February 16 ...

In 1804 US Lieutenant Stephen Decatur led a raid into Tripoli harbor and destroyed the captured American vessel USS Philadelphia, which was in the hands of the Barbary pirates. In 1838 historian, journalist, and novelist Henry Adams was born in Boston. In 1862 during the Civil War, some 14,000 Confederate soldiers surrendered at Fort Donelson, TN. (Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's victory earned him the nickname "Unconditional Surrender Grant.") In 1883 the Ladies Home Journal was published for the first time. In 1914 the first airplane flight between Los Angeles and San Francisco took place. In 1941 10,000 Jews were deported from Vienna, Austria. In 1944 the US Marines destroyed Japanese bases in the Marshall Islands, including Ponape and Truk in the Caroline Islands. In 1945 US paratroopers landed on Corregidor in the Philippines, taking the island ten days later. In 1959 Fidel Castro became premier of Cuba after the overthrow of Fulgencio Batista. In 1996 former California Gov. Edmund G. "Pat" Brown died in Beverly Hills, at age 90. In 2001 the US and Britain staged air strikes against radar stations and air defense command centers in Iraq.