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November 16
Events - 534 - A second and final revision of the Codex Justinianus is published.
- 1384 - Jadwiga is crowned King of Poland, although she is a woman.
- 1491 - An auto de fe, held in Brasero de la Dehesa outside of Ávila, concludes the case of the Holy Child of La Guardia with the public execution of several Jewish and converso suspects.
- 1532 - Francisco Pizarro and his men capture Inca Emperor Atahualpa.
- 1632 - The Battle of Lützen, where king Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden is killed.
- 1776 - American Revolutionary War: Hessian mercenaries capture Fort Washington from the Patriots.
- 1776 - American Revolution: The United Provinces (Low Countries) recognize the independence of the United States, the first country in the world to do so (This is a controversial statement, because other sources say that the Kingdom of Morocco was the first to extend diplomatic recognition to the new United States).
- 1805 - Napoleonic Wars: Battle of Schöngrabern - Russian force under Bagration delay the pursuit by French troops under Murat.
- 1821 - American Old West: Missouri trader William Becknell arrives in Santa Fe, New Mexico over a route that became known as the Santa Fe Trail.
- 1849 - A Russian court sentences Fyodor Dostoevsky to death for anti-government activities linked to a radical intellectual group; his execution is canceled at the last minute.
- 1857 - Second relief of Lucknow. The most Victoria Crosses won in a single day (24).
- 1863 - American Civil War: Battle of Campbell's Station near Knoxville, Tennessee. Confederate troops unsuccessfully attack Union forces.
- 1885 - Canadian rebel leader of the Métis and "Father of Manitoba", Louis Riel is executed for treason.
- 1896 - First transmission of electricity between a power plant and a city was sent from the Niagara Falls hydroelectric plant to industries in Buffalo, New York.
- 1904 - John Ambrose Fleming invents the vacuum tube.
- 1906 - Opera star Enrico Caruso is charged with an indecent act after allegedly pinching a woman's bottom in the monkey house of New York's Central Park Zoo.
- 1907 - Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory become Oklahoma and are admitted as the 46th U.S. state.
- 1907 - Cunard Line's RMS Mauretania sister ship of RMS Lusitania, sets sail on her maiden voyage from Liverpool, England to New York City.
- 1914 - The Federal Reserve Bank of the United States officially opens.
- 1920 - Qantas, the national airline of Australia is registered as an aerial carrier under the name of “Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services Limited”. Only KLM (now part of Air France-KLM) and Avianca are older.
- 1932 - New York City's Palace Theatre fully coverted to a cinema, which is considered the final death knell of vaudeville as a popular entertainment in the United States.
- 1933 - The United States and the Soviet Union establish formal diplomatic relations.
- 1934 - James J. Braddock won one of the most important fights of his career against then future heavyweight champion John Henry Lewis
- 1940 - World War II: In response to Germany's leveling of Coventry, England two days before, the Royal Air Force bombs Hamburg.
- 1940 - Holocaust: In occupied Poland, German Nazis close off the Warsaw Ghetto from the outside world.
- 1940 - New York City's Mad Bomber places his first bomb at a Manhattan office building used by Consolidated Edison.
- 1943 - World War II: American bombers strike a hydro-electric power facility and heavy water factory in German-controlled Vermork, Norway.
- 1944 - Dueren, Germany is completely destroyed by Allied aerial bombers.
- 1945 - Cold War: The United States Army secretly admits 88 German scientists & engineers to help in the production of rocket technology.
- 1957 - Serial killer Edward Gein murders his last victim, Bernice Worden.
- 1959 - The Broadway musical, The Sound of Music, starring Mary Martin and Theodore Bikel opens at the Lunt-Fontanne Theater.
- 1965 - Venera program: The Soviet Union launches the Venera 3 space probe toward Venus, the first spacecraft to reach the surface of another planet.
- 1973 - Skylab program: NASA launches Skylab 4 with a crew of three astronauts from Cape Canaveral, Florida for an 84-day mission.
- 1973 - US President Richard Nixon signs the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Authorization Act into law, authorizing the construction of the Alaska Pipeline.
- 1977 - Close Encounters of the Third Kind opens in theaters.
- 1979 - The first line of Bucharest Metro (Line M1) is opened from Timpuri Noi to Semanatoarea in Bucharest, Romania.
- 1981 - Luke and Laura marry on the U.S. soap opera General Hospital; it is the highest-rated hour in daytime television history.
- 1984 - Queen Elizabeth II visited Uppingham School, Rutland, UK on the occasion of its Quatercentenary.
- 1988 - The Supreme Soviet of the Estonian SSR declares that Estonia was "sovereign" but stopped short of declaring independence.
- 1988 - In the first open election in more than a decade, voters in Pakistan choose populist candidate Benazir Bhutto to be Prime Minister of Pakistan.
- 1989 - A death squad composed of El Salvadoran army troops kill six Jesuit priests and two others at Jose Simeon Canas University.
- 1989 - Devastating tornado strikes Huntsville, Alabama.
- 1989 - UNESCO adopts the Seville Statement on Violence at the twenty-fifth session of its General Conference.
- 1996 - Mother Teresa receives honorary US citizenship.
- 1996 - The Jumbotron at Buffalo's HSBC Arena falls to the ice hours before a hockey game; no one is injured.
- 1997 - After nearly 18 years of incarceration, the People's Republic of China releases Wei Jingsheng, a pro-democracy dissident, from jail for medical reasons.
- 2000 - Bill Clinton becomes the first U.S. President to visit Vietnam since the end of the Vietnam War.
- 2004 - X-43A scramjet becomes the fastest air-breathing jet flying at nearly Mach 10 at approx. 11,200 km/h or 3.11 km/s.
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