February 16
February 16 is the 47th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 318 days remaining until the end of the year (319 in leap years).
Events
Up to 1900
- 1184 - Richard of Dover, Archbishop of Canterbury
- 1247 – Heinrich Raspe, Landgrave of Thuringia (b. 1204)
- 1279 – King Afonso III of Portugal (b. 1210)
- 1390 - Rupert I, Elector Palatine (b. 1309)
- 1391 – John V Palaeologus, Byzantine Emperor (b. 1332)
- 1531 – Johannes Stöffler, German mathematician and astronomer (b. 1452)
- 1560 – Jean du Bellay, French Catholic cardinal and diplomat
- 1617 - Prospero Alpini, Italian scientist (b. 1553)
- 1645 - Gonzalo Fernandez de Cordoba, Spanish military leader and politician (b. 1585)
- 1710 – Esprit Fléchier, French writer and Bishop of Nîmes (b. 1632)
- 1721 – James Craggs the Younger, English politician (b. 1686)
- 1754 – Richard Mead, English physician (b. 1763)
- 1892 - Henry Walter Bates, English naturalist, evolutionary biologist and entomologist (b. 1825)
- 1898 – Thomas Bracken, New Zealand poet (b. 1843)
- 1899 - Félix Faure, President of France (b. 1841)
1901 – 2000
- 1907 – Giosuè Carducci, Italian writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1835)
- 1912 – St. Nikolai of Japan, Eastern Orthodox priest (b. 1836)
- 1917 – Octave Mirbeau, French writer (b. 1848)
- 1924 - John William Kendrick, American railroad executive (b. 1853)
- 1927 – Jonas Basanavicius, Lithuanian independence hero (b. 1851)
- 1928 – Eddie Foy, American singer and dancer (b. 1856)
- 1932 – Ferdinand Buisson, French pacifist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1841)
- 1944 - Dadasaheb Phalke, Indian director, screenwriter and producer (b. 1870)
- 1957 - Josef Hofmann, Polish inventor, composer and pianist (b. 1876)
- 1957 - John Sealy, Irish physicist (b. 1868)
- 1961 - Dazzy Vance, American baseball player (b. 1891)
- 1967 – Antonio Moreno, Spanish-born actor (b. 1887)
- 1967 - Smiley Burnette, American actor, singer and songwriter (b. 1911)
- 1974 – John Garand, Canadian rifle engineer and manufacturer (b. 1888)
- 1975 – Morgan Taylor, American athlete (b. 1903)
- 1977 - Carlos Pellicer, Mexican poet (b. 1897)
- 1978 – E. Roland Harriman, American financier (b. 1895)
- 1980 – Erich Hückel, German physicist (b. 1895)
- 1990 – Keith Haring, American artist (b. 1958)
- 1991 - Enrique Bermudez, leader of the Nicaraguan Contras (b. 1932)
- 1992 – Angela Carter, English writer (b. 1940)
- 1992 – Herman Wold, Swedish statistician (b. 1908)
- 1994 – Andrei Chikatilo, Russian serial killer (b. 1936)
- 1996 – Pat Brown, Governor of California (b. 1905)
- 1996 – Brownie McGhee, American singer (b. 1915)
- 1996 – Roger Bowen, American actor (b. 1932)
- 2000 – Karsten Solheim, engineer, inventor
From 2001
- 2001 – Bob Buhl, baseball player (b. 1928)
- 2001 – William Masters, American gynecologist and sexologist (b. 1915)
- 2001 - Howard W. Koch, American movie director (b. 1916)
- 2002 – Walter Winterbottom, England football manager (b. 1913)
- 2003 - Rusty Magee, American composer (b. 1955)
- 2004 – Shirley Strickland, Australian athlete (b. 1925)
- 2004 – Doris Troy, American singer (b. 1937)
- 2005 - Narriman Sadek, former Queen of Egypt
- 2005 – Nicole DeHuff, American actress (pneumonia) (b. 1974)
- 2007 – Sheridan Morley, English writer, actor and director (b. 1941)
- 2009 - Stephen Kim Sou-hwan, South Korean cardinal (b. 1922)
- 2011 - Len Lesser, American actor (b. 1922)
- 2012 - Baddeley Devesi, Governor-General of the Solomon Islands (b. 1941)
- 2012 - Anil Ramdas, Surinamese-Dutch journalist (b. 1958)
- 2012 - Anthony Shadid, American journalist (b. 1968)
- 2013 - Tony Sheridan, English singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1940)
