200 of 212

• 374 9th recorded perihelion passage of Halley's Comet
• 600 Pope Gregory the Great decrees 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 Maximilian I is elected King of the Romans at Frankfurt
• 1512 Battle at Valeggio: French troops beat Venetianen
• 1559 Pope Paul IV calls for deposition of sovereigns supporting heresy

• 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

• 1751 1st publication of Thomas Gray's poem "Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard"
• 1760 Native American hostages killed in Fort Prince George, South Carolina
• 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 US Navy Lt Stephen Decatur raids Tripoli Harbor & burns Navy frigate "Philadelphia" after pirates seized it
• 1824 Athenaeum club founded in London
• 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 Zulu warriors

• 1846 Battle of Sobraon ends 1st Sikh War in India
• 1852 Studebaker Brothers wagon company, precursor of the automobile manufacturer, is established.

• 1857 Gallaudet College (National Deaf Mute college) forms in Washington, D.C.
• 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

• 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)
• 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" by Jules Massenet 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 of France Félix Faure 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, San Francisco)
• 1900 Stanley Cup, Montreal Arena, Westmount, Quebec: Montreal Shamrocks beat Winnipeg Victorias, 5-4 to take challenge series, 3-1
• 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

• 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 US Ladies' Figure Skating championship won by Theresa Weld Blanchard
• 1923 US Men's Figure Skating championship won by Sherwin Badger
• 1926 Suzanne Lenglen defeats US champion Helen Wills in influential tennis match in 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 for a tree issued to James Markham for a peach tree
• 1933 Catholic newspaper Germania warns against Nazis and 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 Spanish Frente Popular (People's Front) wins elections
• 1936 IV Winter Olympic Games close in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany
• 1937 DuPont Corp patents nylon, developed by employee Wallace 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 supply ship Altmark, used to accommodate aliied sailors from vessles sunk by the Graf Spee, off Norway
• 1942 German submarines attack Aruba oil refinery
• 1942 Bangka Island massacre: Japanese soldiers machine-gun 22 Australian Army nurses and 60 Australian and British soldiers and crew members from two sunken ships. Only one nurse and two soldiers survive.
• 1943 -32°F (-36°C), Falls Village, Connecticut (state record)

• 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 "The Duchess Misbehaves" closes at Adelphi Theater NYC after 5 performances
• 1946 1st commercially designed helicopter tested, Bridgeport, Connecticut
• 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 San Francisco City Hall dome fire
• 1952 Ian Craig makes NSW cricket debut aged 16 years 249 days (NSW record)
• 1952 United States goes 1-2 in the 500m speed skating at the Olso Winter Olympics with Ken Henry taking gold ahead of team mate Don McDermott; Norwegian Hjalmar Anderson dominates remaining 3 speed skating events

• 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, abolished in the United Kingdom

• 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, Virginia
• 1961 China uses its 1st nuclear reactor
• 1961 US satellite Explorer 9 is launched
• 1962 Darius Milhaud's 12th Symphony premieres
• 1962 "La Jetée", French film directed by Chris Marker, starring Hélène Chatelain, Davos Hanich and Jacques Ledoux, is released
• 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

• 1964 "Foxy" opens at Ziegfeld Theater NYC for 72 performances

• 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 Australian wicketkeeper
• 1966 France performs underground nuclear test at Ecker, Algeria
• 1967 Red Ruffing selected to Hall of Fame
• 1968 US 1st 911 phone system goes into service in Haleyville, Alabama

• 1968 Italy completes the bobsleigh double at the Grenoble Winter Olympics with victory in the 4-man; Eugenio Monti and Luciano de Paolis double up for gold winning 2-man earlier
• 1969 Detroit Red Wings' captain Alex Delvecchio picks up an assist in a 6-2 defeat at Minnesota to become the 3rd player in NHL history to score 1,000 career points
• 1969 "Andrei Rublev", Russian film directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, starring Anatoly Solonitsyn and Ivan Lapikov, premieres in Moscow after a limited release in 1966

