http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history
Feb 16, 1923: Archaeologist opens tomb of King Tut
On this day in 1923, in Thebes, Egypt, English archaeologist Howard Carter enters the sealed burial chamber of the ancient Egyptian ruler King Tutankhamen.
Because the ancient Egyptians saw their pharaohs as gods, they carefully preserved their bodies after death, burying them in elaborate tombs containing rich treasures to accompany the rulers into the afterlife. In the 19th century, archeologists from all over the world flocked to Egypt, where they uncovered a number of these tombs. Many had long ago been broken into by robbers and stripped of their riches.
When Carter arrived in Egypt in 1891, he became convinced there was at least one undiscovered tomb--that of the little known Tutankhamen, or King Tut, who lived around 1400 B.C. and died when he was still a teenager. Backed by a rich Brit, Lord Carnarvon, Carter searched for five years without success. In early 1922, Lord Carnarvon wanted to call off the search, but Carter convinced him to hold on one more year.
In November 1922, the wait paid off, when Carter's team found steps hidden in the debris near the entrance of another tomb. The steps led to an ancient sealed doorway bearing the name Tutankhamen. When Carter and Lord Carnarvon entered the tomb's interior chambers on November 26, they were thrilled to find it virtually intact, with its treasures untouched after more than 3,000 years. The men began exploring the four rooms of the tomb, and on February 16, 1923, under the watchful eyes of a number of important officials, Carter opened the door to the last chamber.
Inside lay a sarcophagus with three coffins nested inside one another. The last coffin, made of solid gold, contained the mummified body of King Tut. Among the riches found in the tomb--golden shrines, jewelry, statues, a chariot, weapons, clothing--the perfectly preserved mummy was the most valuable, as it was the first one ever to be discovered. Despite rumors that a curse would befall anyone who disturbed the tomb, its treasures were carefully catalogued, removed and included in a famous traveling exhibition called the "Treasures of Tutankhamen." The exhibition's permanent home is the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
Feb 16, 1959: Castro sworn in
On February 16, 1959, Fidel Castro is sworn in as prime minister of Cuba after leading a guerrilla campaign that forced right-wing dictator Fulgencio Batista into exile. Castro, who became commander in chief of Cuba's armed forces after Batista was ousted on January 1, replaced the more moderate Miro Cardona as head of the country's new provisional government.
Castro was born in the Oriente province in eastern Cuba, the son of a Spanish immigrant who had made a fortune building rail systems to transport sugar cane. He became involved in revolutionary politics while a student and in 1947 took part in an abortive attempt by Dominican exiles and Cubans to overthrow Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo. In the next year, he took part in urban riots in Bogota, Colombia. The most outstanding feature of his politics during the period was his anti-American beliefs; he was not yet an overt Marxist.
In 1951, he ran for a seat in the Cuban House of Representatives as a member of the reformist Ortodoxo Party, but General Batista seized power in a bloodless coup d'etat before the election could be held.
Various groups formed to oppose Batista's dictatorship, and on July 26, 1953, Castro led some 160 rebels in an attack on the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba--Cuba's second largest military base. Castro hoped to seize weapons and announce his revolution from the base radio station, but the barracks were heavily defended, and more than half his men were captured or killed.
Castro was himself arrested and put on trial for conspiring to overthrow the Cuban government. During his trial, he argued that he and his rebels were fighting to restore democracy to Cuba, but he was nonetheless found guilty and sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Two years later, Batista felt confident enough in his power that he granted a general amnesty for all political prisoners, including Castro. Castro then went with his brother Raul to Mexico, and they organized the revolutionary 26th of July Movement, enlisting recruits and joining up with Ernesto "Che" Guevara, an idealist Marxist from Argentina.
On December 2, 1956, Castro and 81 armed men landed on the Cuban coast. All of them were killed or captured except for Castro, Raul, Che, and nine others, who retreated into the Sierra Maestra mountain range to wage a guerrilla war against the Batista government. They were joined by revolutionary volunteers from all over Cuba and won a series of victories over Batista's demoralized army. Castro was supported by the peasantry, to whom he promised land reform, while Batista received aid from the United States, which bombed suspected revolutionary positions.