- 2014 - Mansour Koushan, Norwegian-Iranian poet, writer and director (b. 1948)
- 2014 - Jimmy Murakami, American animator and movie director (b. 1933)
- 2014 - Michael Shea, American writer (b. 1946)
- 2015 - John Davies, Welsh historian (b. 1938)
- 2015 - Lesley Gore, American singer, songwriter, actress and activist (b. 1946)
- 2015 - Uri Orbach, Israeli writer, journalist and politician (b. 1960)
- 2015 - R. R. Patil, Indian politician (b. 1956)
- 2015 - Lasse Braun, Italian director, producer and screenwriter (b. 1936)
- 2015 - Aleksandr Melentyev, Russian short shooter (b. 1954)
- 2015 - Heinrich Windelen, German politician (b. 1921)
- 2016 - Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Egyptian Secretary-General of the United Nations (b. 1922)
- 2016 - Belinda Nash, Canadian-American historian (b. 1946)
- 2016 - Charles Caldwell Ryrie, American theologian (b. 1925)
- 2016 - Robert J. Walker, American sailor (b. 1929)
- 2017 - Josef Augusta, Czech ice hockey player and coach (b. 1946)
- 2017 - Dick Bruna, Dutch author and illustrator (b. 1927)
- 2017 - Ep Wieldraaijer, Dutch politician (b. 1927)
- 2017 - George Steele, American professional wrestler (b. 1937)
- 2017 - Jannis Kounellis, Greek-Italian artist (b. 1936)
Births
1901 – 1950
- 1901 - Vincent Coleman, American actor (d. 1971)
- 1903 - Georges-Henri Lévesque, Canadian priest and sociologist (d. 2000)
- 1903 – Edgar Bergen, ventriloquist (d. 1978)
- 1904 – George F. Kennan, architect of Cold War policy of containment, centenarian (d. 2005)
- 1906 - Vera Menchik, Russian-British chess player (d. 1944)
- 1909 – Jeffrey Lynn, American actor (d. 1995)
- 1909 – Hugh Beaumont, American actor (d. 1982)
- 1909 - Dick McDonald, American businessman (d. 1998)
- 1915 - Michael Relph, American movie producer and director (d. 2004)
- 1916 - Duong Van Minh, South Vietnamese politician and general (d. 2001)
- 1916 - Bill Doggett, American pianist and organist (d. 1996)
- 1918 - Patty Andrews, American singer (d. 2013)
- 1919 - Georges Ulmer, French singer and composer (d. 1989)
- 1920 - Anna Mae Hays, American brigadier general
- 1921 - Hua Guofeng, Chairman of the Communist Party of China (d. 2008)
- 1921 - Araucaria, British crossword compiler (d. 2013)
- 1921 – Vera-Ellen, American actress (d. 1981)
- 1923 - Samuel Willenberg, Polish-Israeli sculptor and painter (d. 2016)
- 1925 - Carlos Paredes, Portuguese guitarist (d. 2004)
- 1926 – John Schlesinger, American movie director (d. 2003)
- 1926 – Margot Frank, sister of Anne Frank (d. 1945)
- 1927 – June Brown, British actress
- 1927 – Tom Kennedy, game show host
- 1929 – Gerhard Hanappi, Austrian footballer (d. 1980)
- 1929 - Kazimierz Kutz, Polish actor, director and politician
- 1931 - Ken Takakura, Japanese actor (d. 2014)
- 1931 – Otis Blackwell, American songwriter, singer (d. 2002)
- 1932 – Antonio Ordóñez, Spanish matador (d. 1998)
- 1932 – Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, former President of Sierra Leone (d. 2014)
- 1934 - August Coppola, American academic (d. 2009)
- 1934 - Marlene Hagge, American golfer
- 1935 – Sonny Bono, American singer, music producer, television producer, Congressman (d. 1998)
- 1935 - Stephen Gaskin, American activist (d. 2014)
- 1935 - Brian Bedford, English actor (d. 2016)
- 1936 – Jill Kinmont, American skier
- 1936 - Joe Frank Harris, American politician, former Governor of Georgia
- 1937 - Valentin Bondarenko, Soviet-Ukrainian pilot (d. 1961)
- 1937 - Yuri Manin, Russian mathematician
- 1938 – John Corigliano, American Composer, wrote Academy Award winning music for The Red Violin
- 1939 - Czeslaw Niemen, Polish singer-songwriter and composer (d. 2004)
