16 February 2025 (MIA)

1249 – Andrew of Longjumeau is dispatched by Louis IX of France as his ambassador to meet with the Khagan of the Mongol Empire.

1270 – Grand Duchy of Lithuania defeats the Livonian Order in the Battle of Karuse.

1630 – Dutch forces led by Hendrick Lonck capture Olinda in what was to become part of Dutch Brazil.

1646 – Battle of Torrington, Devon: The last major battle of the first English Civil War.

1699 – First Leopoldine Diploma is issued by the Holy Roman Emperor, recognizing the Greek Catholic clergy enjoyed the same privileges as Roman Catholic priests in the Principality of Transylvania.

1742 – Spencer Compton, Earl of Wilmington, becomes British Prime Minister.

1804 – First Barbary War: Stephen Decatur leads a raid to burn the pirate-held frigate USS Philadelphia.

1862 – American Civil War: General Ulysses S. Grant captures Fort Donelson, Tennessee.

1866 – Spencer Compton Cavendish, Marquess of Hartington becomes British Secretary of State for War.

1899 – Iceland’s first football club, Knattspyrnufélag Reykjavíkur, is founded.

1918 – The Council of Lithuania unanimously adopts the Act of Independence, declaring Lithuania an independent state.

1923 – Howard Carter unseals the burial chamber of Pharaoh Tutankhamun.

1930 – The Romanian Football Federation joins FIFA.

1933 – The Blaine Act ends Prohibition in the United States.

1934 – The Austrian Civil War ends with the defeat of the Social Democrats and the Republikanischer Schutzbund.

1936 – Elections bring the Popular Front to power in Spain.

1937 – Wallace H. Carothers receives a United States patent for nylon.

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.

1943 – World War II: Red Army troops re-enter Kharkov.

1945 – World War II: American forces land on Corregidor Island in the Philippines.

1959 – Fidel Castro becomes Premier of Cuba after dictator Fulgencio Batista was overthrown on January 1.

1960 – The U.S. Navy submarine USS Triton begins Operation Sandblast, setting sail from New London, Connecticut, to begin the first submerged circumnavigation of the globe.

1961 – Explorer program: Explorer 9 (S-56a) is launched.

1962 – Flooding in the coastal areas of West Germany kills 315 and destroys the homes of about 60,000 people.

1983 – The Ash Wednesday bushfires in Victoria and South Australia kill 75.

1985 – Hezbollah is founded.

1986 – The Soviet liner MS Mikhail Lermontov runs aground in the Marlborough Sounds, New Zealand.

1987 – The trial of John Demjanjuk, accused of being a Nazi guard dubbed “Ivan the Terrible” in Treblinka extermination camp, starts in Jerusalem.

1991 – Nicaraguan Contras leader Enrique Bermúdez is assassinated in Managua.

1994 – Greece shuts down its border with Macedonia and introduces trade embargo, all the while closing the Greek consulate in Skopje and the Port of Thessaloniki for Macedonian businesses. the Embargo was lifted in 1995.

1998 – China Airlines Flight 676 crashes into a road and residential area near Chiang Kai-shek International Airport in Taiwan, killing all 196 aboard and seven more on the ground.

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 – A bomb blast at a market in Hazara Town, Quetta, Pakistan kills more than 80 people and injures 190 others.