February 16

February 16 in history:

• 2005: The Kyoto Protocol to reduce greenhouse gases and thus slow the pace of global warming came into effect; signed in 1997, the pact had been ratified by 141 countries accounting for 55% of greenhouse gas emissions, but not by the United States, which produces more emissions than any other country and claimed that the agreement is flawed and too costly to implement.

• 1862: During the U.S. Civil War, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and Flag Officer Andrew Foote captured the strategic Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River; the fight was fierce and might have gone either way, save for incompetence in the Confederate high command.

• 1804: During the Tripolitan War, Stephen Decatur led a small band of American sailors into Tripoli harbor, where they boarded and set fire to the captured U.S. frigate Philadelphia; the British admiral Horatio Nelson hailed the exploit as the "most bold and daring act of the age," and Decatur was promoted to captain.

• 1751: One of the most famous poems in the English language, Thomas Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard was published in The Magazine of Magazines; Gray, who had not originally intended the poem to be published, had rushed into print a privately printed version the day before.