Today in History
Today in history: July 16th
July 16 (Reuters) – Following are some of the major events to have occurred on July 16:
1935 – The world’s first parking meters were installed in Oklahoma City.
1951 – King Leopold III of Belgium abdicates.
1969 – Apollo 11 took off on its historic mission to land men on the moon with astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins aboard.
1989 – The Austrian conductor Herbert von Karajan died.
1999 – A plane carrying John F. Kennedy Jr, his wife and her sister crashed off the Massachusetts island of Martha’s Vineyard, killing all on board.
2001 – Juan Antonio Samaranch, president of the International Olympic Committee since 1980, retired and was succeeded by the Belgian surgeon Jacques Rogge.
2003 – The government of Sao Tome and Principe was toppled in a military coup while the president of the potentially oil-rich island state was out of the country.
2004 – Homemaking maven Martha Stewart sentenced to prison after stock sale.
2005 – “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince”, the sixth volume of the Harry Potter saga, went on sale. It sold more than 8.9 million copies in the first 24 hours in the United States and Britain to become the fastest-selling book in history.
2007 – Former Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina was arrested at her home in the capital and sent to jail to face extortion charges.
2015 – Four Marines killed in shooting spree at Armed Forces Career Center in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Today in History: 22 June
June 22 (Reuters) – Following are some of the major events to have occurred on June 22:
1940 – France’s General Charles Huntziger signed the terms of surrender with Germany at Compiegne in World War Two, in the same railway carriage in which General Foch had received the German surrender in 1918.
1969 – The American film actress and singer Judy Garland died; she is famed for her roles in “The Wizard of Oz”, “Meet Me in St Louis” and “A Star is Born”.
1974 – French composer Darius Milhaud died. He is known for the wide variety of styles in which he composed, such as the jazz themes used in his ballet “La Creation du Monde”.
1987 – The American actor, dancer and singer Fred Astaire died. He starred in many stage musicals and films, 10 of them with his dancing partner Ginger Rogers.
2001 – Turkey’s Constitutional Court banned the main opposition Islamist Virtue Party for anti-secular activity.
2001 – The Egyptian film star Soad Hosni died aged 57. Hosni made 83 films during a career that started in the early 1960s.
2001 – Fatal train crash in Calicut, India as carriages plunge off bridge.
2003 – Atal Behari Vajpayee began the first visit to China by an Indian prime minister in a decade.
2011 – Dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei released on bail.
2012 – Paraguay’s President Fernando Lugo is removed from office by impeachment.
2015 – Afghanistan parliament members are evacuated during attack.
Image credit: United Artists/Courtesy of Getty Images
