Template:On this day - November 16

Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar

• 1491 – In Ávila (Spain), eight Jews, six of them conversos, accused of the ritual murder of the so-called Holy Child of La Guardia, are burned alive in an Auto-da-fé.
• 1519 – In Cuba, Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar founds the village of San Cristóbal de La Habana.
• 1532 – The Spanish explorer and conquistador Francisco Pizarro captures Atahualpa, the last emperor of the Incas, during the Battle of Cajamarca.
• 1613 – Death of Andrés Rey de Artieda, Spanish writer (b. 1549).
• 1668 – The town of Santiago de Cuba is sacked by British privateers.
• 1700 – At Versailles (France), Philip V is proclaimed King of Spain, thus establishing the House of Bourbon and ending almost 200 years of the House of Austria.
• 1775 – Birth of Joaquín Oliet Cruella, Spanish painter (d. 1849).
• 1810 – In the province of Corrientes (Argentina), the lawyer Manuel Belgrano founds the village of Curuzú Cuatiá.
• 1870 – In the Kingdom of Spain, the Cortes elect Amadeo of Savoy to occupy the throne of that country.
• 1904 – The United States buys from Panama, for 40 million dollars, all rights over the Panama Canal.
• 1938 – In Spain (during the Spanish Civil War), the decisive Battle of the Ebro ends, the longest and bloodiest of the whole war, in which the Republican army left 10,000 dead and 20,000 prisoners.
• 1957 – In the city of Havana (Cuba), the Hotel Riviera opens, attended by the American mobster Meyer Lansky and the Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista.
• 1961 – Birth of Rafael Minuesa, founder of Hispanopedia.
• 1977 – The Council of Europe unanimously approves the admission of Spain to that body.
• 1979 – UNESCO declares Old Havana (Cuba) and its surrounding fortresses a World Heritage Site, as the city celebrates the 460th anniversary of its founding.
• 1985 – Death of Omayra Sánchez Garzón, a 13-year-old Colombian girl, after three days trapped in the mud and the remains of her own house, while television cameras ceaselessly broadcast her last hours of life (b. 1972).
• 1989 – Death of the so-called Martyrs of the UCA, six Jesuit priests and two domestic workers, murdered at the University by Salvadoran soldiers.
• 2009 – Historic judgment of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in the González et al. (Cotton Field) case, holding the Mexican State responsible for femicide for the first time.
• 2010 – Flamenco (a Spanish musical genre and dance that developed in Andalusia) is declared Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
• 2010 – Mexican cuisine is declared Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.