ATTENTION: This appears on the Main Page right now. After making any updates, purge the cache of the Main Page to ensure the changes are reflected immediately.
This is a list of selected July 16 anniversaries that appear in the "On this day" section of the Main Page. To suggest a new item, in most cases, you can be bold and edit this page. Before doing so, please review the selected anniversaries guidelines. If your suggestion is potentially controversial or relates to a day currently or soon to appear on the Main Page, post it on the talk page instead.
Please note:
- Events listed on the Main Page are selected based on article quality and to provide a diverse range of topics, rather than solely on the importance or significance of the events.
- Only four or five events are featured each day; therefore, not all important or significant events can be included.
- An event is generally excluded if it is already the subject of the scheduled featured article or picture of the day.
To report an error in content currently on the Main Page, see Wikipedia:Main Page/Errors. If a listed event is inaccurate, please first seek consensus and update the corresponding article before making changes here.
July 16: Feast Day of Saint Helier (Roman Catholic Church)
- 622 – The epoch of the Islamic calendar occurred, marking the year that Muhammad began his Hijra from Mecca to Medina.
- 1769 – Spanish friar Junípero Serra founded Mission San Diego de Alcalá (pictured today), the first Franciscan mission in the Alta California region of New Spain.
- 1945 – Manhattan Project: "Trinity", the first nuclear test explosion, was detonated near Alamogordo, New Mexico, United States.
- 1994 – Fragments of the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet began hitting the planet Jupiter, with the first one causing a fireball which reached a peak temperature of about 24,000 K.
- 1999 – John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and sister-in-law Lauren Bessette were killed in a plane crash off the coast of Martha's Vineyard.
- 2004 – Chicago's Millennium Park, currently the world's largest rooftop garden, opened.