This day in history
Every day is full of amazing anniversaries, ancient and modern! As well as today, you can also look at any other day of the year - click the arrows to select the month, then click a number to select the day.
16 July
Events
- 1212: The Spanish kings Alfonso VIII of Castile, Sancho VII of Navarre, and Pedro II of Aragon and a few crusaders win a decisive victory over the Almohads at Las Navas de Tolosa. Muslim power in Spain is permanently broken.
- 1263: King Henry III of England makes peace with his baronial opponents by accepting their terms, following a number of armed clashes and the rising of the city of London, England, against him. The leader of the barons, Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, and his allies occupy London.
- 1855: The British Parliament establishes responsible government throughout the Australian states, except for Western Australia.
- 1901: A Liberal ministry is formed under Dr Johan Deutzer in Denmark, following elections which end an era of Conservative government.
- 1909: Mohammed Ali, shah of Persia, is deposed by the pro-liberal Bakhtiari chief, Ali Kuli Khan, in favour of Sultan Ahmad Shah, aged 12.
- 1918: Nicholas II, tsar of Russia 18951917, is executed by the Bolsheviks, in Yekaterinburg, Russia (50).
- 1934: The first general strike in the USA takes place in San Francisco, California, with workers out in sympathy with stevedores.
- 1945: The first atomic explosion occurs when the nuclear device code-named Trinity is exploded near Alamogordo, New Mexico. On 6 August and 9 August similar devices are dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.
- 1961: Iolanda Balas of Romania sets her 14th women's high-jump world record. Since 1956 she has improved the record from 1.75 m/5.74 ft to 1.91 m/6.26 ft, including the first jump of 6 ft by a woman in 1958.
- 1979: Saddam Hussein becomes president of Iraq.
- 1990: The Ukrainian parliament votes for sovereignty, and the former Communist Party leader Leonid Kravchuk is indirectly elected president.
- 1999: John (Fitzgerald) Kennedy Jr, political magazine editor and only surviving son of former US president John F Kennedy, dies near Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, when his aeroplane crashes (38). His wife, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and his wife's sister, Lauren Bessette, also die.
- 2005: English writer J K Rowling publishes Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the sixth book of her best-selling children's series, with record sales reported.
Births and Deaths
- Roald Amundsen
1872: Roald Amundsen, Norwegian explorer who was the first person to reach the South Pole, born in Oslo, Norway (1928).
Data provided by Helicon Publishing
