Today in History : February 16
1760 : Cherokee Indians held hostage at Fort St. George are killed in revenge for Indian attacks on frontier settlements.
1804 : US Navy lieutenant Steven Decatur leads a small group of sailors into Tripoli harbor and burns the USS Philadelphia, captured earlier by Barbary pirates.
1862 : Fort Donelson, Tennessee, falls to Grant‘s Federal forces, but not before Nathan Bedford Forrest escapes.
1865 : Columbia, South Carolina, surrenders to Federal troops.
1923 : Bessie Smith makes her first recording “Down Hearted Blues.”
1934 : Thousands of Socialists battle Communists at a rally in New York’s Madison Square Garden.
1937 : Dupont patents a new thread, nylon, which will replace silk in a number of products and reduce costs.
1940 : The British destroyer HMS Cossack rescues British seamen from a German prison ship, the Altmark, in a Norwegian fjord.
1942 : Tojo outlines Japan’s war aims to the Diet, referring to “new order of coexistence” in East Asia.
1945 : American paratroopers land on Corregidor, in a campaign to liberate the Philippines.
1951 : Stalin contends the U.N. is becoming the weapon of aggressive war.
1952 : The FBI arrests 10 members of the Ku Klux Klan in North Carolina.
1957 : A U.S. flag flies over an outpost in Wilkes Land, Antarctica.
1959 : Fidel Castro takes the oath as Cuban premier in Havana.
1965 : Four persons are held in a plot to blow up the Statue of Liberty, Liberty Bell and the Washington Monument.
1966 : The World Council of Churches being held in Geneva, urges immediate peace in Vietnam.
1978 : China and Japan sign a $20 billion trade pact, which is the most important move since the 1972 resumption of diplomatic ties.
Born on February 16
1620 : Frederick William, founder of Brandenburg-Prussia.
1838 : Henry Adams, U.S. historian, son and grandson of the presidents.
1852 : Charles Taze Russell, founder of the International Bible Students Association which later became the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
1845 : Quinton Hogg, English philanthropist.
1886 : Van Wyck Brooks, biographer, critic and literary historian.
1903 : Edgar Bergen, ventriloquist and radio comedian.
1904 : George Kennan, U.S. diplomat and historian.
1944 : Richard Ford, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist (The Sportswriter, Independence Day).
1760 : Cherokee Indians held hostage at Fort St. George are killed in revenge for Indian attacks on frontier settlements.
1804 : US Navy lieutenant Steven Decatur leads a small group of sailors into Tripoli harbor and burns the USS Philadelphia, captured earlier by Barbary pirates.
1862 : Fort Donelson, Tennessee, falls to Grant‘s Federal forces, but not before Nathan Bedford Forrest escapes.
1865 : Columbia, South Carolina, surrenders to Federal troops.
1923 : Bessie Smith makes her first recording “Down Hearted Blues.”
1934 : Thousands of Socialists battle Communists at a rally in New York’s Madison Square Garden.
1937 : Dupont patents a new thread, nylon, which will replace silk in a number of products and reduce costs.
1940 : The British destroyer HMS Cossack rescues British seamen from a German prison ship, the Altmark, in a Norwegian fjord.
1942 : Tojo outlines Japan’s war aims to the Diet, referring to “new order of coexistence” in East Asia.
1945 : American paratroopers land on Corregidor, in a campaign to liberate the Philippines.
1951 : Stalin contends the U.N. is becoming the weapon of aggressive war.
1952 : The FBI arrests 10 members of the Ku Klux Klan in North Carolina.
1957 : A U.S. flag flies over an outpost in Wilkes Land, Antarctica.
1959 : Fidel Castro takes the oath as Cuban premier in Havana.
1965 : Four persons are held in a plot to blow up the Statue of Liberty, Liberty Bell and the Washington Monument.
1966 : The World Council of Churches being held in Geneva, urges immediate peace in Vietnam.
1978 : China and Japan sign a $20 billion trade pact, which is the most important move since the 1972 resumption of diplomatic ties.
Born on February 16
1620 : Frederick William, founder of Brandenburg-Prussia.
1838 : Henry Adams, U.S. historian, son and grandson of the presidents.
1852 : Charles Taze Russell, founder of the International Bible Students Association which later became the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
1845 : Quinton Hogg, English philanthropist.
1886 : Van Wyck Brooks, biographer, critic and literary historian.
1903 : Edgar Bergen, ventriloquist and radio comedian.
1904 : George Kennan, U.S. diplomat and historian.
1944 : Richard Ford, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist (The Sportswriter, Independence Day).