- 1940 - Hannelore Schmatz, German mountaineer (d. 1979)
- 1941 – Kim Jong-Il, North Korean leader (d. 2011)
- 1942 - Richard Williams, father of Venus Williams and Serena Williams
- 1944 – Richard Ford, American Pulitzer Prize winning novelist
- 1944 - Antonio Mascarenhas Monteiro, 2nd President of Cape Verde
- 1945 – Jeremy Bulloch, British actor
- 1946 - Ian Lavender, British actor
- 1948 - Kaiketsu Masateru, Japanese sumo wrestler (d. 2014)
- 1950 - Kazuki Tomokawa, Japanese singer
- 1950 – Peter Hain, British politician
1951 – 1975
- 1951 – William Katt, American actor
- 1952 - James Ingram, American singer, pianist and composer
- 1953 - Lanny McDonald, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1953 - Roberta Williams, American computer game developer
- 1954 – Iain Banks, Scottish writer (d. 2013)
- 1955 - Bruce Crawford, Scottish politician
- 1955 – Margaux Hemingway, American actress, model (d. 1996)
- 1956 - Bodo Ramelow, German politician, Prime Minister of Thuringia
- 1957 – LeVar Burton, American actor, director and writer
- 1958 – Ice-T, American singer, songwriter, actor
- 1958 – Lisa Loring, American actress
- 1958 - Anil Ramdas, Surinamese-Dutch journalist (d. 2012)
- 1958 - Herb Williams, American basketball player and coach
- 1959 – John McEnroe, American tennis player
- 1959 - Kelly Tripucka, American basketball player
- 1960 – Pete Willis, English ex-Def Leppard guitarist
- 1961 – Andy Taylor, English musician, Duran Duran
- 1964 – Christopher Eccleston, English actor (Our Friends in the North, Doctor Who)
- 1964 – Bebeto, Brazilian footballer
- 1965 - Adama Barrow, President of the Gambia
- 1965 - Dave Lombardo, Cuban drummer
- 1966 - Martin Perscheid, German cartoonist
- 1967 - Keith Gretzky, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1967 – John Valentin, American baseball player
- 1969 - Holly Aird, English actress
- 1970 – Angelo Peruzzi, Italian footballer
- 1971 - Amanda Holden, English actress
- 1971 - Steven Houghton, English actor and singer
- 1972 – Jerome Bettis, American football player
- 1972 – Taylor Hawkins, American musician (Foo Fighters)
- 1972 - Grit Breuer, German athlete
- 1972 - Sarah Clarke, American actress
- 1973 – Cathy Freeman, Australian athlete
- 1973 - Christian Bassedas, Argentine footballer
- 1973 - Nikos Kostakis, Greek footballer
- 1974 - Luis Figueroa, Puerto Rican baseball player
- 1975 – Aikawa Nanase, Japanese musician
From 1976
- 1977 – Ian Clarke, creator of Freenet
- 1978 - Vala Flosadottir, Icelandic pole vaulter
- 1978 – Sam Salter, American singer
- 1978 – Tia Hellebaut, Belgian athlete
- 1978 - John Tartaglia, American actor
- 1979 – Valentino Rossi, Italian motorcycle racer
- 1980 – Ashley Lelie, American football player
- 1981 – Susanna Kallur, Swedish athlete
- 1981 – Jenny Kallur, Swedish athlete
- 1982 - Aleksandr Dmitrijev, Estonian footballer
- 1982 - Rickie Lambert, English footballer
- 1982 - Lee Min-jung, South Korean actress
- 1983 – Agyness Deyn, English model
- 1985 - Ron Vlaar, Dutch footballer
- 1986 - Josje Huisman, Dutch singer, actress and dancer
- 1986 - Diego Godin, Uruguayan footballer
- 1987 - Luc Bourdon, Canadian ice hockey player (d. 2008)
- 1987 - Theresa Goh, Singaporean swimmer
- 1987 - Hasheem Thabeet, American basketball player
- 1988 - Zhang Jike, Chinese table tennis player
- 1989 - Elizabeth Olsen, American actress
- 1990 - The Weeknd, Canadian singer-songwriter and producer
- 1991 - Princess Alexandra of Luxembourg
- 1991 - Sergio Canales, Spanish footballer
- 1993 - Mike Weinberg, American actor
- 1994 - Annika Beck, German tennis player
- 1995 - Carina Witthöft, German tennis player
Deaths
Observances
- Independence Day (Lithuania)
- Birthday of Kim Jong-Il (North Korea)