Today in History, February 16th
On February 16, 1923, Howard Carter unsealed Tutankhamun's burial chamber. Plus Lithuania's independence, Castro's rise and the first 911 call.
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February 16 is best known for the day in 1923 when Howard Carter unsealed the burial chamber of the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun. The date also saw Lithuania declare independence in 1918, Fidel Castro take over as Cuba’s leader in 1959, and the first 911 emergency call in the U.S. in 1968.
The big story: Howard Carter Opens Tutankhamun’s Burial Chamber (1923)
Howard Carter had spent years digging in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings, paid for by his patron, the antiquities collector Lord Carnarvon. On November 4, 1922, his team found the first sign of a buried tomb. On November 26, Carter reached a sealed doorway, poked a small hole through it and peered in by candlelight at rooms crammed with treasures. But the king himself still lay behind another sealed wall. On February 16, 1923, Carter finally unsealed the burial chamber of Tutankhamun. The discovery turned the young king into a household name around the world. Carter spent the next decade removing the contents, most of which are now in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, and he co-published a multivolume account, The Tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen, between 1923 and 1933.
More events on February 16
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1804 | During the First Barbary War, U.S. sailors led by Lt. Stephen Decatur boarded and burned the captured frigate USS Philadelphia. |
| 1861 | On his way to his inauguration, Abraham Lincoln met his young pen pal Grace Bedell in Westfield, New York. |
| 1918 | Lithuania’s 20-member council, the Taryba, declared the country an independent state. |
| 1937 | DuPont chemist Wallace Carothers received a patent for nylon. |
| 1945 | American paratroopers landed on Corregidor in the Philippines and retook the island fortress from Japan within two weeks. |
| 1959 | Fidel Castro was sworn in as Cuba’s prime minister, weeks after his rebels forced Fulgencio Batista out. |
| 1968 | The first official 911 emergency call in the U.S. was placed. |
| 1984 | Bill Johnson became the first American man to win Olympic gold in downhill skiing. |
| 2005 | The Kyoto Protocol, the international agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions, took effect. |
| 2005 | The National Hockey League canceled its entire 2004–05 season over a labor dispute, the first major North American pro league to cancel a full season. |
| 2024 | Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, a leading critic of Vladimir Putin, died at 47 in a Siberian penal colony. |
Born on February 16
- 1620: Frederick William, the “Great Elector,” who rebuilt Brandenburg after the Thirty Years’ War.
- 1834: Ernst Haeckel, German zoologist and early champion of Darwin’s theory of evolution.
- 1903: Edgar Bergen, Chicago-born ventriloquist and radio comedian.
- 1959: John McEnroe, American tennis champion, born in Wiesbaden, West Germany.
Sources
- Howard Carter, Britannica
- What Happened on February 16, History.com
- February 16, Britannica On This Day
- Frederick William, Britannica
- Ernst Haeckel, Britannica
- Edgar Bergen, Britannica
- John McEnroe, Britannica
