July 16
1790
The District of Columbia was established as the seat of the United States government.
1918
Russia’s Czar Nicholas II and his family were executed by the Bolsheviks.
1935
The first parking meters were installed in Oklahoma City.
1945
The first atomic bomb was tested in Alamogordo, N.M.
1951
J. D. Salinger’s novel Catcher in the Rye was published.
1969
Apollo 11 took off on the first manned flight to the moon.
1979
Saddam Hussein became president of Iraq.
1999
John F. Kennedy, Jr., his wife Carolyn Bessette, and her sister Lauren, died in a plane crash near Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts.
Birthdays
Ginger Rogers
1911–1995; Singer actress born in Independence, Missouri.
Andrea del Sarto
painter (1486)
Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot
painter (1796)
Mary Baker Eddy
founder, Christian Science Church (1821)
Ida B. Wells-Barnett
journalist, activist (1862)
Roald Amundsen
Norwegian polar explorer (1872)
“Shoeless” Joe Jackson
baseball player (1887)
Trygve Lie
first secretary-general of the United Nations (1896)
Pinchas Zukerman
violinist and conductor (1948)