Today's Highlight in History:
One year ago, on July 16th, 1999, John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife, Carolyn, and her sister, Lauren Bessette, died when the single-engine plane Kennedy was piloting plunged¹ into the Atlantic Ocean near Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts.
On this date:
In 1790, the District of Columbia was established as the seat of the United States government.

In 1862, David G. Farragut became the first rear admiral in the United States Navy.

In 1918, Russia's Czar Nicholas the Second, his empress and their five children were executed by the Bolsheviks.

In 1935, the first parking meters were installed, in Oklahoma City.

In 1945, the United States exploded its first experimental atomic bomb, in the desert of Alamogordo, New Mexico.

In 1964, in accepting the Republican presidential nomination² in San Francisco, Barry M. Goldwater said "extremism in the defense³ of liberty is no vice⁴" and that "moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue⁵."

In 1969, "Apollo Eleven" blasted off from Cape⁶ 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 Nixon's secret taping system.

In 1979, Saddam Hussein became president of Iraq.

In 1980, former California Governor Ronald Reagan won the Republican presidential nomination at the party's convention in Detroit.

Ten years ago: Soviet⁷ President Mikhail Gorbachev and West German Chancellor⁸ Helmut Kohl announced that Moscow had agreed to drop its objection to a united Germany's membership in NATO.

Five years ago: William Barloon and David Daliberti, the two Americans who were imprisoned⁹ in Iraq for crossing the border from Kuwait four months earlier, were released.

One year ago: Stanley Kubrick's final film, "Eyes Wide Shut" starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, made its debut¹⁰.