Milestones: February 16, 2024

February 16, 2024 Brooklyn Eagle Staff

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GOLDEN COFFIN OF KING TUT — TUTANKHAMEN. HIS NAME WAS USED IN A POPULAR 1978 STEVE MARTIN NOVELTY SONG AND IN A FATHER BROWN MYSTERIES EPISODE QUIZ SHOW QUESTION. But King Tut, as he was known, was an ancient Egyptian ruler king whose tomb archeologists opened on Feb. 16, 1923. On that date, English archaeologist Howard Carter enters the sealed burial chamber of the ancient Egyptian ruler King Tutankhamun. Carter had been on a search for what he believed to be the undiscovered tomb of King Tut, who had died as a teenager. With backing from a wealthy British Lord Carnarvon, he searched for years. In November 1922, Carter’s team found steps hidden in the debris near the entrance of another tomb. The steps led to an ancient sealed doorway bearing the name Tutankhamun. Carter and his benefactor entered the tomb’s interior chambers that month, finding it virtually intact.

It took four months of careful exploration; but on Feb. 16, 1923, they opened the door to the final chamber, and found a sarcophagus with three nested tombs, the last gold coffin of which contained King Tut’s mummified body.

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‘MOST DARING ACT’ — DURING THE FIRST BARBARY WAR, U.S. LIEUTENANT STEPHEN DECATUR LEADS A MILITARY MISSION ON FEB. 16, 1804. About three years earlier, President Thomas Jefferson ordered U.S. Navy vessels to the Mediterranean Sea in protest of continuing raids against U.S. ships by pirates from the Barbary states 3 Morocco, Algeria, Tunis and Tripolitania (comprising North African states on the southern shore of the Mediterranean Sea). American sailors were often abducted along with the captured booty and ransomed back to the United States at an exorbitant price. When Tripolitan gunboats captured the U.S. frigate Philadelphia, Lt. Decatur’s strategy, which proved successful, was to recapture and destroy it to prevent its use by the enemy. Decatur’s men boarded the ship disguised as Maltese sailors, attacked and killed most of the Tripolitan crew and then set fire to the vessel, which exploded when the fire spread to the stock of gunpowder.

Famed British Admiral Horatio Nelson called Decatur’s mission “the most daring act of the age.”

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9-1-1 SYSTEM — THE FIRST OFFICIAL “9-1-1” CALL WAS PLACED IN THE UNITED STATES ON FEB. 16, 1968. Great Britain had beat the U.S. to the punch some 32 years earlier, establishing a similar system for emergency assistance calls, but with the number “999.” In the United States, the first catalyst for a nationwide emergency telephone number was in 1957, when the National Association of Fire Chiefs recommended the use of a single number for reporting fires. The code 9-1-1 was chosen because it best fit the needs of all parties involved: It was a brief, easily remembered number that could be quickly dialed, and it had not already been established as an area code. Congress backed AT&T’s proposal and passed legislation allowing the use of only the numbers 9-1-1 when creating a single emergency calling service, thereby making 9-1-1 a standard emergency number nationwide. That first 9-1-1- call, on February 16, 1968, came from Senator Rankin Fite. Six days later, the city of Nome, Alaska implemented a 9-1-1 service.

Five years later, in March 1973, the White House’s Office of Telecommunications issued a national policy statement recognizing the importance and benefits of 9-1-1.

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LEGAL TENDER AGAIN — SILVER DOLLARS AS A FORM OF CURRENCY WERE MADE LEGAL ON FEB. 16, 1878. Strongly supported by western mining interests and farmers, the Bland-Allison Act, which provided for a return to the minting of silver coins and which received wide support from farmers and western mining entities, became law. Five years earlier, Congress, in a well-meaning action to be more uniform with Europe, had stopped minting silver coins or even buying silver. However, this action led to a financial crisis that hurt Americans trying to pay debts as well as harmed the economy of the silver miners. Missouri Congressman Richard Bland, who had experience in mining, led the fight to remonetize silver. His belief in the silver campaign gained him the nickname, Silver Dick.

The Bland-Allison Act required the U.S. Treasury to resume minting silver coins, but it did not provide for unlimited silver coinage.

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FRENCH COLONIAL RULE — THE WORLD WAR II-ERA MOVIE, “DAYS OF GLORY,” PREMIERED ON FEB. 16, 2007. The plot centers on four North African men who enlist in the French army, to liberate France from German oppression, but also to fight French discrimination, and French colonial rule. French director Rachid Bouchareb, now 70, has focused many of his movies on issues of racial discrimination and injustice, using the genre of historical drama. His specialty is French history and France’s relationship with its former colony, Algeria, in North Africa.

Days of Glory, which captured $22.5 million in box office sales, starred Sami Bouajila, Jamel Debbouze, Samy Naceri, Roschdy Zem, Mélanie Laurent and Bernard Blancan.

See previous milestones, here.