TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON: July 16
622 Muslim Era begins – Muhammad begins flight from Mecca to Medina (Hijra)
1054 Three Roman legates fracture relations between Western and Eastern Christian churches by placing invalid Papal Bull of Excommunication on altar of Hagia Sophia during liturgy. Often dated start of the East-West Schism.
1212 Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa; end of Moslem power in Spain
1439 Kissing is banned in England
1519 Public debate between Martin Luther and theologian Johann Eck at Pleissenburg Castle in Liepzig, during which Luther denies the divine right of the Pope
1765 English Prime Minister Lord Grenville resigns and is replaced by Lord Rockingham.
1779 American troops under General Anthony Wayne capture Stony Point, N.Y.
1790 The District of Columbia was established as the seat of the United States government.
1904 Islands of the Manu’a group (Samoa) ceded to US by their chiefs
1918 Czar Nicholas and his family are murdered by Bolsheviks at Ekaterinburg, Russia.
1926 The first underwater color photographs appeared in “National Geographic” magazine. The pictures had been taken near the Florida Keys.
1940 Adolf Hitler orders preparations for the invasion of Britain (Operation Sealion)
1942 French police officers rounded up 13,000 Jews and held them in the Winter Velodrome. The round-up was part of an agreement between Pierre Laval and the Nazis. Germany had agreed to not deport French Jews if France arrested foreign Jews.
1945 The United States detonates the first atomic bomb in a test at Alamogordo, N. M.
1951 The Catcher in the Rye is published
1969 Apollo 11 blasts off from Cape Kennedy, Florida, heading for a landing on the moon.
1970 The Pittsburgh Pirates played their first game at Three Rivers Stadium.
1979 Saddam Hussein became president of Iraq.
1981 After 23 years with the name Datsun, executives of Nissan changed the name of their cars to Nissan.
1994 Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 collides with Jupiter
1995 Amazon.com Sells its First Book
1999 A private plane piloted by John F. Kennedy Jr. is lost over the waters off Martha’s Vineyard, Mass.
2011 The NASA space probe Dawn entered Vesta orbit.
REFERENCE: HISTORY.NET, ONTHISDAY.COM, TIMEANDDATE.COM, INFOPLEASE.COM, FACTMONSTER.COM, SCOPESYS.COM, ON-THIS-DAY.COM, THEPEOPLEHISTORY.COM
