TODAY IN HISTORY

Today is Sunday, July 16, the 197th day of 2023. There are 168 days left in the year.

On July 16, 1969, Apollo 11 blasted off from Cape Kennedy in Florida on the first manned mission to the surface of the moon.

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 1945, the United States exploded its first experimental atomic bomb in the desert of Alamogordo, New Mexico; the same day, the heavy cruiser USS Indianapolis left Mare Island Naval Shipyard in California on a secret mission to deliver atomic bomb components to Tinian Island in the Marianas. In 1951, the novel “The Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger was first published by Little, Brown and Co.

In 1957, Marine Corps Maj. John Glenn set a transcontinental speed record by flying a Vought F8U Crusader jet from California to New York in 3 hours, 23 minutes and 8.4 seconds. In 1980, former California Gov. Ronald Reagan won the Republican presidential nomination at the party’s convention in Detroit.

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.

In 2004, 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.

In 2008, Florida resident Casey Anthony, whose 2-year-old daughter, Caylee, had been missing a month, was arrested on charges of child neglect, making false official statements and obstructing a criminal investigation. (Casey Anthony was later acquitted at trial of murdering Caylee, whose skeletal remains were found in December 2008; Casey was convicted of lying to police.)

In 2015, a jury in Centennial, Colo., convicted James Holmes of 165 counts of murder, attempted murder and other charges in the 2012 Aurora movie theater rampage that left 12 people dead.

Today’s birthdays

International Tennis Hall of Famer Margaret Court is 81. College Football Hall of Famer and football coach Jimmy Johnson is 80. Actor Ruben Blades is 75. Musician Stewart Copeland is 71. Dancer Michael Flatley is 65. Former actor Phoebe Cates is 60. Actor Paul Hipp is 60. Actor Will Ferrell is 56. College and Pro Football Hall of Famer Barry Sanders is 55. Actor Corey Feldman is 52. Retired soccer star Carli Lloyd is 41.