February 16 in History

Iceland is a Nordic island country between the Arctic Ocean and the North Atlantic Ocean, located on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between Europe and North America. It is culturally and politically linked with Europe and is the region's westernmost and most sparsely populated country. Its capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which is home to about 35% of the country's roughly 395,000 residents. The official language of the country is Icelandic. Iceland is on a rift between tectonic plates, and its geologic activity includes geysers and frequent volcanic eruptions. The interior consists of a volcanic plateau with sand and lava fields, mountains and glaciers, and many glacial rivers flow to the sea through the lowlands. Iceland is warmed by the Gulf Stream and has a temperate climate, despite being at a latitude just south of the Arctic Circle. Its latitude and marine influence keep summers chilly, and most of its islands have a polar climate.

The Council of Lithuania, later called the State Council of Lithuania was a governing council convened at the Vilnius Conference that took place between 18 and 23 September 1917. The twenty men who composed the council at first were of different ages, social statuses, professions, and political affiliations. The council was granted the executive authority of the Lithuanian people and was entrusted to establish an independent Lithuanian state. On 16 February 1918, the members of the council signed the Act of Independence of Lithuania and declared Lithuania an independent state based on democratic principles. 16 February is celebrated as Lithuania's State Restoration Day. The council managed to establish the proclamation of independence despite the presence of German troops in the country until the autumn of 1918. By the spring of 1919, the council had almost doubled in size. The council continued its efforts until the Constituent Assembly of Lithuania first met on 15 May 1920.

The Romanian Football Federation is the governing body of football in Romania. They are headquartered in the capital city of Bucharest and affiliated with FIFA and UEFA since 1923 and 1955 respectively. The Federation organizes the men's national team and the women's national team, as well as most of the Romanian football competitions.

The Commission of Government was a non-elected body that governed the Dominion of Newfoundland from 1934 to 1949. Established following the collapse of Newfoundland's economy during the Great Depression, it was dissolved when the dominion became the tenth province of Canada on March 31, 1949. It was composed of civil servants who were directly subordinate to the British Government in London.

Wallace Hume Carothers was an American chemist, inventor, and the leader of organic chemistry at DuPont, who was credited with the invention of nylon.

Athens is the capital and largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica region and is the southernmost capital on the European mainland. With its urban area's population numbering over 3.6 million, it is the eighth-largest urban area in the European Union (EU). The Municipality of Athens, which constitutes a small administrative unit of the entire urban area, had a population of 643,452 in 2021, within its official limits, and a land area of 38.96 square kilometres.

The Third Battle of Kharkov was a series of battles on the Eastern Front of World War II, undertaken by Nazi Germany's Army Group South against the Soviet Red Army, around the city of Kharkov from 19 February to 15 March 1943. Known to the German side as the Donets Campaign and in the Soviet Union as the Donbass and Kharkov operations, the German counterstrike led to the recapture of the cities of Kharkov and Belgorod.

In the history of discrimination in the United States, the Alaska Equal Rights Act of 1945 was the first state or territorial anti-discrimination law enacted in the United States in the 20th century. The law, signed on February 16, 1945, prevents and criminalizes discrimination against individuals in public areas based on race. The law came about after Alaska Natives fought against segregation and other forms of discrimination in Alaska.

USS Triton (SSRN/SSN-586), the only member of her class, was a nuclear powered radar picket submarine in the United States Navy. She was the only Western submarine powered by two nuclear reactors. Triton was the second submarine and the fourth vessel of the United States Navy to be named for the Greek god Triton. This naming convention was unusual at the time; U.S. Navy submarines were usually named for various species of fish. At the time of her commissioning in 1959, Triton was the largest, most powerful, and most expensive submarine ever built at $109 million excluding the cost of nuclear fuel and reactors.

The Great Sheffield Gale is the name given to an intense European windstorm which crossed the United Kingdom in mid-February 1962, devastating the city of Sheffield in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Nine people were killed across the country, including four in Sheffield; damage in the city was on a widespread and severe scale never before witnessed in a major British city from a European windstorm, and only later matched by the effects of the 1968 Scotland storm in Glasgow.

Haleyville is a city in Winston and Marion counties in the U.S. state of Alabama. It incorporated on February 28, 1889. Most of the city is located in Winston County, with a small portion of the western limits entering Marion County. Haleyville was originally named "Davis Cross Roads", having been established at the crossroads of Byler Road and the Illinois Central Railroad. At the 2020 census the population was 4,361, up from 4,173 at the 2010 census.

A bulletin board system (BBS), also called a computer bulletin board service (CBBS), is a computer server running software that allows users to connect to the system using a terminal or a terminal emulator. Once logged in, the user performs functions such as uploading and downloading software and data, reading news and bulletins, and exchanging messages with other users through public message boards and sometimes via direct chatting. In the early 1980s, message networks such as FidoNet were developed to provide services such as NetMail, which is similar to internet-based email.

Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the northeast, Afghanistan to the east, Pakistan to the southeast, and the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf to the south. With a population of over 92 million, Iran ranks 17th globally in both geographic size and population. It is divided into five regions with 31 provinces. Tehran is the nation's capital, largest city, and financial center.

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), also known as the Soviet Union, was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until its dissolution in 1991. It was the world's third-most populous country, largest by area, and bordered twelve countries. A diverse multinational state, it was organized as a federal union of national republics, the largest and most populous being the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. In practice, its government and economy were highly centralized. As a one-party state governed by the Communist Party, it was the flagship communist state. Its capital and largest city was Moscow.

Nicaragua, officially the Republic of Nicaragua, is the geographically largest country in Central America, comprising 130,370 km2 (50,340 sq mi). With a population of 7,142,529 as of 2024, it is the third-most populous country in Central America after Guatemala and Honduras, and it is the largest by area in all of Central America.

China Airlines Flight 676 was a scheduled international passenger flight. On 16 February 1998, the Airbus A300B4-622R jet airliner operating the flight crashed into a road and residential area in Tayuan, Taoyuan County, near Chiang Kai-shek International Airport, Taiwan.

The Kyoto Protocol (Japanese: 京都議定書, Hepburn: Kyōto Giteisho) was an international treaty which extended the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that commits state parties to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, based on the scientific consensus that global warming is occurring and that human-made CO2 emissions are driving it. The Kyoto Protocol was adopted in Kyoto, Japan, on 11 December 1997 and entered into force on 16 February 2005. There were 192 parties (Canada withdrew from the protocol, effective December 2012) to the Protocol in 2020.

On 16 February 2013, at least 91 people were killed and 190 injured after a bomb hidden in a water tank exploded at a market in Hazara Town on the outskirts of Quetta, the capital city of Balochistan, Pakistan. Most of the victims were members of the predominantly Twelver Shia Hazara community, and authorities expected the death toll to rise due to the large number of serious injuries. The Lashkar-e-Jhangvi group claimed responsibility for the blast, the second major attack against the Shia Hazaras in a month.