1799: A large slab inscribed with three different languages, including hieroglyphics and Ancient Greek, is discovered by a soldier in Napoleon's Egyptian campaign. Once part of a monument from 196 BCE, the Rosetta Stone will be the modern world's key to deciphering ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics.

 

1958 President Eisenhower sends US troops to Lebanon; they stay 3 months.

34th US President & WWII General

 

1965-Mariner 4, an uncrewed space probe launched by NASA in 1964, flew by Mars and returned close-up pictures of its surface on this day in 1965, the pictures proving that the planet's rumored canals were actually illusions.

1978-American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan performed in England before 200,000 people.

 

15 July 1942
Carrier USS Enterprise departed Pearl Harbor for the South Pacific to support landings on the Solomon Islands.

15 July 1945
Battleships USS Iowa, USS Missouri, and USS Wisconsin bombarded industrial targets at Muroran, Hokkaido, Japan. USAAF P-51s, B-24s, and B-29s attacked strategic targets on the Japanese mainland in preparation for the upcoming invasion.

 

On This Day In History
July 16, 1790
Congress declares Washington, D.C. new capital

On July 16, 1790, the young American Congress declares that a swampy, humid, muddy and mosquito-infested site on the Potomac River between Maryland and Virginia will be the nation’s permanent capital. “Washington,” in the newly designated federal “District of Columbia,” was named after the leader of the American Revolution and the country’s first president: George Washington. It was Washington who saw the area’s potential economic and accessibility benefits due to the proximity of navigable rivers.

George Washington, who had been in office just over a year when the capital site was determined, asked a French architect and city planner named Pierre L Enfant to design the capital. In 1793, the first cornerstones of the president’s mansion, which was eventually renamed the “White House,” were laid. George Washington, however, never lived in the mansion as it was not inhabitable until 1800. Instead, President John Adams and his wife Abigail were the White House’s first residents. They lived there less than a year; Thomas Jefferson moved in in 1801.

 

On July 16, 1945, the world's first nuclear explosion occurred in the desert of New Mexico at a site located 210 miles south of Los Alamos, on the plains of the Alamogordo Bombing Range, known as the Jornada del Muerto (Journey of Death). The code name for the test was 'Trinity', in which the plutonium implosion device was successfully detonated.

In less than a month, the 'Enola Gay', named after pilot Paul Tibbets' mother, flew alone over Hiroshima, Japan and released the first tactical nuclear weapon and detonated a uranium bomb, 'Little Boy.'

Three days later, with no Japanese surrender forthcoming, Charles Sweeney piloted the plane 'Bockscar' to drop a plutinium bomb, 'Fat Man,' over Nagasaki.

The surrender of the Empire of Japan was announced by Emperor Hirohito on August 15, and formally signed on the deck of the battleship Missouri on September 2, 1945, bringing WWII to an end.

 

1969: Apollo 11 lifted off from NASA's John F. Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and four days later two of its astronauts, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, became the first humans to set foot on the moon.

 

1935-The world's first parking meters were installed in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; the device, which sought to ease congestion, was designed by Carl C. Magee.

 

On this day in history, July 16, 1911, American actress and dancer Ginger Rogers is born
Rogers was best known for her on-screen chemistry with dance legend Fred Astaire.

Ginger Rogers, born in Missouri on July 16, 1911, grew up in the theater and made her way to Broadway and the big screen.

 

16 July 1942
For the upcoming operations in the Solomon Islands, US Navy Vice Admiral Robert Ghormley named Rear Admiral John McCain as the commanding officer of land-based air groups and Rear Admiral Richmond Turner as the commanding officer of the Amphibious Force.

16 July 1944
A total of 1,087 B-17 Flying Fortress bombers of USAAF Eighth Air Force attacked Germany in three waves with most targeting Munich, Stuggart, Augsburg, and Saarbrucken.
Approximately 375 USAAF Ninth Air Force aircraft attacked German positions in the Saint-Lô and Rennes areas of France ahead of the Normandy breakout.
USS West Virginia departed Puget Sound Naval Shipyard after extensive repairs and modernization following damage received in the Pearl Harbor Attack.

16 July 1945
Churchill arrived in Berlin, Germany for the Potsdam Conference and visited the bunker where Hitler committed suicide.
Simultaneous to the Trinity Nuclear Test in New Mexico, the cruiser USS Indianapolis departed San Francisco, California for Tinian, Mariana Islands carrying components of the atomic bomb to be dropped on Hiroshima from a US B-29 bomber stationed there.

 

On July 17, 1945, two months after the German surrender, Truman, Stalin and Churchill met at The Potsdam Conference just outside of Berlin. Clement Atlee, the incoming UK Prime Minister, became PM officially during the conference.

This conference was mostly administrative, determining procedures for the post-war Germany and peace settlements for European nations (although treaties were not yet written). The 4 occupation zones in Berlin, which were set up at the Yalta Conference, were put into action. The occupation of Austria and the demarcation lines of Poland were also a main topic.

Gone was the atmosphere of good will between the three leaders as Stalin's stances became more and more intractable.

 

On This Day In History
July 17, 1945
President Harry Truman records his impressions of meeting Stalin

On July 17, 1945, President Harry S. Truman records his first impressions of Stalin in his diary.

Truman described his initial meeting with the intimidating Soviet leader as cordial. “Promptly a few minutes before twelve” the president wrote, “I looked up from the desk and there stood Stalin in the doorway. I got to my feet and advanced to meet him. He put out his hand and smiled. I did the same, we shook—and we sat down.” After exchanging pleasantries, the two got down to discussing post-World War II policy in Europe. The U.S. was still engaged in a war in the Pacific against Japan, and Truman wanted to get a read on Stalin’s plans for the territories that he now controlled in Europe.

