July 16
is the 197th day (198th in
leap years) of the year in the
Gregorian Calendar, with 168 days remaining.
*
622 - The
Prophet Mohammed begins his
Hijra from
Mecca to
Medina. This marks the beginning of the
Islamic calendar.
*
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 -
American Revolutionary War:
United States forces led by
General Anthony Wayne capture
Stony Point, New York from
British troops.
*
1782 - First performance of
Mozart's opera
The Abduction from the Seraglio.
*
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 -
American Civil War:
David G. Farragut becomes the first
United States Navy rear admiral.
*1862 -
Comet Swift-Tuttle is discovered by
Lewis Swift.
*
1880 -
Dr. Emily Howard Stowe becomes the first woman licenced to practice medicine in
Canada.
*1915 -
Norman Tabor sets the world record for a one mile race at 4 minutes, 12.6 seconds.
*
1930 -
Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia signs the first
constitution of
Ethiopia.
*
1941 -
New York Yankees'
Joe DiMaggio gets a hit in his 56th consecutive game.
*
1942 -
Holocaust:
Rafle du Vel'd'Hiv: The
Vichy France government orders
French police officers to round up 13,000-20,000
Jews and imprison them in the
Winter Velodrome. In
1995,
president Jacques Chirac officially recognizes the
French police's responsibility.
*
1945 -
Manhattan Project: The
Atomic Age begins when the
United States successfully detonates a
plutonium-based test
nuclear weapon at the
Trinity site near
Alamogordo, New Mexico.
*
1951 - The novel
Catcher in the Rye by
J. D. Salinger published.
*1951 - King
Léopold III of Belgium abdicates in favour of his son,
Baudouin I of Belgium.
*
1957 -
United States Marine Major John Glenn flies a
F8U Crusader supersonic jet from
California to
New York in 3 hours, 23 minutes and 8 seconds setting a new transcontinental speed record.
*
1965 - The
Mont Blanc Tunnel linking
France with
Italy opens.
*
1969 -
Apollo program:
Apollo 11 launches from
Cape Kennedy, Florida and will become the first
manned space mission to land on the
moon.
*
1973 -
Watergate Scandal: 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.
*
1983 -
Sikorsky S-61 disaster: helicopter crash off the
Isles of Scilly, causing 20 fatalities.
*
1990 - In the
Philippines, an
earthquake measuring 7.7 on the
Richter Scale kills over 1600.
*
1993 -
Slackware 1.00 is released.
*
1994 - The planet
Jupiter is hit by fragments of the
Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet.
*1994 - The
civil war in
Rwanda ends.
*
1997 - The
Dow Jones Industrial Average gains 63.17 to close at 8,038.88, closing above 8,000 for the
first time.
*
1999 -
John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife
Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and sister-in-law
Lauren Bessette are killed in a plane crash off the coast of
Martha's Vineyard. The
Piper Saratoga aircraft was piloted by Kennedy.
*
2001 - The
People's Republic of China and the
Russian Federation sign the
Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation.
*2001 - The
FBI arrests
Dmitry Sklyarov at a convention in
Las Vegas, Nevada for violating a provision of the
DMCA.
*
2003 - The
Corsicans reject a referendum for increased autonomy from
France by a very thin majority: 50.98 percent against, and 49.02 percent for.
*
2004 -
Millennium Park, considered the first and most ambitious architectural project in the early
21st century for
Chicago, Illinois, is opened to the public by
Mayor of Chicago Richard M. Daley.
*2004 -
Barclays Bank freezes the bank accounts of the
British National Party.
*2004 - A fire at a
private school in
Kumbakonam,
India kills over 90 children.
*
2006 -
2006 Israel-Lebanon-Hezbollah conflict:
Hezbollah militants hit the
Israeli port city of
Haifa, with
Fajr-3 rockets, killing eight
Israelis.
