Template:On this day - July 16

Junípero Serra

• 1212 – The Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa is fought, ending in the decisive victory of the Aragonese, Castilian and Navarrese troops, together with volunteers from the Kingdom of León and from Portugal, over the numerically superior forces of the Almohad Empire.
• 1717 – Death of Alonso Felipe de Andrade, New Spanish captain and hero of the fight against the British privateers who ravaged the coasts of the state of Tabasco (present-day Mexico) (b. 1667).
• 1717 – In Campeche (in the Viceroyalty of New Spain, present-day Mexico), the Villa de Valeros, today Ciudad del Carmen, is founded.
• 1740 – Death of Mariana of Neuburg, Queen consort of Spain from 1689 to 1700 as the second wife of King Charles II of Spain (b. 1667).
• 1769 – Junípero Serra founds the first California Mission (the Mission San Diego de Alcalá), which after some decades became part of the city of San Diego (present-day United States).
• 1809 – Pedro Domingo Murillo and other people of La Paz take up arms against the Spanish Crown and establish the first independent government of Hispanic America, forming a Junta Tuitiva in La Paz (present-day Bolivia).
• 1838 – In Santo Domingo the secret society La Trinitaria is created, with the aim of making the eastern part of Hispaniola independent from the Haitian occupation.
• 1865 – In Tetela de Ocampo (Puebla) (during the Second French intervention in Mexico) the Austro-Hungarian Legion burns and razes the town, whose inhabitants are forced to flee to the hills.
• 1918 – Death of José de Diego, Puerto Rican poet, journalist, essayist, politician and lawyer, staunch defender of the Spanish language and of the political autonomy of Puerto Rico in union with Spain (b. 1867).
• 1927 – In Ocotal (Nicaragua), Augusto César Sandino leads an attack on the American marines and the National Guard to take the town, but is repulsed.
• 1979 – In Nicaragua, the dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle resigns as President of the Republic, under pressure from the OAS, to flee the country in the early hours of the following day.
• 1990 – In the Philippines a violent earthquake of magnitude 7.9 on the Richter scale devastates the island of Luzon, causing great damage, with more than 3,000 dead and 25,000 injured.
• 1992 – The insurgent group Shining Path carries out the Tarata Street bombing in the city of Lima as part of its terrorist campaign against the Peruvian state during the so-called era of terror.
• 2002 – On Perejil Island, at 23:43, Operation Romeo-Sierra begins to clear the island, which five days earlier had been occupied by Moroccan forces.
• 2003 – Death of Celia Cruz, Cuban singer of salsa, son montuno and bolero.
• 2019 – Former Peruvian president Alejandro Toledo is arrested by the American police, thus starting the extradition process against him in the Odebrecht case.
• 2019 – Death of Rosa María Britton, Panamanian physician and writer (b. 1936).