This Day in History: January 16

British Admiral Sir George Rodney, with 18 “ships-of-the-line,” engages an inferior Spanish squadron of 11 battleships commanded by Don Juan de Langara off the southwestern coast of Portugal at Cape St. Vincent, in what comes to be known as “The Moonlight Battle.” (“Ships-of-the-line” is the 18th century term for ships substantial enough to be used in a battle line, a tactic of war in which two lines of ships faced off against each other.)