*
2006 -
David Carruthers, CEO of internet
sportsbook BETonSPORTS Plc, is arrested and charged with mail fraud, racketeering, evasion of Federal
wagering excise taxes, and violation of the
Wire Act, amongst other charges
*
1194 -
Clare of Assisi, Italian follower of
Francis of Assisi (d.
1253)
*
1486 -
Andrea del Sarto, Italian painter (d.
1530)
*
1611 -
Archduchess Cecilia Renata of Austria, Queen of Poland
*
1714 -
Marc René, marquis de Montalembert, French military engineer (d.
1800)
*
1722 -
Joseph Wilton, English sculptor (d.
1803)
*
1723 -
Joshua Reynolds, English painter (d.
1792)
*
1731 -
Samuel Huntington, Continental Congress president (d.
1796)
*
1796 -
Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, French painter (d.
1875)
*
1821 -
Mary Baker Eddy, American religious leader (d.
1910)
*
1858 -
Eugène Ysaÿe, Belgian violinist (d.
1931)
*
1862 -
Ida B. Wells, American journalist (d.
1931)
*
1870 -
Lambert McKenna, Irish scholar (d.
1956)
*
1872 -
Roald Amundsen, Norwegian explorer (d.
1928)
*
1884 -
Anna Vyrubova, Russian memoirist (d.
1964)
*
1888 -
Percy Kilbride, American actor (d.
1964)
* 1888 -
Frits Zernike, Dutch physicist,
Nobel laureate (d.
1966)
*
1889 -
Shoeless Joe Jackson, American baseball player (d.
1951)
* 1889 -
Larry Semon, comedian (d.
1928)
*
1896 -
Trygve Lie, first
United Nations Secretary General (d.
1968)
* 1896 -
Evelyn Preer, American actress (d.
1932)
*
1902 -
Alexander Luria, Russian psychologist (d.
1977)
*
1903 -
Carmen Lombardo, Canadian musician (d.
1971)
* 1903 -
Mary Philbin, American actress (d.
1993)
*
1906 -
Vincent Sherman, American director (d.
2006)
*
1907 -
Orville Redenbacher, American farmer and businessman (d.
1995)
* 1907 -
Barbara Stanwyck, American actress (d.
1990)
*
1911 -
Ginger Rogers, American actress and dancer (d.
1995)
* 1911 -
Sonny Tufts, American actor (d.
1970)
*
1915 -
Barnard Hughes, American actor (d.
2006)
*
1919 -
Choi Kyuha,
President of South Korea*
1924 -
Bess Myerson, American beauty queen
*
1925 -
Cal Tjader, American musician (d.
1982)
*
1926 -
Irwin Rose, American biologist,
Nobel laureate*
1932 -
Richard Thornburgh, American politician
*
1936 -
Buddy Merrill, American musician (
The Lawrence Welk Show)
*
1939 -
Mariele Ventre, Italian choir director (d.
1995)
*
1941 -
Desmond Dekker, Jamaican musician (d.
2006)
*
1942 -
Margaret Smith Court, Australian tennis player
*
1943 -
Reinaldo Arenas, Cuban poet (d.
1990)
*
1945 -
Victor Sloan, Irish visual artist
*
1946 -
Ron Yary, American football player
*
1947 -
Assata Shakur, American activist
*
1948 -
Rubén Blades, Panamanian actor
* 1948 -
Pinchas Zukerman, Israeli violinist
*
1952 -
Stewart Copeland, American musician
*
1956 -
Tony Kushner, American playwright
*
1957 -
Alexandra Marinina, Russian writer
*
1958 -
Pierre Roland Renoir, Canadian artist
*
1959 -
Gary Anderson, American football player
*
1963 -
Phoebe Cates, American actress
* 1963 -
Srečko Katanec, Slovenian footballer and coach
* 1963 -
Fatboy Slim, English musician
*
1964 -
Phil Hellmuth, American poker player
* 1964 -
Miguel Induráin, Spanish cyclist
*
1967 -
Will Ferrell, American comedian
* 1967 -
Christopher Rocancourt,
French con artist
*
1968 -
Dhanraj Pillay, Indian field hockey player
* 1968 -
Barry Sanders, American football player
* 1968 -
Larry Sanger, American co-founder of Wikipedia
*
1970 -
Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Thai film director
*
1971 -
Corey Feldman, American actor
*
1973 -
Stefano Garzelli, Italian cyclist
*
1973 -
Shaun Pollock, South African cricket player
*
1976 -
Anna Smashnova, Israeli tennis player
* 1976 -
Franklin Lashley, American professional wrestler
*
1980 -
Adam Scott, Australian golfer
*
1982 -
Michael Umaña, Costa Rican footballer
*
1324 -
Emperor Go-Uda of Japan (b.
