July 16

It’s the 197th day of the year…there aren’t any odd holidays today so make up your own!

ON THIS DAY…
0622 The Prophet Mohammed begins his Hijra from Mecca to Medina; this marks the beginning of the Islamic calendar
1546 Anne Askew is burnt at the stake in England for denying the doctrine of transubstantiation
1661 The first banknotes in Europe are issued by the Bank of Stockholm
1769 Father Junipero Serra founds Mission San Diego de Alcalá, the first mission in California; the mission later evolves into the city of San Diego
1779 United States forces led by General Anthony Wayne capture Stony Point, New York from British troops
1783 Grants of land in Canada to American United Empire Loyalists are announced
1790 The signing of the Residence Bill establishes a site along the Potomac River as the District of Columbia (seat of government)
1862 David G. Farragut becomes the first United States Navy rear admiral
1867 Reinforced concrete was patented by F. Joseph Monier, a gardener in Paris, to reinforce garden tubs, beams and posts
1867 A patent for the first prepared, or “ready-mixed” paint in the U.S. was granted to D.R. Averill, of Newberg, OH
1880 Dr. Emily Howard Stowe becomes the first woman licenced to practice medicine in Canada
1915 American-born author Henry James becomes a British citizen
1917 A short-lived uprising led by the Bolsheviks against the Russian government begins; its failure leads to the arrest of Leon Trotsky and the temporary exile of Vladimir Lenin
1918 At Ekaterinburg, Bolsheviks execute Czar Nicholas II of Russia and his family
1942 The Vichy France government headed by Pierre Laval orders French police officers to round up 13,000-20,000 Jews and imprison them in the Winter Velodrome
1945 The US government conducts the first atomic explosion, code-named “Trinity,” near Alamogordo, NM less than a month before dropping similar devices on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan
1948 The world’s first production turbine-propeller aircraft, the Vickers Viscount, made its maiden flight
1948 The city of Nazareth, hometown of Jesus, capitulated to Israeli troops during Operation Dekel led by Ben Dunkelman, after little more than token resistance, during 1948 Arab-Israeli War
1951 J. D. Salinger’s novel Catcher in the Rye, panned the previous day in the New York Times, is published
1957 United States Marine Major John Glenn flies a F8U supersonic jet from California to New York in 3 hours, 23 minutes and 8 seconds setting a new transcontinental speed record
1964 In his acceptance speech for the Republican nomination for president, Arizona senator Barry Goldwater declares, “extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice”
1965 The Mont Blanc seven-mile road tunnel opened, linking the countries of France and Italy
1969 The Crew of Apollo XI, Neil A. Armstrong, Edwin E. “Buzz” Aldrin, Jr., and Michael Collins, blasted off from Cape Kennedy on the first manned mission to the surface of the moon
1972 Robert Wagner and Natalie Wood were remarried; the first marriage lasted from 1957-1962, this time it would last until her untimely death in 1981
1973 Former White House aide Alexander P. Butterfield informs the United States Senate that President Richard Nixon had secretly recorded potentially-incriminating conversations
1979 Iraqi President Hasan al-Bakr resigns and is replaced by Saddam Hussein
1988 At the US Olympic Trials in Indianapolis, Florence Griffith Joyner runs the 100 meters in 10.49 seconds, shattering Evelyn Ashford’s women’s world record of 10.76
1994 The first of 21 asteroids, major fragments of the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 broken-up 2 years earlier, hit Jupiter, creating a 1200-mile wide fireball that was 600 miles high
1998 Scientists at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston and the Institute for Genomic Research in Rockville, MD say they have mapped the 1.1 million base pairs of DNA that make up the syphilis genome
2005 Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, the sixth in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, is published in English-speaking countries

BORN:
1872 Roald Amundsen, explorer of polar regions who led the first Antarctic expedition to reach the South Pole and he was also the first person to reach both the North and South Poles; he is known as the first to traverse the Northwest Passage
1888 Percy Kilbride, popular character best remembered as Pa Kettle (George Washington Slept Here, State Fair (1945), The Egg and I)
1888 Frits Zernike, scientist, winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1953 for his invention of the phase-contrast microscope, an instrument that permits the study of internal cell structure without the need to stain and thus kill the cells
1889 Larry Semon, film comedian during the silent era, at the time considered a “Comedy King”, but now mainly remembered for working with both Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy before they started working together
1903 Mary Philbin, notable film actress of the silent film era (The Phantom of the Opera (1925), Stella Maris, The Man Who Laughs)
1906 Vincent Sherman, director (Mr. Skeffington, Adventures of Don Juan (1948), The Naked Earth, The Young Philadelphians)
1907 Orville Redenbacher, agronomist and popcorn business founder whose devotion to creating and promoting a fluffier, tastier popcorn turned him into a bow-tied advertising icon
1907 Barbara Stanwyck, 3-time Emmy Award-winning actress (The Barbara Stanwyck Show, The Big Valley, The Thorn Birds, Stella Dallas, Double Indemnity, Sorry, Wrong Number)
1911 Ginger Rogers, dancer, Academy Award-winning actress (Kitty Foyle: The Natural History of a Woman, Flying Down to Rio, Swing Time, Monkey Business)
1911 Sonny Tufts, actor (The Virginian (1946), The Untamed Breed, Cat-Women of the Moon)
1915 Barnard Hughes, Emmy Award-winning actor (Lou Grant, The Lost Boys, Blossom, Da, Mr. Merlin)
1952 Stewart Copeland, musician, best known as the drummer for the band The Police and is an influential drum stylist
1956 Jerry Doyle, actor (Babylon 5)
1963 Phoebe Cates, actress (Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Gremlins, Drop Dead Fred, Princess Caraboo)
1967 Will Ferrell, comedian, actor (Saturday Night Live, Cow and Chicken, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, Dick, Superstar)
1971 Corey Feldman, actor (Time After Time, The Lost Boys, Gremlins, Stand By Me, Maverick)

DIED:
1557 Anne of Cleves, the fourth wife of Henry VIII of England dies a natural death (as opposed to having her head cut off) at 41
1882 Mary Todd Lincoln, 16th First Lady of the United States (1861-1865), dies at 63
1981 Harry Chapin, singer, songwriter, and humanitarian who was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal died of cardiac arrest at 38
1999 John F. Kennedy Jr., lawyer, journalist, socialite, publisher and the third child and first son of President John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy, is killed at 38 along with his wife and his sister-in-law, Lauren Bessette, when the aircraft he was piloting crashed into the Atlantic Ocean