16th of July

It is the 197th day of the year, with only 168 days remaining.

1769 - Father Junipero Serra founds California's first mission, Mission San Diego de Alcala.  Over the following decades, it evolves into the city of San Diego.

1782 - It is the first performance of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera, Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail.

1861 - At the order of President Abraham Lincoln, Union troops begin a 25-mile march into Virginia for what will become The First Battle of Bull Run, the first major land battle of the war.

1862 - David Farragut is promoted to rear admiral, becoming the first officer in the United States Navy to hold the rank.

1935 - The world's first parking meter is installed in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

1941 - Joe DiMaggio hits safely for the 56th consecutive game, a streak that still stands as a Major League Baseball record.

1942 - The Vel' d'Hiv Roundup occurs, as the government of Vichy France orders the mass arrest of 13,152 Jews who are held at the Winter Velodrome in Paris before deportation to Auschwitz.

1945 - The leaders of the three Allied nations, Winston Churchill (then Clement Atlee), Harry Truman, and Joseph Stalin, meet in the German city of Potsdam to decide the future of Germany.

1945 - The Heavy Cruiser USS Indianapolis leaves San Francisco with parts for the atomic bomb "Little Boy" bound for Tinian Island.  This would be the last time the Indianapolis would be seen by the mainland, she would be torpedoed, two weeks later.

1945 - 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 Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, is published for the first time by Little, Brown and Company.

1956 - Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey Circus closes its very last "Big Tent" show in Pittsburgh, due to changing economics all subsequent shows will be held in arenas.

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.  He set a new transcontinental record.

1960 - The USS George Washington, a modified Skipjack class submarine, successfully test fires the first ballistic missile while submerged.

1969 - Apollo 11 is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

1999 - John F. Kennedy, Jr., piloting a Piper Saratoga aircraft, dies when his plane crashes into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Martha's Vineyard.  His wife Carolyn Bessette and sister-in-law Lauren Bessette are also killed.