Today is Thursday, July 16, the 198th day of 2020. 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 (ahl-ah-moh-GOHR’-doh), New Mexico; the same day, the heavy cruiser USS Indianapolis left Mare (mar-AY’) Island Naval Shipyard in California on a secret mission to deliver atomic bomb components to Tinian Island in the Marianas.
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 1969, Apollo 11 blasted off from Cape Kennedy on the first manned mission to the surface of the moon.
In 1973, during the Senate Watergate hearings, former White House aide Alexander P. Butterfield publicly revealed the existence of President Richard Nixon’s secret taping system.
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; she was convicted of lying to police.)
Today’s Birthdays: Former U.S. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh is 88. Soul singer William Bell is 81. International Tennis Hall of Famer Margaret Court is 78. College Football Hall of Famer and football coach Jimmy Johnson is 77. Violinist Pinchas Zukerman is 72. Actor-singer Ruben Blades is 72. Rock composer-musician Stewart Copeland is 68. Playwright Tony Kushner is 64. Actress Faye Grant is 63. Dancer Michael Flatley is 62. Actress Phoebe Cates is 57. Actor Paul Hipp is 57. Actor Daryl “Chill” Mitchell is 55. Actor-comedian Will Ferrell is 53. Actor Jonathan Adams is 53. College and Pro Football Hall of Famer Barry Sanders is 52. Actress Rain Pryor is 51. Actor Corey Feldman is 49.
