February 16
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Events on This Day
1741 - Benjamin Franklin published America’s second magazine, The General Magazine and Historical Chronicle.1857 - The U.S. Congress approved the founding of the Columbia Institution for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb and the Blind. It was the first school in the world for advanced education of the deaf. It was later renamed Gallaudet College, after the founder of deaf-mute education in America, Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. (In 1986, Congress again amended the charter of the Institution, and renamed it Gallaudet University.)
1868 - The Jolly Corks organization in New York City decided to change their goofy name to the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks (BPOE). The purpose of the fraternal group: “...practice charity, justice, brotherly love and faithfulness.”
1926 - Suzanne Lenglen defeated Helen Wills at Cannes, France to retain the women’s tennis championship title. It was the only meeting between the two tennis greats.
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 patented nylon ... a Dupont product, incidentally.
1942 - Shep Fields and his orchestra recorded Jersey Bounce on Bluebird Records.
1945 - More than 2,000 U.S. troops arriving by air and sea dropped onto the island of Corregidor in the Philippines.
1948 - NBC-TV presented the first daily newsreel telecast. The program was known as the The Camel Newsreel Theatre, made up of 20th Century Fox - Movietone News newsreels. The program was later named The Camel News Caravan.
1950 - “That’s three down. We move now to Arlene Francis.” Arlene Francis, Dorothy Kilgallen, humorist Hal Block, and Louis Untermeyer joined host John Daly as one of the classics of early television debuted on CBS. What’s My Line stayed on the air for 17 years -- the longest-running game show in the history of prime-time network television -- and launched one of TV’s biggest production companies: that of Mark Goodson and Bill Todman. died May 13, 1884
1951 - Workmen accidentally touched off a fire that badly damaged the massive, ornate dome of San Francisco’s City Hall. Firefighters had to carry hoses up 200 steps to the dome’s top and then tie themselves to the buiding to get at the fire.
1959 - Fidel Castro appointed himself Premier of Cuba following the overthrow of Fulgencio Batista.
1963 - The Beatles moved to the top of the British rock charts with Please, Please Me exactly one month after the record was released. It was the start of the Beatles domination of the British music charts, as well as the beginning of the British Invasion in America and elsewhere around the world.
1968 - Elvis Presley received a gold record for his sacred album of hymns, How Great Thou Art. Despite his popularity in the pop music world, Elvis won only 3 Grammy Awards -- one for this album, the Lifetime Achievement Award in 1970; then for He Touched Me in 1972. He did, however, receive over a dozen Grammy nominations.
1972 - Los Angeles Lakers basketball great Wilt Chamberlain topped the 30,000-point mark in his career during a game against the Phoenix Suns.
1978 - Ward Christensen and Randy Suess developed the first Computerized Bulletin Board System. Although the system officially came into being this day, CBBS did not go online to the public until 1979. Christensen managed the system under the title ‘system operator’ -- soon shortened to ‘sysop’.
1985 - Ray ‘Boom Boom’ Mancini lost the World Boxing Association lightweight championship crown to Livingstone Bramble. Mancini had been trying to regain the title, but ended up fighting for the last time on this night. The fighter retired in August, 1985.
1985 - Telly “Who Loves Ya Baby!” Savalas brought his Kojak character back to network television after an absence of seven years. The show, Kojak: The Belarus File, was a special on CBS-TV, the network that launched Kojak to stardom.
1989 - Investigators in Lockerbie, Scotland, said a bomb hidden inside a radio-cassette player -- hidden inside a suitcase -- was what brought down Pan Am Flight 103 the previous December, killing all 259 people aboard and 11 on the ground.
1991 - Tonya Harding won the U.S. female Figure Skating championship.
1992 - Israeli helicopters attacked a convoy in Sidon, Lebanon, killing Sheik Abbas Musawi, leader of the pro-Iranian group Hezbollah.
1993 - Rod Stewart surprised the crowd at the annual Brit Awards in London. He invited his former band, The Faces, on stage to perform with him. They were accompanied by former Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman. Stewart was also honored with a lifetime achievement award.
1996 - Films debuting in the U.S.: The thriller City Hall, starring Al Pacino, John Cusack, Bridget Fonda, Danny Aiello and Martin Landau; and Muppet Treasure Island, starring Tim Curry, Kevin Bishop, Billy Connolly, Jennifer Saunders, Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Rizzo the Rat, Gonzo the Great and Fozzie Bear.
