Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/February 16

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Eligible

 * 1270 – Livonian Crusade: In the Battle of Karuse, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania achieved a decisive victory over the Livonian Order on the frozen surface of the Baltic Sea.
 * 1804 – First Barbary War: Lieutenant Stephen Decatur led a U.S. Navy raid to destroy the captured USS Philadelphia in the harbor of Tripoli (depicted), denying her use to the Barbary States.
 * 1859 – The French government passed a law setting the musical note A4 to a frequency of 435 hertz, in the first attempt to standardize concert pitch.
 * 1862 – American Civil War: A Union victory at the Battle of Fort Donelson gave General Ulysses S. Grant the nickname "Unconditional Surrender".
 * 1900 – The Southern Cross expedition led by Carsten Borchgrevink achieved a new Farthest South of 78° 50'S, making the first landing at the Great Ice Barrier.
 * 1936 – The Popular Front, a coalition of left-wing parties, came to power in the Spanish general election, a factor in the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War five months later.
 * 1959 – Fidel Castro was sworn in as Prime Minister of Cuba, beginning his decades-long rule over the country.
 * 1961 – The DuSable Museum, the first museum dedicated to the study and conservation of African American history, culture, and art, was chartered.
 * 1983 – The Ash Wednesday bushfires burned over half a million acres (over 2,000 km2) each in both South Australia and Victoria, killing 75 people and injuring 2,676 others.
 * 1985 – The Lebanese Shia political and paramilitary organization Hezbollah released a manifesto describing its ideology and goals.
 * 2005 – The Kyoto Protocol, an extension to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, entered into force.
 * 2013 – At least 91 people were killed and 190 others injured after a bomb hidden in a water tank exploded at a market in Hazara Town, Pakistan.
 * Born/died: | Mary the Younger |d|902| Henry Raspe |d|1247| Jean du Bellay |d|1560| Henry Wilson |b|1812| Heinz-Wolfgang Schnaufer |b|1922|  Lanny McDonald |b|1953| Roberta Williams |b|1953|  Theresa Goh |b|1987| The Weeknd |b|1990| Mary Amdur |d|1998

February 16: Day of the Shining Star in North Korea; Elizabeth Peratrovich Day in Alaska


 * 1249 – King Louis IX dispatched André de Longjumeau as the French ambassador to the Mongol Empire.
 * 1918 – The Council of Lithuania signed the Act of Independence (pictured), proclaiming the restoration of an independent Lithuania.
 * 1922 – A landslide in Byblos revealed a sarcophagus in an underground tomb, later discovered to be part of a large Bronze Age necropolis.
 * 1996 – Eleven people died in a train collision in Silver Spring, Maryland, leading to the creation of comprehensive U.S. federal rules for the design of passenger cars.