By mid-1958, a number of other Cuban groups were also opposing Batista, and the United States ended military aid to his regime. In December, the 26th of July forces under Che Guevara attacked the city of Santa Clara, and Batista's forces crumbled. Batista fled for the Dominican Republic on January 1, 1959. Castro, who had fewer than 1,000 men left at the time, took control of the Cuban government's 30,000-man army. The other rebel leaders lacked the popular support the young and charismatic Castro enjoyed, and on February 16 he was sworn in as prime minister.
The United States initially recognized the new Cuban dictator but withdrew its support after Castro launched a program of agrarian reform, nationalized U.S. assets on the island, and declared a Marxist government. Many of Cuba's wealthier citizens fled to the United States, where they joined the CIA in its efforts to overthrow Castro's regime.
In April 1961, with training and support by the CIA, the Cuban exiles launched an ill-fated and unsuccessful invasion of Cuba known as the "Bay of Pigs." The Soviet Union reacted to the attack by escalating its support to Castro's communist government and in 1962 placed offensive nuclear missiles in Cuba. The discovery of the missiles by U.S. intelligence led to the tense "Cuban Missile Crisis," which ended after the Soviets agreed to remove the weapons in exchange for a U.S. pledge not to invade Cuba.
Castro's Cuba was the first communist state in the Western Hemisphere, and he would retain control of it into the 21st century, outlasting 10 U.S. presidents who opposed him with economic embargoes and political rhetoric. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Castro lost a valuable source of aid, but he made up for it by courting European and Canadian investment and tourism. In July 2006, Castro temporarily ceded power to his brother Raul after undergoing intestinal surgery. His struggles with illness continued, and he officially stepped down in February 2008.
Feb 16, 1968: Tet Offensive results in many new refugees
U.S. officials report that, in addition to the 800,000 people listed as refugees prior to January 30, the fighting during the Tet Offensive has created 350,000 new refugees.
The communist attack known as the Tet Offensive had begun at dawn on January 31, the first day of the Tet holiday truce. Viet Cong forces, supported by large numbers of North Vietnamese troops, launched the largest and best-coordinated offensive of the war, driving into the centers of South Vietnam's seven largest cities and attacking 30 provincial capitals ranging from the Delta to the DMZ.
Among the cities taken during the first four days of the offensive were Hue, Dalat, Kontum, and Quang Tri; in the north, all five provincial capitals were overrun. At the same time, enemy forces shelled numerous Allied airfields and bases. In Saigon, a 19-man Viet Cong suicide squad seized the U.S. Embassy and held it for six hours until an assault force of U.S. paratroopers landed by helicopter on the building's roof and routed them. Nearly 1,000 Viet Cong were believed to have infiltrated Saigon and it required a week of intense fighting by an estimated 11,000 U.S. and South Vietnamese troops to dislodge them. By February 10, the offensive was largely crushed, but with a cost of heavy casualties on both sides.
Militarily, Tet was decidedly an Allied victory, but psychologically and politically, it was a disaster. The offensive was a crushing military defeat for the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese, but the size and scope of the communist attacks had caught the American and South Vietnamese allies completely by surprise. The early reporting of a smashing communist victory went largely uncorrected in the media and led to a psychological victory for the communists. The heavy U.S. and South Vietnamese casualties incurred during the offensive--and the disillusionment over the early, overly optimistic reports of progress in the war--accelerated the growing disenchantment with President Lyndon B. Johnson's conduct of the war.
Feb 16, 1951: Joseph Stalin attacks the United Nations
In a statement focusing on the situation in Korea, Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin charges that the United Nations has become "a weapon of aggressive war." He also suggested that although a world war was not inevitable "at the present time," "warmongers" in the West might trigger such a conflict.
