July 16

• July 16, 276
  Marcus Annius Florianus, emperor of Rome, is murdered
• July 16, 1099
  Crusaders herded the Jews of Jerusalem into a synagogue and set it afire during massacre
• July 16, 1212
  Spanish Christians under Alfonso VIII of Castile and Sancho VII of Navarre succeed in defeating the Moors at the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa, which becomes an turning point in the Reconquista and marks the end of Muslim power in Spain
• July 16, 1548
  La Paz, the seat of government of Bolivia, is founded by Spanish conquistadors
• July 16, 1647
  Masaniello, an Italian fisherman, is murdered in Naples after leading a doomed revolt against Habsburg rule
• July 16, 1769
  Father Junípero Serra, a Spanish Franciscan friar, founds Mission San Diego de Alcalá, the first mission in California
• July 16, 1774
  Russia and the Ottoman Empire sign the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca, ending their six-year war and bringing Russia for the first time to the Mediterranean as the acknowledged protector of Orthodox Christians
• July 16, 1801
  Pope Pius VII and First consul Napoleon sign Concordat of 1801, which solidifies the Roman Catholic Church as the majority church of France, but maintains religious freedom
• July 16, 1809
  The city of La Paz, modern Bolivia, proclaims independence, which becomes the earliest step of the Spanish American wars of independence
• July 16, 1867
  Joseph Monier, a French gardener, patents reinforced concrete, initially developed to strengthen flowerpots
• July 16, 1918
  Russian tzar Nicholas II, his tsarina and their five children are executed by Bolsheviks by the order of Vladimir Lenin to prevent the rescue of the Imperial Family by approaching White forces during the Russian Civil War
• July 16, 1927
  Augusto Cesar Sandino, a Nicaraguan revolutionary, begins 5.5-year war against United States occupation of Nicaragua
• July 16, 1941
  A large pocket of 16th, 19th, and 20th Armies of Soviet Union are encircled in Smolensk by the two German Panzer Groups
• July 16, 1945
  The United States successfully tests the first plutonium atomic bomb, at the Alamogordo airbase in New Mexico
• July 16, 1979
  Iraqi President Hasan al-Bakr resigns and Vice President Saddam Hussein replaces him
• July 16, 1980
  1980 Summer Olympics, boycotted by 65 countries because of the Soviet war in Afghanistan, is opened