1998 - A China Airlines Airbus A300 attempting to land in light rain and fog at Taipei’s Chiang Kai-shek International Airport crashed into a residential neighborhood, killing all 196 people on board the plane and nine people on the ground.
2001 - First-run time in the U.S. for these movies: The romantic comedy Down to Earth, featuring Chris Rock and Regina King; and the animated comedy Recess: School’s Out, with the voices of Andy Lawrence, Ashley Johnson, Rickey D'shon Collins, Courtland Mead, Jason Davis, Pamela Segall, Melissa Joan Hart, Dabney Coleman, April Winchell and James Woods.
2001 - U.S. President George W. Bush met with Mexican President Vicente Fox on the first foreign trip of Bush’s presidency.
2002 - Officials in Noble, GA found 334 decomposing bodies at the Tri-State Crematory, where the furnace had not worked for years. Ray Brent Marsh, manager of the family operation, was arrested and charged with five counts of theft by deception. (In 2004 families of the dead settled a class-action suit for $39.5 million.)
2003 - Michael Waltrip raced past leader Jimmie Johnson to win the Daytona 500 for the second time in three years.
2004 - Rioters set fire to a train station and pelted police with gasoline bombs in an Aboriginal ghetto in Sydney, Australia. The nine-hour street battle began after a teenager died while being chased by a police officer.
2005 - The Kyoto Protocol global warming agreement went into force -- without American participation -- seven years after it was negotiated. The treaty imposed limits on emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases scientists blame for increasing world temperatures, melting glaciers and rising oceans.
2006 - A United Nations report condemned the continued existence of Camp Delta at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba -- and what it called multiple breaches of Human Rights by the U.S. The U.N. says that prisoners held there should be immediately charged or released.
2007 - New movies in the U.S.: Breach, starring Chris Cooper, Ryan Phillippe, Laura Linney, Dennis Haysbert, Kathleen Quinlan, Gary Cole, Caroline Dhavernas, Bruce Davison, Mary Jo Deschanel and Gary Cole; Bridge to Terabithia, with Josh Hutcherson, Anna Sophia Robb, Zooey Deschanel and Robert Patrick; and Ghost Rider, starring Nicolas Cage, Jon Voight, Wes Bentley, Eva Mendes, Matt Long, Sam Elliott, Peter Fonda and Donal Logue.
2007 - The U.S. House of Representatives voted 246-182 for a resolution opposing the Bush (II) Administration plan to send 21,500 additional troops to Iraq. 17 Republicans joined 229 Democrats voting against the U.S. troop ‘surge’.
2008 - Toshiba Corporation said it was giving up on its HD DVD format for high-definition video, conceding defeat to the competing Blu-Ray technology backed by Sony Corp.
2009 - Officials disclosed that nuclear-armed submarines from Britain and France had collided in the Atlantic Ocean. The HMS Vanguard, the oldest vessel in Britain’s nuclear-armed submarine fleet, and the French Le Triomphant submarine, which was also carrying nuclear missiles, both suffered minor damage in the collision.
2010 - United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced that the international Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) -- banning cluster bombs -- had received the 30 ratifications required. The ban took effect Aug 1, 2010. Most major producers of cluster munitions and their components, including Brazil, India, Israel, Pakistan, China, Russia, and the United States did not signed the Convention.
2011 - Watson, the IBM computer, beat two former Jeopardy champions, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, finishing a 3-day match on the TV quiz show.
2011 - Hawaii lawmakers approved a bill allowing civil unions for same-sex couples. With Governor Neil Abercrombie’s signature, civil unions in Hawaii began on Jan 1, 2012.
2012 - Ecuador’s highest court upheld a criminal libel verdict favoring President Rafael Correa. That verdict sentenced three newspaper executives and a columnist to three years in prison and ordered them to pay some $42 million in damages. (On Feb 27 Correa pardoned the newspaper and employees, relieving them of the court’s prison terms -- and that $42 million fine for criminal libel against Correa.)
2014 - South African rescuers worked to reach more than 200 illegal miners trapped underground in an abandoned gold shaft in Benoni, a suburb just east of Johannesburg. The miners were sabotaged by a rival gang who took their gold and then used a giant concrete slab to seal them inside the abandoned shaft. Illegal mining of abandoned shafts is common in South Africa and has been dubbed Johannesburg’s second gold rush.
