February 16

On This Day In History
	1959: Power in Cuba seized by Fidel Castro After defeating the forces of dictator General Fulgencio Batista, Fidel Castro became premier of Cuba this day in 1959 and transformed the island country into the Western Hemisphere's first communist state.
Fidel Castro, 1995.
Biography Of The Day
	Kim Jong II Kim Jong II, son of North Korean communist dictator Kim Il-sung and his successor as head of the Korean Workers' Party and ruler of North Korea, was born in Siberia in the Soviet Union this day in 1941.
Kim Jong II
More Events On This Day In History
	1959 American tennis player John McEnroe was born in West Germany.
1949	1949 The first Knesset (Hebrew: "Assembly"), the unicameral parliament of Israel and supreme authority of that state, opened in Jerusalem.
1945	1945 American paratroopers landed on Corregidor Island in the Philippines during World War II, and within two weeks they recaptured it from the Japanese.
1938	1938 Austrian Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg admitted an Austrian Nazi to his cabinet, believed to be the first step in the German overthrow of his government.
	1937 DuPont chemist Wallace Hume Carothers patented nylon.
1918	1918 The 20-member Taryba (council) of Lithuanian delegates proclaimed their country an independent state.
	1903 American ventriloquist and radio comedian Edgar Bergen was born in Chicago.
	1620 Frederick William, the Great Elector of Brandenburg in 1640–88, who restored the Hohenzollern dominions after the devastations of the Thirty Years' War, was born.