HISTORY AT A GLANCE
TODAY is Thursday, February 16, the 47th day of 2017. There are 318 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date: 1936 – Elections bring the Popular Front to power in Spain. 1940 – World War II: Altmark Incident: The German tanker Altmark is boarded by sailors from the British destroyer HMS Cossack. 299 British prisoners are freed. 1945 – World War II: American forces land on Corregidor
Island in the Philippines. 1959 – Fidel Castro becomes Premier of Cuba after dictator
Fulgencio Batista was overthrown on January 1. 1960 – The U.S. Navy submarine USS Triton begins Operation Sandblast, setting sail from New London, Connecticut, to begin the first submerged circumnavigation of the globe. 1961 – Explorer program: Explorer 9 (S-56a) is launched. 1962 – Flooding in the coastal areas of West Germany kills
315 and destroys the homes of about 60,000 people. 1978 – The first computer bulletin board system is created
(CBBS in Chicago). 1983 – The Ash Wednesday bushfires in Victoria and South
Australia kill 75. 1985 – Hezbollah is founded. 1987 – The trial of John Demjanjuk, accused of being a Nazi guard dubbed “Ivan the Terrible” in Treblinka extermination camp, starts in Jerusalem. 1991 – Nicaraguan Contras leader Enrique Bermúdez is
assassinated in Managua. 1998 – China Airlines Flight 676 crashes into a road and residential area near Chiang Kai-shek International Airport in Taiwan, killing all 196 aboard and seven more on the ground. 1999 – In Uzbekistan, a bomb explodes and gunfire is heard at the government headquarters in an apparent assassination attempt against President Islom Karimov. 1999 – Across Europe, Kurdish rebels take over embassies and hold hostages after Turkey arrests one of their rebel leaders, Abdullah Öcalan. 2005 – The Kyoto Protocol comes into force, following its
ratification by Russia. 2006 – The last Mobile army surgical hospital (MASH) is
decommissioned by the United States Army. 2013 – A bomb blast at a market in Hazara Town in Quetta, Pakistan kills more than 80 people and injures 190 others. 2015 – A CSX train crashes in Mount Carbon, West Virginia,
resulting in large fires.