2015 - A 93-year-old man was charged in Germany with 170,000 counts of accessory to murder on allegations he served as an SS guard at the Nazis’ Auschwitz death camp in occupied Poland.
2016 - The U.S. signed a bilateral agreement authorizing up to 110 scheduled daily flights to Cuba. The deal restored regular flights between the two countries for the first time in more than half a century.
2017 - In the continuing wave of easing pot laws across the U.S., Houston decriminalized possession of less than 4 ounces of marijuana.
2017 - China’s Ministry of Public Security announced the banning of carfentanil and three similar drugs. The move closied a major regulatory loophole in the fight to end America’s opioid epidemic.
2018 - Movies opening in U.S. theatres included: Black Panther, starring Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong’o; the animated, Early Man, featuring the voices of Tom Hiddleston, Maisie Williams, Eddie Redmayne, Timothy Spall and Miriam Margolyes; Samson, starring Jackson Rathbone, Billy Zane and Taylor James; The Boy Downstairs, with Zosia Mamet, Matthew Shear and Deirdre O’Connell; The Monkey King 3: Kingdom of Women, with Aaron Kwok, Shaofeng Feng and Liying Zhao; Nostalgia, starring Hugo Armstrong, Shinelle Azoroh and Annalise Basso; and The Party, with Timothy Spall, Kristin Scott Thomas and Patricia Clarkson.
2018 - Dozens of world leaders, top defense officials and diplomats gathered for the Munich (Germany) Security Conference amid growing strains between NATO nations and Russia over the conflicts in Syria and Ukraine. Defense ministers of Germany and France pledged to redouble their military and foreign policy cooperation efforts, inviting other European countries to participate if they felt ready to do so.
2018 - Special counsel Robert Mueller indicted 13 Russians, and three Russian organizations, for interfering in the 2016 U.S. election. Mueller alleged that Russian operatives “communicated with unwitting individuals associated with the Trump campaign”, but the indictment did not address the question of whether anyone in Trump’s team had knowingly colluded.
2019 - India’s first locally built, semi high-speed train broke down on its way back to New Delhi from Varanasi in northern Uttar Pradesh, a day after its inauguration by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The railway ministry said the disruption was possibly due to cattle run over.
2020 - 100+ former U.S. federal prosecutors and Justice Dept officials called on Attorney General William Barr to resign. This, following his intervention to lower the Justice Dept’s sentencing recommendation for POTUS Trump’s longtime friend Roger Stone. The former officials, who served under both Republican and Democratic administrations, criticized Barr for overruling his own prosecutors in the case that had prompted accusations that Trump was attempting to weaken the rule of law.
2020 - The Israeli military said it had thwarted an attempt by the Hamas militant group to hack soldiers’ phones by posing as young, attractive women on social media, striking up friendships and persuading soldiers into downloading malware.
2021 - The Clark County Board of Commissioners unanimously approved the name change from McCarran International Airport to Harry Reid International Airport. U.S. Senator Harry Reid represented Nevada in the Senate from 1987-2017. The official renaming came on December 14, 2021. (McCarran International Airport was named after U.S Senator Pat McCarran who represented Nevada from 1933-1954.)
2021 - South Korea’s intelligence service said that North Korea had attempted to hack Pfizer and steal COVID-19 vaccine technology. Seoul’s National Intelligence Service “briefed us that North Korea tried to obtain technology involving the COVID vaccine and treatment by using cyberwarfare to hack into Pfizer,” Ha Tae-keung, a member of South Korea’s parliamentary intelligence panel, told reporters.
2022 - The Department of Education cancelled federal student loans for some 1,800 students who attended DeVry University because it fraudulently lured in applicants with vastly inflated claims about their career prospects. DeVry had been one of the largest for-profit college chains in the U.S. The D.O.E. also said it planned to recoup the cost of the discharges from DeVry.
2022 - The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said 80 unruly airplane passengers had been referred to the FBI for potential criminal prosecution.
2023 - The U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command confirmed the identity of the wreck of USS Albacore, a submarine lost in 1944. The submarine -- probably sunk by a mine -- was discovered by a University of Tokyo sonar team in 2022 off of Hokkaidō, Japan.