Stalin's comments in response to queries from the Soviet newspaper Pravda were his first public statements about the nearly year-old conflict in Korea, in which the United States, South Korea, and other member nations of the United Nations were arrayed against forces of North Korea and communist China. Coming just over two weeks after the U.N. General Assembly's resolution condemning China as an aggressor, Stalin's statement turned the tables by declaring that the United Nations was "burying its moral prestige and dooming itself to disintegration." He warned that Western "warmongers," through their aggressive posture in Korea, would "manage to entangle the popular masses in lies, deceive them, and drag them into a new world war." In any event, he confidently predicted that Chinese forces in Korea would be victorious because the armies opposing them lacked morale and dedication to the war.
Despite the rather blistering tone of Stalin's words, Western observers were not unduly alarmed. Stalin's attacks on Western "aggression" were familiar, and some officials in Washington took comfort in the premier's assertion that a world war was not inevitable "at the present time." Indeed, there was some feeling that Stalin's denouncement of the United Nations' actions was actually a veiled call for negotiations through the auspices of that body. Stalin's comments, and the intense scrutiny they were subjected to in the West, were more evidence that in the Cold War, the "war of words" was almost as significant as any actual fighting.
Here's a more detailed look at events that transpired on this date throughout history:
374 - 9th recorded perihelion passage of Halley's Comet
600 - Pope Gregory the Great decreea 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 accept Triennial Act
1646 - Battle of Great Torrington, Devon - the last major
battle of the first English Civil War.
1659 - 1st known check (£400) (on display at Westminster
Abbey)
1666 - Netherlands & Brandenburg sign treaty
1677 - Earl of Shaftesbury arrested/confined in London Tower
1741 - Benjamin Franklin's General Magazine (2nd US Mag)
begins publishing
1742 - Earl of Wilmington becomes British premier
1751 - 1st publication of Gray's "Elegy Written in a
Country Church Yard"
1760 - Native American hostages killed in Ft 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 founded
Naturalist Charles DarwinNaturalist Charles Darwin 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 (Natl Deaf Mute college) forms
(Wash 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 Gen 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
Composer/Pianist Franz LisztComposer/Pianist Franz Liszt
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 (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 Erzurum Armenia
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
Archaeologist and Discoverer of Tutankhamun Howard
CarterArchaeologist and Discoverer of Tutankhamun Howard Carter 1923 - Howard
Carter finds Pharaoh Tutankhamen
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 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)
Soldier, Author and British Prime Minister Winston
ChurchillSoldier, Author and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill 1943 -
British premier Winston Churchill gets pneumonia
1943 - Red army conquers Kharkov
1943 - Withdrawing Africa Corps 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
Dictator of Nazi Germany Adolf HitlerDictator of Nazi
Germany Adolf Hitler 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 it's 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
Cuban President Fidel CastroCuban President Fidel Castro
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
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 - Country's 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 & wives
fly to India for transcendental meditation study with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
1970 - Joe Frazier TKOs Jimmy Ellis in 5 for heavyweight
boxing title
Singer & Cultural Icon Elvis PresleySinger &
Cultural Icon Elvis Presley 1972 - 1st NBA to score 30,000 points (Wilt
Chamberlain in 940 games)
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 USSR
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 USSR
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
1982 - Lee Majors & Farrah Fawcett Majors divorce
Actress Farrah FawcettActress Farrah Fawcett 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 V"lker 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.
