16 July

Events622 - The beginning of the Islamic calendar.1661 - The first banknotes in Europe are issued by the Swedish bank Stockholms Banco.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.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.1941 - Hitler convened top Nazi leaders at his headquarters in East Prussia to dictate how they would rule the newly occupied eastern territories. Ukraine, the "jewel" in the Nazi empire, would become a German colony.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. 1945 - British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, US President Harry S. Truman and Soviet leader Josef Stalin, gather in Potsdam, Germany, to decide the future of the defeated Germany.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 - 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.1980 - Ronald Reagan wins the Republican presidential nomination at the party's convention in Detroit.1981 - Tun Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamad becomes Malaysia's 4th Prime Minister until retired on October 31, 2003. Making him Asia's longest-serving political leaders (22 years as Prime Minister of Malaysia).1983 - Sikorsky S-61 disaster: helicopter crash off the Isles of Scilly, causing 20 fatalities.1987 - The two biggest British airlines, British Airways and British Caledonian are to merge and create a carrier to compete with the giant American air corporations.1990 - In the Philippines, an earthquake measuring 7.7 on the Richter Scale kills over 1600.1994 - The planet Jupiter is hit by fragments of the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet.1994 - The civil war in Rwanda ends.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.2002 - Tenacious D release their song Tribute in the US2003 - 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, is opened to the public by Mayor Richard M. Daley.2007 - An earthquake of magnitude 6.8 and aftershock of 6.6 occur off the Niigata coast, Japan, killing 8 people with at least 800 injured and damaging a nuclear power plant. See 2007 Chūetsu offshore earthquake.
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