2023 - One person was killed and three others injured in a shooting at a mall in El Paso, Texas. Patrons ran or sheltered in the chaotic scene. The gunfire took place inside the Cielo Vista Mall, during a physical fight between two groups. A 16-year-old suspect was arrested after he was shot and wounded by an armed bystander.
and more...
Birthdays on This Day February 16
1884 - Robert Flaherty
‘Father of the Documentary Film’: film producer: Nanook of the North, Moana, Man of Aran; died July 23, 19511898 - Katharine Cornell
actress: The Barretts of Wimpole Street, Stage Door Canteen; died June 9, 19741901 - Chester Morris
actor: Boston Blackie film series, Five Came Back, Frankie and Johnny, Wagon’s Westward, The Great White Hope; died Sep 11, 19701903 - Edgar Bergen (Bergren)
actor, ventriloquist: radio: The Edgar Bergen Show w/dummy Charlie McCarthy; father of actress Candice Bergen; died Sep 30, 19781903 - Norman Shelley
actor: Gulliver’s Travels, I, Claudius, Edward the King, Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed, A Place to Go, The Man Without a Body; died Aug 22, 19801909 - Hugh Beaumont
actor: To the Shores of Tripoli, The Human Duplicators, Leave It to Beaver; died May 14, 19821909 - Jeffrey Lynn
actor: Forbidden Love, BUtterfield 8, Checkmate, Home Town Story, Captain China, Black Bart, Lost Lagoon; died Nov 24, 19951910 - Jerry Lester
comedian, TV host, actor: Smokey and the Bandit II, The Godmothers, L’il Abner, The Rookie, Sleepytime Gal, Arizona to Broadway; died Mar 23, 19951914 - Jimmy Wakely
actor: over 50 films as a western star, country singer: Slippin’ Around, Wedding Bells; died Sep 23, 19821916 - Bill Doggett
musician: Honky Tonk, Slow Walk; died Nov 13, 19961918 - Patty Andrews (Patricia Marie Andrews)
lead singer: group: The Andrews Sisters: Bei Mir Bist Du Schon, Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, Rum and Coca Cola, Beer Barrel Polka; solo: I Can Dream Can’t I; died Jan 30, 20131921 - Jean Behra
auto racer: competed in 52 Grand Prix races [best was 4th: 1956]; killed in crash at AVUS track [Berlin, Germany] Aug 1, 19591921 - Vera-Ellen (Vera Ellen Westmeier Rohe)
actress: Let’s Be Happy, Big Leaguer, Wonder Man, Three Little Words, On the Town, Carnival in Costa Rica, White Christmas; died Aug 30, 19811932 - Aharon Appelfeld
Israeli novelist: Badenheim 1939, To the Land of the Cattails, The Immortal Bartfuss, For Every Sin, The Healer, Katerina, Until the Dawn’s Light; professor of Hebrew Literature at Ben Gurion Univ of the Negev; died Jan 4, 20181932 - Otis Blackwell
singer, songwriter: wrote some 1,000 songs including: Fever [Little Willie John, Peggy Lee], Hey Little Girl [Dee Clark], Just Keep It Up [Dee Clark], Handy Man [Jimmy Jones]; died May 6, 2002
1932 - Gretchen Wyler (Wienecke)
actress: The Devil’s Brigade, The Marrying Man; died May 27,20071934 - Marlene Bauer Hagge
golf: one of the founders of the LPGA in 1950; LPGA Champion [1956]; died May 16, 20231934 - Harold & Herbie Kalin
singers: group: The Kalin Twins: When, Forget Me Not; died Aug 24, 2005 and Jul 21, 2006, respectively1935 - Sonny (Salvatore) Bono
singer, entertainer [Sonny & Cher]: I Got You Babe, Baby Don’t Go, The Beat Goes On; TV: The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour; mayor: Palm Springs, CA; U.S. Congressman; killed Jan 5, 1998 [skiing accident]1938 - Barry Primus
actor: Down and Out in Beverly Hills Absence of Malice, Cagney and Lacey1943 - (Arthur) Bobby (Lee) Darwin
baseball: LA Angels, LA Dodgers, Minnesota Twins, Milwaukee Brewers, Boston Red Sox, Chicago Cubs1943 - Brig Owens
football: Washington Redskins Safety: Super Bowl VII; died Jun 21, 20221948 - Ted Washington
football: San Diego State Univ., Cincinnati Bengals; died May 8, 20171951 - William Katt
actor: Rattled, Tollbooth, The Greatest American Hero, Perry Mason series, Carrie, Heroes, House of Payne1952 - LeVar Burton (Levardis Robert Martyn Burton Jr.)
