February 16: Today in History, Births, Deaths, and Observances

February 16 is the 47th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 318 days remaining until the end of the year, or 319 in leap years.Observed events for this day include: 1249: Louis IX of France dispatched Andrew of Longjumeau to meet with the Khagan of the Mongol Empire. 1270: The Grand Duchy of Lithuania won against the Livonian Order in the Battle of Karuse. 1630: Hendrick Lonck led Dutch forces to capture Olinda, later part of Dutch Brazil. 1646: The Battle of Torrington, Devon, the final major battle of the First English Civil War, occurred. 1699: The Holy Roman Emperor issued the First Leopoldine Diploma, which gave Greek Catholic clergy in Transylvania the same privileges as Roman Catholic priests. 1742: Spencer Compton, Earl of Wilmington, became British Prime Minister. 1796: The British completed their invasion of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) with the capture of Colombo. 1804: Stephen Decatur led a raid to burn the pirate-held frigate USS Philadelphia during the First Barbary War. 1862: During the American Civil War, General Ulysses S. Grant captured Fort Donelson, Tennessee. 1866: Spencer Compton Cavendish, Marquess of Hartington, became British Secretary of State for War. 1881: The Canadian Pacific Railway was incorporated through an Act of Parliament in Ottawa. 1899: Iceland's first football club, Knattspyrnufélag Reykjavíkur, was established. 1900: Carsten Borchgrevink's Southern Cross expedition reached a new Farthest South at 78° 50'S and landed on the Great Ice Barrier for the first time. 1918: Lithuania declared independence by adopting the Act of Independence. 1923: Howard Carter unsealed the burial chamber of Pharaoh Tutankhamun. 1930: The Romanian Football Federation became a member of FIFA. 1934: The Austrian Civil War ended with the defeat of the Social Democrats and the Republikanischer Schutzbund. 1936: The Popular Front won the Spanish general election. 1937: Wallace H. Carothers received a United States patent for nylon. 1940: During World War II, the Altmark incident saw British sailors free 299 British prisoners from the German tanker Altmark. 1942: The Greek People's Liberation Army was established in Athens during World War II. Also, the Attack on Aruba marked the first German shots fired on a land-based object in the Americas during World War II. 1943: In World War II, Red Army troops re-entered Kharkov during the Third Battle of Kharkov. 1945: American forces landed on Corregidor Island in the Philippines during World War II. The Alaska Equal Rights Act, the first anti-discrimination law in the United States, was signed into law. 1959: Fidel Castro became Premier of Cuba. 1960: The U.S. Navy submarine USS Triton began Operation Sandblast, the first submerged circumnavigation of the globe. 1961: The Explorer program launched Explorer 9 (S-56a). 1962: The Great Sheffield Gale devastated the city of Sheffield in the United Kingdom, killing nine. Also, flooding in West Germany killed 315 and destroyed around 60,000 homes.

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