February 16
1597: Paris France - Troilus de Mesgouez, Marquis de La Roche c1540-1606 gets grant from Henry IV for expedition to New France
1917: On the Western Front, every officer in a company of the Royal Fusiliers fell casualty during an attack near Courcelette. Nevertheless, Lance-Sergeant Palmer ignored heavy fire at point-blank range to painstakingly cut a path through entanglements o
1940: Halifax Nova Scotia - RCAF's No. 110 Army Cooperation Squadron sails for Britain; first of 48 squadrons to go overseas.
1942: Lieutenant Roberts and Petty Officer Gould, of the submarine HMS Thrasher, won the Victoria Cross for a remarkable act of bomb disposal
1942: Petty Officer Thomas Gould was serving as Second Coxswain aboard the submarine HMS Thrasher during a patrol off Crete, 16 February 1942. Thrasher succeeded in sinking a merchantman in a convoy, but then came under very heavy attack from escorts and
1944: Major Hoey led a company of the Lincolnshire Regiment in an attack on Japanese positions in the Arakan region of Burma. The company became pinned down by fire from a Japanese strong point, whereupon Hoey went forward alone, despite having already b
1944: VC win by Maj Charles Ferguson Hoey, 1st Battalion, The Lincolnshire Regiment (British Army), Maungdaw, Burma (posthumous)
1945: Again in Burma, Jemadar Prakash Singh commanded a platoon of 4/13th Frontier Rifles, defending against massive Japanese attacks. Prakash Singh was wounded in both legs, and his second-in-command took over the leadership of the unit. However, he wa
1945: HMCS SAINT JOHN sinks U-309 off Scotland's Northern Coast
1971: 1971 FUDDLE DUDDLE DAY Ottawa Ontario - Pierre Trudeau, under opposition attack in the Commons, utters an apparently unparliamentary expression that he later describes as 'fuddle-duddle.
1973: Havana Cuba - Canada signs anti-hijacking agreement with Cuba; each country to prosecute hijackers in the other's country, or return them to the country where the hijacking took place.
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