1267)
*
1342 - King
Charles I of Hungary*
1546 -
Anne Askew, English protestant (burned at the stake) (b.
1521)
*
1557 -
Anne of Cleves, fourth wife of
Henry VIII of England (b.
1515)
*
1630 -
Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy (b.
1562)
*
1647 -
Masaniello, Italian rebel (b.
1622)
*
1664 -
Andreas Gryphius, German writer (b.
1616)
*
1686 -
John Pearson, English theologian (b.
1612)
*
1691 -
François-Michel le Tellier, Marquis de Louvois, French war minister (b.
1641)
*
1729 -
Johann David Heinichen, German composer (b.
1683)
*
1770 -
Francis Cotes, English painter (b.
1726)
*
1831 -
Louis Alexandre Andrault de Langeron, Russian general (b.
1763)
*
1796 -
George Howard, British field marshal (b.
1718)
*
1882 -
Mary Todd Lincoln,
First Lady of the United States (b.
1818)
*
1916 -
Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov, Russian microbiologist,
Nobel laureate (b.
1845)
*
1917 -
Philipp Scharwenka, Polish-German composer (b.
1847)
*1918 - Czar Nicholas the Second
*
1949 -
Vyacheslav Ivanov, Russian poet (b.
1866)
*
1953 -
Hilaire Belloc, French writer (b.
1870)
*
1960 -
Albert Kesselring, German field marshal (b.
1881)
*
1979 -
Alfred Deller, English countertenor (b.
1912)
*
1981 -
Harry Chapin, American musician (b.
1942)
*
1985 -
Heinrich Böll, German writer,
Nobel laureate (b.
1917)
*
1989 -
Herbert von Karajan, Austrian conductor (b.
1908)
*
1991 -
Robert Motherwell, American painter (b.
1915)
*1991 -
Frank Rizzo, American politican (b.
1920)
*
1994 -
Julian Schwinger, American physicist,
Nobel laureate (b.
1918)
*
1995 -
Stephen Spender, British poet (b.
1909)
*
1996 -
John Panozzo, American musician (
STYX) (b.
1948)
*
1998 -
John Henrik Clarke, American historian and scholar (b.
1915)
*
1999 -
Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, wife of John F. Kennedy Jr. (b.
1966)
*1999 -
John F. Kennedy Jr., American publisher (b.
1960)
*
2001 -
Maurice De Bevere, Belgian cartoonist (b.
1923)
*
2001 -
Terry Gordy, Professional wrestler (b.
1961)
*
2002 -
John Cocke, American computer scientist (b.
1925)
*
2003 -
Celia Cruz, Cuban musician (b.
1924)
*2003 -
Carol Shields, Canadian author (b.
1935)
*
2005 -
Pietro Consagra, Italian sculptor (b.
1920)
*2005 - Prince
Gu of Korea (b.
1931)
*2005 -
Camillo Felgen - Luxembourgish singer, lyricist, and entertainer (b.
1920)
*
2006 -
Bob Orton, Sr., American wrestler (b.
1929)
*
Botswana -
President's Day (2nd day).
*
Catholic - Feast of
Our Lady of Mount Carmel.
*
United States - National
Ice Cream Day, as made official by
President Ronald Reagan.
*
BBC: On This Day*
Epic Idiot: On This DayJuly 15 -
July 17 -
June 16 -
August 16 --
listing of all days
