September 16

1498 – Tomás de Torquemada, the first Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition at the end of the Reconquista, dies at the monastery of St. Thomas Aquinas in Ávila, Spain.

1776 – Having withdrawn to defensible positions on Harlem Heights after British troops land on Manhattan Island, superior numbers of American troops,  under General Washington, fight advancing British troops causing them to withdraw after overextending their lines.

1779 – A combined force of French and American troops besiege British occupied Savannah, Georgia.

1863 – American philanthropist, Christopher Robert, founds Robert College, in Istanbul. The first American educational institution outside the United States.

1893 – Settlers begin the next to last land run in the Cherokee Outlet Opening in present day Oklahoma.

1908 – The General Motors Corporation is founded.

1920 – A bomb in a horse wagon explodes in front of the J. P. Morgan building in New York City killing 38 people and injuring 400.

1943 – The German Tenth Army reports that it can no longer contain the Allied bridgehead at Salerno during World War II.

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 8 cylinders of silver iodide into the eyewall of Hurricane Esther. Wind speed reduces by 10%, giving rise to Project Stormfury.

1970 – King Hussein of Jordan declares war against the Palestine Liberation Organization, the conflict came to be known as Black September 

1979 – Eight people escape from East Germany to the west in a homemade hot air balloon.

1992 – The trial of the deposed Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega ends in the U.S. with a him receiving a 40 year sentence for drug trafficking and money laundering.

2004 – Hurricane Ivan makes landfall in Gulf Shores, Alabama as a Category 3 hurricane, causing 25 deaths due to outbreaks of tornados in several states and over $20 billion in damage

2011 – Piloting the modified P-51 racer, Galloping Ghost, Jimmy Leeward crashes at the National Championship Air Races at Reno, Nevada, killing himself, 10 people on the ground and injuring another 69.

2013 – A contract computer worker at the base kills 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard before being killed by Police.

2019 – 5 months before the COVID-19 stock market crash, an overnight spike in lending rates in the United States prompts the Federal Reserve to provide inexpensive funding in the repurchase market.