• 1972 German mass murderers "Three of Breda" freed
• 1972 Test Cricket debut of Lawrence Rowe WI v NZ Kingston, 214 & 100

• 1973 West Indies v Australia at Kingston, 1st time since 1955 without Gary Sobers
• 1975 Washington Capitals 1st NHL shutout, beating KC Scouts 3-0
• 1975 17th Daytona 500: Benny Parsons wins after Cale Yarborough sends race leader David Pearson spinning on the backstretch; Parsons avoids the accident and takes the victory
• 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
• 1979 Los Angeles premiere of Paul Schrader's allegedly fact based film "Hardcore"
• 1980 Continuous traffic jam extends 176 km north of Lyons, France
• 1980 American speed skater Eric Heiden wins 5,000m in Olympic record 7:02.29; second of record 5 gold medal sweep of events at Lake Placid
• 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 one of 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
• 1984 Swedish cross country skier Gunde Svan takes his 2nd gold medal of the Sarajevo Winter Olympics in the 4 x 10k relay; also wins 15k gold
• 1984 Swedish cross country skier Thomas Wassberg wins 2nd career gold medal in 4 x 10k relay at Sarajevo Winter Olympics; 2nd of 4 career gold; 15k Lake Placid (1980), 50k Sarajevo, relay Calgary (1988)
• 1984 Canadian speed skater Gaétan Boucher takes out the 1,500m at the Sarajevo Winter Olympics, his second gold medal of the Games; also wins the 1,000m


• 1984 3-time men's figure skating world champion Scott Hamilton of the US wins the gold medal at the Sarajevo Winter Olympics from Brian Orser of Canada and Jozef Sabovčík of Czechoslovakia
• 1985 Largest NBA crowd to date, 43,816, sees Philadelphia 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 performances
• 1986 French air force bombs Ouadi Doum airport in Chad
• 1986 Dutch speed skater Hein Vergeer becomes World Allround champion for the second time
• 1986 Karlstad skates world record 10 km (14:12.14)

• 1986 28th Daytona 500: Geoff Bodine wins on fuel mileage after Dale Earnhardt forced to pit for gas with 3 laps to go, then blows engine leaving the pits

• 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 Dodgers pitcher Orel Hershiser signs $7.9M-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

• 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 South East 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 39th Daytona 500: Hendrick Motorsports posts a 1-2-3 finish with Jeff Gordon winning the race, ahead of Terry Labonte and Ricky Craven
• 1998 Tellabs Inc acquires Coherent Communications Systems for $670 million

• 1999 Across Europe, Kurdish rebels take over embassies and hold hostages after Turkey arrested one of their rebel leaders, Abdullah Öcalan.
• 2001 Mathieu Schneider of the Los Angeles Kings becomes the first defenseman in history to score a goal against all 30 NHL teams as LA beats Minnesota, 4-0
• 2003 45th Daytona 500: Michael Waltrip wins for the second time in 3 years; race ends after 109 laps when rain pours on the track
• 2004 The Pittsburgh Penguins lose their 12th consecutive home game, a NHL record
• 2005 2004-05 NHL season is cancelled by Commissioner Gary Bettman; first time a North American professional sports league has called off a season due to labor dispute
• 2005 The Kyoto Protocol comes into force following its ratification by Russia.

• 2006 The last Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH) is decommissioned by the United States Army
• 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

• 2014 67th British Film and Television Awards (BAFTAS): "12 Years a Slave" Best Film, Alfonso Cuaron Best Director
• 2014 Netherlands sweeps the medals in the women's 1,500m speed skating at the Sochi Winter Olympics; Jorien ter Mors wins gold ahead of team mates Ireen Wüst and Lotte van Beek
• 2014 At age 36, American Bode Miller becomes the oldest medalist in Olympic alpine skiing history when he ties for bronze in the super-G in Sochi

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