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
2013 - Lionel Messi scores his 14th consecutive goal in La
Liga and his 300th goal in 365 appearances for Barcelona
1741 - Benjamin Franklin published America’s second magazine, "The General Magazine and Historical Chronicle". 1804 - A raid was led by Lt. Stephen Decatur to burn the U.S. Navy frigate Philadelphia. The ship had been taken by pirates. 1857 - The National Deaf Mute College was incorporated in Washington, DC. It was the first school in the world for advanced education of the deaf. The school was later renamed Gallaudet College. 1862 - During the U.S. Civil War, about 14,000 Confederate soldiers surrendered to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Fort Donelson, TN. 1868 - The Jolly Corks organization, in New York City, changed it name to the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks (BPOE). 1883 - "Ladies Home Journal" began publication. 1914 - The first airplane flight between Los Angeles and San Francisco took place. 1918 - Lithuania proclaimed its independence. 1923 - Howard Carter unsealed the burial chamber of Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamen. The next day he entered the chamber with several invited guests. He had originally found the tomb on November 4, 1922. 1932 - The first fruit tree patent was issued to James E. Markham for a peach tree which ripens later than other varieties. 1937 - Wallace H. Carothers received a patent for nylon. Carothers was a research chemist for Du Pont. 1938 - The U.S. Federal Crop Insurance program was authorized. 1945 - During World War II, U.S. troops landed on the island of Corregidor in the Philippines. 1946 - The first commercially designed helicopter was tested in Connecticut. 1948 - NBC-TV began airing its first nightly newscast, "The Camel Newsreel Theatre", which consisted of Fox Movietone newsreels. 1959 - Fidel Castro seized power in Cuba after the overthrow of President Fulgencio Batista. 1960 - The U.S.S. Triton began the first circumnavigation of the globe under water. The trip ended on May 10. 1962 - Jimmy Bostwick defeated his brother, Pete, to win the U.S. Open Court-Tennis championships for the third time. 1963 - Paul Anka married Marie-Ann DeZogheb in Paris. 1968 - In the U.S., the first 911 emergency telephone system was inaugurated in Haleyville, AL. 1970 - Joe Frazier began his reign as the undefeated heavyweight world champion when he knocked out Jimmy Ellis in five rounds. He lost the title on January 22, 1973, when he lost for the first time in his professional career to George Foreman. 1972 - Wilt Chamberlain (Los Angeles Lakers) reached the 30,000-point mark in his NBA career during a game against the Phoenix Suns. 1977 - The Anglican archbishop of Uganda, Janani Luwum, was killed in automobile accident. Two other men were also killed. 1985 - "Kojak" returned to network television after an absence of seven years with the CBS-TV special, "Kojak: The Belarus File." 1987 - John Demjanjuk went on trial in Jerusalem. He was accused of being "Ivan the Terrible", a guard at the Treblinka concentration camp. He was convicted, but the Israeli Supreme Court overturned the ruling. 1989 - Investigators in Lockerbie, Scotland, announced that a bomb hidden inside a radio-cassette player was the reason that Pan Am Flight 103 was brought down the previous December. All 259 people aboard and 11 on the ground were killed. 1999 - A bomb exploded at the government headquarters in Uzbekistan. Gunfire followed the incident. The event apparently was an attempt on the life of President Islam Karimov. 1999 - Kurds seized embassies and held hostages across Europe following Turkey's arrest of Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan. 1999 - Testimony began in the Jasper, TX, trial of John William King. He was charged with murder in the gruesome dragging death of James Byrd Jr. King was later convicted and sentenced to death. 2002 - The operator of a crematory in Noble, GA, was arrested after dozens of corpses were found stacked in storage sheds and scattered around in the surrounding woods. 2005 - The Kyoto global warming pact went into effect in 140 nations. 2005 - The NHL announced the cancellation of the 2004-2005 season due to a labor dispute. It was the first time a major sports league in North America lost an entire season to a labor dispute.
1804 U.S. frigate Philadelphia, captured and held by Barbary pirates at Tripoli during the Tripolitan War, was set fire to and destroyed by a small group of men led by Stephen Decatur. 1918 Lithuania proclaimed its independence from Russia. 1923 The tomb of King Tutankhamen, discovered in 1922, was opened. 1937 Nylon was patented. 1959 Fidel Castro became the leader of Cuba after having ousted the right-wing dictator Fulgencio Batista. 1968 The country's first 911 phone system went into service in Haleyville, Ala. 1999 Turkish commandos captured Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan in Kenya, sparking seizures of embassies in Europe by Kurds.
The following links are to web sites that were used to complete this blog entry:
http://www.historyorb.com/today/events.php
http://on-this-day.com/onthisday/thedays/alldays/feb16.htm
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history
http://www.infoplease.com/dayinhistory
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