September 16 - Events

Events

• 307 – Severus II is captured and imprisoned at Tres Tabernae. He is later executed (or forced to commit suicide) after Emperor Galerius unsuccessfully invades Italy.
• 1400 – Owain Glyndŵr is declared Prince of Wales by his followers.
• 1620 – The Mayflower starts her voyage to North America
• 1701 – James Francis Edward Stuart, sometimes called the "Old Pretender", becomes the Jacobite claimant to the thrones of England and Scotland.
• 1776 – American Revolutionary War: the Battle of Harlem Heights is fought.
• 1779 – American Revolutionary War: The Franco-American Siege of Savannah begins.
• 1795 – The first occupation by United Kingdom of Cape Colony, South Africa with the Battle of Hout Bay, after successive victories at the Battle of Muizenberg and Wynberg, after William V requested protection against revolutionary France's occupation of the Netherlands.
• 1810 – With the Grito de Dolores, Father Miguel Hidalgo begins Mexico's fight for independence from Spain.
• 1812 – The Fire of Moscow (1812) begins shortly after midnight and destroys three quarters of the city days later.
• 1863 – Robert College of Istanbul-Turkey, the first American educational institution outside the United States, is founded by Christopher Robert, an American philanthropist.
• 1880 – The Cornell Daily Sun prints its first issue in Ithaca, New York. The Sun is the nation's oldest, continuously-independent college daily in the United States.
• 1893 – Settlers make a land run for prime land in the Cherokee Strip in Oklahoma.
• 1908 – The General Motors Corporation is founded.
• 1919 – The American Legion is incorporated.
• 1920 – The Wall Street bombing: a bomb in a horse wagon explodes in front of the J. P. Morgan building in New York City – 38 are killed and 400 injured.
• 1940 – World War II: Italian troops conquer Sidi Barrani.
• 1941 – World War II: Concerned that Reza Pahlavi the Shah of Persia is about to ally his petroleum-rich empire with Nazi Germany, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union invade Iran in late August and force the Shah to abdicate in favor of his son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
• 1943 – World War II: The Allied invasion of Italy concludes when Heinrich von Vietinghoff, commander of the German Tenth Army, orders his troops to withdraw from Salerno.
• 1945 – World War II: The surrender of the Japanese troops in Hong Kong. The surrender is accepted by the Royal Navy Admiral Sir Cecil Harcourt.
• 1947 – Typhoon Kathleen hits Saitama, Tokyo and Tone River area, at least 1,930 killed.
• 1955 – The military coup to unseat President Juan Perón of Argentina is launched at midnight on this date.
• 1955 – A Soviet Navy Zulu class submarine becomes the first submarine to launch a ballistic missile.
• 1959 – The first successful photocopier, the Xerox 914, is introduced in a demonstration on live television from New York City.
• 1961 – The United States National Hurricane Research Project drops eight cylinders of silver iodide into the eyewall of Hurricane Esther. Wind speed reduces by 10%, giving rise to Project Stormfury.
• 1963 – Malaysia is formed from the Federation of Malaya, Singapore, British North Borneo (Sabah) and Sarawak. However, Singapore soon leaves this new country,
• 1966 – The Metropolitan Opera House opens at Lincoln Center in New York City with the world premiere of Samuel Barber's opera, Antony and Cleopatra.
• 1970 – King Hussein of Jordan declares military rule following the hijacking of four civilian airliners by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). This results in the formation of the Black September Palestinian paramilitary unit.
• 1971 – Typhoon Nancy, with possibly the strongest winds ever measured in a tropical cyclone, makes landfall in Osaka, Japan, killing 173 people.
• 1975 – Papua New Guinea gains its independence from Australia.
• 1975 – The Cape Verde Islands, Mozambique, and Sao Tome and Principe join the United Nations.
• 1975 – The first prototype of the MiG-31 interceptor makes its maiden flight.
• 1976 – Shavarsh Karapetyan saves 20 people from the trolleybus that had fallen into Erevan reservoir.
• 1978 – An earthquake measuring 7.5 to 7.9 on the Richter scale hits the city of Tabas, Iran killing about 25,000 people.
• 1980 – Saint Vincent and the Grenadines join the United Nations.
• 1982 – Sabra and Shatila massacre in Lebanon.
• 1987 – The Montreal Protocol is signed to protect the ozone layer from depletion.
• 1990 – The railroad between the People's Republic of China and Kazakhstan becomes complete at Dostyk, adding a sizable link to the concept of the Eurasian Land Bridge.
• 1991 – The trial of the deposed Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega begins in the United States.
• 1992 – Black Wednesday: the Pound Sterling is forced out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism by currency speculators and is forced to devalue against the German mark.
• 2005 – The Camorra organized crime boss Paolo Di Lauro gets arrested in Naples, Italy.
• 2007 – One-Two-GO Airlines Flight 269 carrying 128 crew and passengers crashes in Thailand killing 89 people.
• 2007 – Mercenaries working for Blackwater Worldwide allegedly shoot and kill 17 Iraqis in Nisour Square, Baghdad; all criminal charges against them are later dismissed, sparking outrage in the Arab world.