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August 24th, 1821 -- Treaty grants Mexican independence

On this day in 1821, Juan O'Donoju met Agustín de Iturbide in Córdoba and signed a treaty granting Mexico independence from Spain. The treaty ended the Mexican War of Independence, which grew out of political turmoil in Spain and Mexico in the early nineteenth century. Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla formally began the rebellion with his famous grito on September 16, 1810, from the steps of his parish church in Dolores, a small town east of Guanajuato. Only in Texas, however, which in the summer of 1812 suffered an invasion from the United States under the leadership of José Bernardo Gutiérrez de Lara and Augustus Magee, was royal authority seriously threatened. In August 1813, Gen. Joaquín de Arredondo defeated the rebels at the battle of Medina and secured Texas for the Spanish crown. The struggle for independence broke down into a series of local revolts and guerrilla actions that did not seriously threaten royal authority in Mexico until 1820, when the formerly royalist officer Iturbide came to terms with insurgent leader Vicente R. Guerrero. By July 1821, when O'Donoju arrived to take over the colonial government, the royalists controlled only Mexico City and Veracruz.