Truman told Stalin that his diplomatic style was straightforward and to-the-point, an admission that Truman observed had visibly pleased Stalin. Truman hoped to get the Soviets to join in the U.S. war against Japan. In return, Stalin wanted to impose Soviet control over certain territories annexed at the beginning of the war by Japan and Germany. Truman hinted that although Stalin’s agenda was “dynamite” or aggressive, the U.S. now had ammunition to counter the communist leader. Truman had refrained from informing the Soviet leader about the Manhattan Project, which had just successfully tested the world’s first atom bomb, but knew that the new weapon strengthened his hand. Truman referred to this secret in his diary as “some dynamite which I am not exploding now.”

After their meeting, Truman, Stalin and accompanying advisors “had lunch, talked socially, [and] put on a real show, drinking toasts to everyone” and posing for photographs. Truman closed his entry for that day on a note of confidence. “I can deal with Stalin,” he wrote. “He is honest, but smart as hell.”

 

17th July

1945 - U.S. President Truman, Soviet leader Josef Stalin, and British Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill began meeting at Potsdam in the final Allied summit of World War II. During the meeting Stalin made the comment that "Hitler had escaped."

1972 - South Vietnamese paratroopers fought to within 200 yards of the Citadel in Quang Tri City.

 

1955: Walt Disney opens a new theme park in Anaheim California. Animation mogul Walt Disney introduces Disneyland, his new theme park, to a live TV audience and 28,000 people in attendance, however, the opening will be tarnished by scores of technical glitches. Disneyland would open to the public the following day.

 

2009-American journalist Walter Cronkite—who, as the longtime anchor of CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite (1962–81), became known as “the most trusted man in America”—died at age 92.

 

1918 The Romanov royal family and several of their retainers are executed by a Bolshevik firing squad in the basement of Ipatiev House, in Yekaterinburg, Siberia.

The basement room in Ipatiev House where the Romanov royal family and their staff were executed. The holes in the walls are from investigators searching for bullets.

 

July 18

1936 - The Spanish Civil War egins when General Francisco Franco issues a manifesting leads an uprising in the Spanisjh army stationed in Morocco.

1925- Scumbag Hitler published Mein Kampf.
Original title was "Four ans a half years of
Struggles Against Lies Stupidity and
Cowardice

2012 - Speaking of scumbags Kim Jong -un is
appointed Sumpreme Leader of North Korea.
1980 - Billy Joel's album "Glass Houses" tops the
US charts.

1976 - Nadia Comaneci becomes the first gymnast to score a perfect 10 in the Olympic Games in Montreal. She did so 7 times.

 

On This Day In History
July 18, 1945
Naval hero John Paul Jones dies in Paris

On July 18, 1792, the Revolutionary War naval hero John Paul Jones dies in his Paris apartment, where he was still awaiting a commission as the United States consul to Algiers. Commander Jones, remembered as one of the most daring and successful naval commanders of the American Revolution, was born in Scotland, on July 6, 1747. He became an apprentice to a merchant at 13 and soon went to sea, traveling first to the West Indies and then to North America as a young man.

In Virginia at the onset of the American Revolution, Jones sided with the Patriots and received a commission as a first lieutenant in the Continental Navy on December 7, 1775. After departing from Brest, Jones successfully executed raids on two forts in England’s Whitehaven Harbor, despite a disgruntled crew more interested in gain than honor. Jones then continued to his home territory of Kirkcudbright Bay, Scotland, where he intended to abduct the earl of Selkirk and then exchange him for American sailors held captive by Britain. Although he did not find the earl at home, Jones’ crew was able to steal all his silver, including his wife’s teapot, still containing her breakfast tea. From Scotland, Jones sailed across the Irish Sea to Carrickfergus, where his Ranger captured the HMS Drake after delivering fatal wounds to the British ship's captain and lieutenant.

In September 1779, Jones fought one of the fiercest battles in naval history when he led the USS Bonhomme Richard frigate, named for Benjamin Franklin, in an engagement with the 50-gun British warship HMS Serapis. After the Bonhomme Richard was struck, it began taking on water and caught fire. When the British captain of the Serapis ordered Jones to surrender, he famously replied, “I have not yet begun to fight!” A few hours later, the captain and crew of the Serapis admitted defeat and Jones took command of the British ship.

One of the greatest naval commanders in history, Jones is remembered as a Father of the American Navy, along with fellow Revolutionary War hero Commodore John Barry. At the conclusion of the American War for Independence, Jones briefly served Empress Catherine II of Russia, before retiring to Paris. John Paul Jones is buried in a crypt at the U.S. Naval Academy Chapel in Annapolis, Maryland.

 

On July 18, 1969, Senator Edward 'Ted' Kennedy drove an Oldsmobile off a wooden bridge into a tide-swept pond on Chappaquiddick Island. Kennedy escaped the submerged car, but his passenger, 28-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne, did not. The senator did not report the fatal car accident for 10 hours, but he never faced any criminal repercussions, 'cause, you know... being a Kennedy and all...

This threw a damper on a popular 'pick-up' line used in the area: "You wanna go for a drive and a swim?"

What... too soon?

 

1976-For her performance in the uneven parallel bars at the Olympic Games in Montreal, Nadia Comăneci of Romania became the first gymnast to be awarded a perfect score of 10 in an Olympic gymnastic event.