September 16 is the 259th day of the year (260th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 106 days remaining until the end of the year.
681 – Pope Honorius I is posthumously excommunicated by the Sixth Ecumenical Council.
1400 – Owain Glyndŵr is declared Prince of Wales by his followers.
1620 – Pilgrims set sail from England on the Mayflower.
1701 – James Francis Edward Stuart, sometimes called the "Old Pretender", becomes the Jacobite claimant to the thrones of England and Scotland.
1732 – In Campo Maior, Portugal, a storm hits the Armory and a violent explosion ensues, killing two thirds of its inhabitants.
1776 – American Revolutionary War: The Battle of Harlem Heights is fought.
1779 – American Revolutionary War: The Franco-American Siege of Savannah begins.
1810 – With the Grito de Dolores, Father Miguel Hidalgo begins Mexico's fight for independence from Spain.
1863 – Robert College, in Istanbul, 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.
1893 – Settlers make a land run for prime land in the Cherokee Strip in
Oklahoma.
1908 – The General Motors Corporation is founded.
1914 – World War I: The Siege of Przemyśl (present-day Poland) begins.
1920 – The Wall Street bombing: A bomb in a horse wagon explodes in front of the J. P. Morgan building in New York City killing 38 and injuring 400.
1940 – World War II: Italian troops conquer Sidi Barrani.
1943 – World War II: The German Tenth Army reports that it can no longer contain the Allied bridgehead around Salerno.
1945 – World War II: The Japanese occupation of Hong Kong comes to an end.
1955 – The military coup to unseat President Juan Perón of Argentina is launched at midnight.
1955 – A Zulu-class submarine becomes the first to launch a ballistic missile.
1956 – TCN-9 Sydney is the first Australian television station to commence regular broadcasts.
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.
1961 – Typhoon Nancy, with possibly the strongest winds ever measured in a tropical cyclone, makes landfall in Osaka, Japan, killing 173 people.
1961 – Pakistan establishes its Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission with Abdus Salam as its head.
1963 – Malaysia is formed from the Federation of Malaya, Singapore, 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.
1975 – Papua New Guinea gains independence from Australia.
1975 – Cape Verde, Mozambique, and São Tomé and Príncipe join the United Nations.
1975 – The first prototype of the Mikoyan MiG-31 interceptor makes its maiden flight.
1976 – Armenian champion swimmer Shavarsh Karapetyan saves 20 people from a trolleybus that had fallen into a Yerevan reservoir.
1978 – The 7.4 Mw Tabas earthquake affects the city of Tabas, Iran with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent). At least 15,000 people were killed.
1979 – Eight people escaped from East Germany to the west in a homemade hot air balloon.
1982 – Lebanon War: The Sabra and Shatila massacre in Lebanon takes place.
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 is completed at Dostyk, adding a sizable link to the concept of the Eurasian Land Bridge.
1992 – The trial of the deposed Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega ends in the United States with a 40-year sentence for drug trafficking and money laundering.
1992 – Black Wednesday: The British pound is forced out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism by currency speculators and is forced to devalue against the German mark.
1994 – The British government lifts the broadcasting ban imposed against members of Sinn Féin and Irish paramilitary groups in 1988.
2004 – Hurricane Ivan makes landfall in Gulf Shores, Alabama as a Category 3 hurricane.
2005 – The Camorra organized crime boss Paolo Di Lauro is arrested in Naples, Italy.
2007 – One-Two-GO Airlines Flight 269 carrying 128 crew and passengers crashes in Thailand killing 89 people.
2007 – Security guards working for Blackwater Worldwide shoot and kill 17 Iraqis in Nisour Square, Baghdad
2013 – A gunman kills twelve people at the Washington Navy Yard.
2014 – The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant launches its Kobani offensive against Syrian–Kurdish forces.
