February 16th

 

This Day in History:

-- On this day in 1804, Lieutenant Stephen Decatur led a successful sting operation into Tripoli, Libya, to burn the USS Philadelphia, an American Frigate captured by Barbary pirates. It was the first time Americans executed a foreign foray, and it wasn’t to be the last.

-- On this day in 1918, the country of Lithuania declared its independence from Russia with its Act of Independence.  This small Baltic country was then occupied by the USSR, until Nazi Germany overran it in 1940. Later, Communist Russia once again took over Lithuania, and occupied it until the USSR fell in 1991.

-- On this day in 1923, archaeologists unsealed King Tutankhamen’s recently discovered tomb in Egypt. This tomb was fascinating to the modern world, and many previously unknown secrets of Ancient Egypt were uncovered inside the dust-filled hole in the desert.

Random Fact of the Day:

The border of your lips is called the vermilion-skin border.