Explore 16 February

Explore 16 February: Howard Carter opens the sealed burial chamber of Tutankhamun, Fidel Castro becomes prime minister of Cuba, Lithuania declares its independence and the Kyoto Protocol on climate change comes into force. Meet Ernst Haeckel, John McEnroe and Valentino Rossi, born on 16 February.

This day through time →8 verified events across 3 eras

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Timeline ◈4Historic
Moments ♙8Born
Today ✦4Lives
Remembered ♫1Culture
Stories

Howard Carter at work on the stone sarcophagus in the burial chamber of Tutankhamun’s tomb.

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Harry Burton · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

1923

Howard Carter opens Tutankhamun’s burial chamber

In November 1922 the British archaeologist Howard Carter, funded by Lord Carnarvon, found the steps to a tomb in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings. Its antechamber was crammed with gilded furniture, chariots and statues, and it proved to be the almost untouched tomb of the boy king Tutankhamun, who died around 1323 BC.

Two life-size statues of the king guarded a sealed doorway. On 16 February 1923, before Egyptian officials and invited guests, Carter took it down to reveal the burial chamber, almost filled by a huge gilded wooden shrine. It took years more to dismantle the nested shrines and open the stone sarcophagus and three coffins, the last of solid gold, around the king’s mummy and its famous gold mask.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Griffith Institute, University of Oxford: Tutankhamun, first season 1922-1923 ↗

Fidel Castro speaking at the United Nations in New York.

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Bernard Gotfryd · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

1959

Fidel Castro becomes prime minister of Cuba

Fidel Castro’s guerrilla war against the dictator Fulgencio Batista began in the mountains of the Sierra Maestra in 1956. On 1 January 1959 Batista fled the country, and Castro entered Havana a week later to a hero’s welcome, although at first he held only the post of commander of the armed forces.

A moderate lawyer, José Miró Cardona, became prime minister, but real power lay with Castro. Miró resigned with his cabinet on 13 February, and on 16 February 1959 Castro was sworn in as prime minister. Within two years he had declared Cuba a socialist state allied with the Soviet Union, and he ruled until 2008.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: US Department of State, Office of the Historian: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958-1960, Cuba ↗

Members of the Council of Lithuania in 1917, with its chairman Jonas Basanavičius seated at the centre.

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Photographer is unknown · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

1918

Lithuania declares its independence

Lithuania had been part of the Russian Empire since the partitions of Poland-Lithuania in the eighteenth century. During the First World War German armies occupied it, and in 1917 a Council of Lithuania of twenty members was elected at a conference in Vilnius.

The Germans wanted a Lithuania tied to Germany. Instead, at 11 o’clock on 16 February 1918, the council under Jonas Basanavičius unanimously declared the restoration of an independent Lithuanian state, built on democratic lines, with Vilnius as its capital. It took years of fighting to secure the new republic. The day is Lithuania’s national holiday, and in 2017 a historian found the long-lost signed original in a German diplomatic archive.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania: origins of modern parliamentarianism ↗

The Kyoto International Conference Center in Japan, where the protocol was adopted in December 1997, photographed in 2023.

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663highland · CC BY-SA 4.0Resized and cropped for display.

2005

The Kyoto Protocol on climate change comes into force

At a conference in Kyoto in December 1997, governments agreed the first treaty setting legally binding limits on the greenhouse gases that warm the climate. Industrialised countries promised to cut their combined emissions below 1990 levels by 2008-2012.

The treaty could only take effect once countries responsible for at least 55 per cent of the developed world’s carbon dioxide emissions had ratified it. When the United States withdrew its support in 2001, Russia’s decision became crucial, and after Russia ratified in November 2004, the Kyoto Protocol came into force on 16 February 2005. It was later followed by the Paris Agreement of 2015.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: UNFCCC: the Kyoto Protocol ↗

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PEOPLE

Born Today

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not stated · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

Born 1822

Francis Galton

English scientist who pioneered statistics and fingerprinting, and also founded eugenics.

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Unknown authorUnknown author · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

Born 1834

Ernst Haeckel

German biologist and artist who coined the word ‘ecology’.

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Unknown authorUnknown author · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

Born 1848

Octave Mirbeau

French novelist and critic, who also died on 16 February, in 1917.

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User Raul654 on en.wikipedia · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

Born 1935

Sonny Bono

American singer of I Got You Babe with Cher, and later a congressman.

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Eurosport · CC BY 3.0Resized and cropped for display.

Born 1959

John McEnroe

American tennis player who won seven Grand Slam singles titles.

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Sergio Savarese from Sao Paulo City / Ipiranga, Brasil · CC BY-SA 2.0Resized and cropped for display.

Born 1964

Bebeto

Brazilian striker who helped win the 1994 World Cup.

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Morio · CC BY-SA 4.0Resized and cropped for display.

Born 1979

Valentino Rossi

Italian motorcycle racer, nine times world champion.

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Brian Ziff · CC BY-SA 4.0Resized and cropped for display.

Born 1990

The Weeknd

Canadian singer of Blinding Lights.

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MUSIC • FILM • BOOKS • CULTURE

Culture Stories

Frédéric Chopin, photographed in the last years of his life.

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Louis-Auguste Bisson · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

1848

Chopin gives his last concert in Paris

Frédéric Chopin, the Polish composer who had lived in Paris since 1831, rarely played in public, preferring the salons of friends. By 1848 he was seriously ill with tuberculosis, and his long relationship with the novelist George Sand had ended.

Persuaded by friends, including the piano maker Camille Pleyel, he gave a concert at the Salle Pleyel on 16 February 1848. All 300 tickets had sold out a week before. He played études, preludes, mazurkas and waltzes, his Barcarolle and Berceuse, and his Cello Sonata with his friend Auguste Franchomme. It was his last concert in Paris; a week later revolution broke out, and he died in October 1849.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Fryderyk Chopin Institute: Chopin’s life, 1848 ↗

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LIVES REMEMBERED