16 July

July 16 is the 197th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar; 168 days remain until the end of the year.

We have some interesting facts & historic events all about July 16^th, including areas in religion, crime, health and more.

Keep reading for more interesting facts about July 16^th in history!

Global Celebrations

Guinea Pig Appreciation Day
National Corn Fritters Day
World Snake Day
Fresh Spinach Day
National Ice Cream Day

Historic Events

What Happened On This Day – July 16

1995: Amazon.com Sells its First Book

The e-commerce website was first founded in 1995 by Jeff Bezos as an online bookstore. The first book sold by the Internet giant was Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought by Douglas Hofstadter.

1994: Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 collides with Jupiter

The Jupiter orbiting comet collided with Jupiter. It was the first time in recorded history that astronomers had observed a collision between two celestial objects.

1981: Mahathir bin Mohamad takes office for the first time

Mohmad, took office as the fourth Prime Minister of Malaysia and remained in the position until 2003, becoming Malayasia’s longest serving prime minister and Asia’s longest serving politician.

1979: Iraqi president, Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr resigns

The fourth president of Iraq resigned from his post citing health reasons and promoted his Vice President, Saddam Hussein to the post of President.

1951: The Catcher in the Rye is published

The book, written by J.D. Salinger is considered to be one of the top 100 works of fiction of the 20th century.

1988: Florence Griffith Joyner sets the women’s 100m world record at the US Olympic Trials, 16/07/1988. Her time of 10.49 garnered skepticism due to the wind reading. The next day she ran two races beating the record prior to hers (10.70 & 10.61) that have not been contested or broken since.