Reuters historical calendar - February 16

LONDON, Feb 15 (Reuters) Following are some of the major events to have occurred on February 16 since 1900: 1937 - Nylon was patented by chemist Dr Wallace Hume Carothers and his research team at the Du Pont company in the United States.

1944 - Allied aircraft bombed the Japanese naval base at Truk, Caroline Islands, destroying 201 planes.

1959 - Fidel Castro was sworn in as prime minister of Cuba after leading a guerrilla campaign that ousted right-wing dictator Fulgencio Batista on January 1.

1960 - The US nuclear submarine Triton began its underwater round-the-world trip.

1991 - Enrique Bermudez, a former leader of the Contra rebels in Nicaragua, was assassinated in Managua.

1992 - Zairean security forces shot dead 32 people after thousands of Christians began a peaceful street protest against President Mobutu Sese Seko's government in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo.

1998 - A China Airlines Airbus crashed at Taipei's international airport, killing 203 people.

1999 - Turkish special forces flew Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan to Turkey after spiriting him out of Kenya; his capture ignited a Europe-wide wave of Kurdish demonstrations.

2001 - A member of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement, Tan Yihui, died after setting himself on fire in the Wanshoulu district in western Beijing.

2002 - Sir Walter Winterbottom, the England football team's first and longest-serving manager, died. He was 89. He took charge in 1947 and presided over the England team at four World Cups before being replaced by Alf Ramsey in 1962.

2005 - The Kyoto Protocol on curbing human emissions of heat-trapping gases by 2012 came into force, but was rejected as an economic straitjacket by the United States, the world's top polluter.

2006 - Islamist group Hamas chose Ismail Haniyeh to be the next Palestinian prime minister.

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