Today in History
Today is Wednesday, July 16, the 197th day of 2014. There are 168 days left in the year. Today's Highlight in History: On July 16, 1945, the United States exploded its first experimental atomic bomb in the desert of Alamogordo, New Mexico. On this date: In 1790, a site along the Potomac River was designated the permanent seat of the United States government; the area became Washington, D.C.
In 1862, Flag Officer David G. Farragut became the first rear admiral in the United States Navy.
In 1912, New York gambler Herman Rosenthal, set to testify before a grand jury about police corruption, was gunned down by members of the Lennox Avenue Gang.
In 1935, the first parking meters were installed in Oklahoma City.
In 1951, the novel "The Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger was first published by Little, Brown and Co.
In 1964, as he accepted the Republican presidential nomination in San Francisco, Barry M. Goldwater declared that "extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice" and that "moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue." In 1979, Saddam Hussein became president of Iraq. In 1980, former California Gov. Ronald Reagan won the Republican presidential nomination at the party's convention in Detroit.
In 1981, singer Harry Chapin was killed when his car was struck by a tractor-trailer on New York's Long Island Expressway.
In 1989, conductor Herbert von Karajan died near Salzburg, Austria, at age 81.
In 1994, the first of 21 pieces of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 smashed into Jupiter, to the joy of astronomers awaiting the celestial fireworks.
In 1999, John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife, Carolyn, and her sister, Lauren Bessette, died when their single-engine plane, piloted by Kennedy, plunged into the Atlantic Ocean near Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts.
Ten years ago: Martha Stewart was sentenced to five months in prison and five months of home confinement by a federal judge in New York for lying about a stock sale. Some 90 children were killed in a school fire in southern India. Chicago held the grand opening of its new Millennium Park. Former Georgia Gov. George Busbee died in Savannah at age 76.
Five years ago: Saying that civil rights leaders from decades past had paved the way for his election as the nation's first black commander in chief, President Barack Obama paid homage to the NAACP during a convention in New York, and advised members that their work remained unfinished. In an embarrassing acknowledgment, NASA admitted that in all likelihood, it had recorded over the original videotapes of the Apollo 11 moon landing.
Today's Birthdays: Former Attorney General Dick Thornburgh is 82. Soul singer Denise LaSalle is 80. Soul singer William Bell is 75. International Tennis Hall of Famer Margaret Court is 72. College Football Hall of Famer and football coach Jimmy Johnson is 71. Violinist Pinchas Zukerman is 66. Actor-singer Ruben Blades is 66. Rock composer-musician Stewart Copeland is 62. Playwright Tony Kushner is 58. Dancer Michael Flatley is 56. Actress Phoebe Cates is 51. Actor Daryl "Chill" Mitchell is 49.