Today is Thursday, February 16, the 47th day of 2023. There are 318 days until the end of the year.
1808 – France began an invasion of Spain and conquered it in a month. Emperor Napoleon I took King Carlos IV and his son Fernando VII to France, and placed his brother Joseph on the throne, who ruled occupied Spain until 1813.
1831 – Russian writer Nikolai Semyonovich Lyeskov was born, an exceptional master of languages and a subtle stylist. He wrote novels and short stories about the life of priests and officials in a deaf Russian province and described unscrupulous types in the period of the initial accumulation of capital. He also created unsurpassed literary characters of peasants, thanks to his extraordinary knowledge of the psychology of Russian peasants. Works: “The Funnel of Soborjana”, “The Enchanted Traveler”, “The Immortal Head”, “Lady Macbeth of the Mscen District”, “Trifles from the Bishop’s Life”.
1871 – The writer Radoje Domanović was born, the greatest Serbian satirist, who sarcastically and wittily painted a government steeped in corruption and violence, false patriotism and a citizenry obedient to the point of servility. After graduating from the High School in Belgrade, he was a teacher in Vranje, Pirot and Leskovac, and was dismissed from the service as an opponent of Obrenović’s regime. From 1905 until his death in 1908, he was the head of proofreading at the State Printing Office in Belgrade. He edited the satirical newspaper “Stradia”. He began with realistic stories of rural life, but soon began to write satire, creating works of universal value. Works: satirical short stories “Stradija”, “Leader”, “Danga”, “Dead Sea”, “Kraljević Marko for the second time among the Serbs”.
1871 – Defeated France signed the capitulation and armistice act with Prussia, ending the Franco-Prussian war. In May 1871, a definitive peace was concluded with the then already united Germany, to which France had to cede the rich provinces of Alsace and Lorraine and pay war reparations.
1873 – A republic was proclaimed in Spain when King Amadeo II of Savoy abdicated due to the turmoil in the country, the unsettled economic situation and the strengthening of the republican movement. Since the republicans were already disunited in 1874, the army returned to power the Bourbon dynasty, with King Alfonso the Twelfth.
1877 – Isidora Sekulić was born, a Serbian writer of exceptional style, broad education and high culture, a close observer of human lives and destinies, a writer of high spirituality and a refined spirit, a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. Critics consider her a classic of Serbian literature, and on the occasion of her death in 1958, one of them said that “the most literarily cultured man of our soil since Cyril and Methodius until yesterday, until today, maybe until the day after tomorrow” died. She graduated from the Higher Pedagogy in Budapest and received her doctorate in Germany. She was a teacher and manager of the Girls’ School in Pancevo, then a high school teacher in Belgrade. She collaborated in all the best Serbian and Croatian literary magazines. She knew many languages and was an excellent translator, especially translating a lot from English. Works: travelogue “Letters from Norway”, novel “Deacon of the Church of the Virgin Mary”, short stories “Chronicle of Palanački Cemetery”, “Companions”, “Ms. Nola”, essays “Analytical Moments and Themes”, “Records of My People”, “Peace and restlessness”, “Njegoš – a book of deep devotion”, “Speech and language, a cultural survey of peoples”.
1918 – The English port of Dover was bombed by a German submarine in the First World War.
1926 – Born English film director John Richard Schlesinger, close to the ideas of “free cinema”. Movies: “Billy the Liar”, “Darling”, “Far from the Wild Crowd”, “Midnight Cowboy”, “Sunday, Damn Sunday”, “The Glitz and Misery of Hollywood”, “Marathon Man”.
1933 – Due to the fear of increasingly frequent German threats, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and Romania reorganized the defense alliance Little Entente, which received a permanent Council made up of foreign ministers. The German occupation of Czechoslovakia in March 1939 practically extinguished the alliance, which survived for some time due to the cooperation of Yugoslavia and Romania, but with the collapse of Yugoslavia in the Second World War, after the attack of Nazi Germany in April 1941, it definitely ceased to exist.
1936 – In the parliamentary elections in Spain, the Popular Front list won, after which a government of socialists, communists and trade union representatives was formed by Manuel Asanja and it immediately issued a decree on amnesty for political prisoners and prescribed agrarian reform. Fascists under the leadership of General Francisco Franco started an armed rebellion in July 1936, which caused a civil war in which the forces of the Popular Front government were defeated in 1939, mostly thanks to the large military aid given to Franco by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.
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1959 – Guerrilla leader Fidel Castro – whose forces overthrew dictator Fulgencio Batista on January 1, 1959 – became Prime Minister of Cuba.
1972 – A group of Ecuadorian officers, led by General Guillermo Rodríguez Lara, overthrew President José María Velázquez Ibarra in a bloodless coup. The deposed president, who was in his fifth term (he first became head of state in 1934), was granted asylum in Venezuela.
1978 – China and Japan signed a $20 billion trade agreement in Beijing, marking the beginning of China’s great economic opening.
1983 – At least 69 people lost their lives in a fire that engulfed a large area of low vegetation in the south of Australia.
1992 – The Assembly of the Republic of Srpska Krajina (RSK) at an extraordinary session in Glina accepted Cyrus Vance’s plan to deploy UN peacekeeping forces in the RSK, dismissed the duties of Prime Minister Milan Babić and annulled his government’s decision to call a referendum on Vance’s plan.
1992 – Zairian security forces kill 32 protesters, opening fire on thousands of Christians who began peaceful street protests against the regime of President Mobutu Sese Seko.
1994 – Greece subjected the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to a complete economic embargo due to the intention of Skopje to be recognized as the Republic of Macedonia. Athens reminded that the northern Greek province of Macedonia existed long before the arrival of the Slavs in the Balkans and warned that it was unacceptable for the newly created state to put the Hellenistic ancient symbol – the sun of Vergine – on its flag.
1994 – At least 200 people died in an earthquake in the mountainous area of the Indonesian island of Sumatra.
1998 – When an Airbus A-300 of the Taiwanese Airline “China Airlines” crashed near the airport in Taipei, 203 passengers on the plane died, including the governor of the central bank of Taiwan and seven people on the ground.
2000 – Russia and NATO renewed relations, interrupted in the spring of 1999 due to the aggression of the North Atlantic Alliance on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, it was announced in Moscow after the meeting of acting Russian President Vladimir Putin with NATO Secretary General George Robertson.
2001 – Ten Serbs were killed and more than 40 wounded in an attack on a Serbian convoy near Podujevo in Kosmet.
2004 – India and Pakistan begin the first formal peace talks in more than two and a half years, with one of the main topics being the dispute over the Kashmir region.
2016 – Boutros Boutros Ghali, Egyptian politician and diplomat, former UN Secretary General, died.