actor: Alex Haley’s Roots, Star Trek: The Next Generation series1952 - James Ingram
singer: [w/Patti Austin]: Baby Come to Me, How Do You Keep the Music Playing; Just Once; died Jan 29, 20191953 - George Martin
football: NY Giants defensive end: Super Bowl XXI1954 - Margaux Hemingway
actress: Bad Love, Deadly Conspiracy, Lipstick; sister of actress Mariel Hemingway, granddaughter of writer, Ernest Hemingway; died July 1, 19961958 - Lisa Loring
actress: The Addams Family, As the World Turns, Search for Tomorrow1958 - Ice-T (Tracy Marrow)
rapper: group: Body Count: Cop Killer; actor: Law & Order: Special Victims Unit1958 - Herb Williams
basketball: Ohio State Univ; NBA: Indiana Pacers, Dallas Mavericks, NY Knicks; head coach: NY Knicks
1959 - John McEnroe
tennis’ bad boy for his frequent outbursts on the tennis court: Wimbledon Men’s Singles Champion [1981, 1983, 1984]; U.S. Open Men’s Singles Champion: [1979, 1980, 1981, 1984]1961 - Andy Taylor
musician: guitar: group: Duran Duran: Planet Earth, Hungry like the Wolf, Save a Prayer, Rio, Is There Something I Should Know, Union of the Snake, Wild Boys1964 - Jim Cantore
TV meteorologist: The Weather Channel1964 - Christopher Eccleston
actor: the 9th Doctor Who [2005]; Thor: The Dark World, Gone in 60 Seconds, Let Him Have It, Shallow Grave, Jude, Elizabeth, The Others, 28 Days Later, The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising, Cracker, Fortitude, The Shadow Line1971 - Amanda Holden
actress: Wild at Heart, Cutting It, The Grimleys, Kiss Me Kate, Quick Slip Me a Bride, Agatha Christie Marple: 4.50 From Paddington, Now You See Her, The Hunt; judge: Britain’s Got Talent; more1972 - Jerome Bettis
football: ‘The Bus’ [running back]: Notre Dame Univ; NFL: LA/SL Rams [1993–1995], Pittsburgh Steelers [1996–2005]: Super Bowl XL champs; NBC-TV football commentator
1972 - Sarah Clarke
actress: 24, Below the Beltway, The Colony, A House Divided, Thirteen, The Accident, Pas de deaux, Twilight, Covert Affairs1973 - Cathy Freeman
Australian sprinter: 1996 Olympic silver medalist in Atlanta; 2000 gold medalist in Sydney1977 - Ahman Green
football: [running back]: Univ of Nebraska; NFL: Seattle Seahawks, Green Bay Packers1979 - Valentino Rossi
pro motorcycle racer: nine Grand Prix World Championships1982 - Lupe Fiasco
rapper: LPs: Lupe Fiasco’s Food & Liquor, Lupe Fiasco’s The Cool, Lasers, Food & Liquor II: The Great American Rap Album Pt. 11985 - Kara Lindsay
actress: Broadway: Newsies, Wicked1989 - Elizabeth Olsen
actress: Silent House, Liberal Arts, Martha Marcy May Marlene, Silent House, Peace, Love and Misunderstanding, Kill Your Darlings, Very Good Girls; younger sister of actresses Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen1990 - The Weeknd (Abel Tesfaye)
R&B performer: The Hills, Can’t Feel My Face, Starboy, Call Out My Name, Pray for Me, Party Monster, I Feel It Coming, In the Night1994 - Ava Max
songwriter, singer: Sweet but Psycho, So Am I, Salt, Alone, Pt. II, Kings & Queens, Who’s Laughing Now, My Head & My Heart, The Motto [with Tiësto]1996 - Jimmy Pinchak
actor: Men of a Certain Age, Over There, Family Affair, Growing Up Normal
and still more...
Hit Music on This Day February 16
1950Dear Hearts and Gentle People (facts) - Dinah Shore
There’s No Tomorrow (facts) - Tony Martin
1959
1968
1977
1986
1995
2004
2013
2022
and even more...
Those were the days, my friend. We thought they’d never end...
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