JULY 16: The Daily Flashback

Photographs by Stanley A. Johnson

1935: Oklahoma City became the first city in the U.S. to install parking meters.
1945: The United States detonated the first atomic bomb in a test at Alamogordo, New Mexico.
1951: J.D. Salinger’s novel “The Catcher in the Rye” was first published.
1955: Elvis Presley made his first appearance on the national charts as “Baby, Let’s Play House” entered the Cash Box country charts at No. 15.
1962: The Beach Boys signed to Capitol Records.
1966: In London, Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker formed the band Cream.
1967: Arlo Guthrie debuted “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree” at the 1967 Newport Folk Festival. The song runs 18 minutes long and tells a true (but greatly exaggerated) story about how he was arrested one Thanksgiving morning for illegal dumping.
1969: Apollo 11 blasted off from Cape Kennedy, beginning the first manned mission to land on the moon.
1972: Smokey Robinson performed his final show with The Miracles at the Carter Barron Amphitheater in Washington, DC.
1973: The Grand Funk Railroad single “We’re An American Band” was released.
1976: Loggins and Messina broke up.
1979: Saddam Hussein became president of Iraq after forcing Hasan al-Bakr to resign.
1985: The Major League Baseball All-Star Game became the first program broadcast in stereo by a television network (NBC-TV).
1990: The trial began for Judas Priest after they ere accused of implanting subliminal messages in their song “Better By You, Better Than Me.”
2005: J.K. Rowling’s book “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” was released. It was the sixth in the Harry Potter series. The book sold 6.9 million copies on its first day of release.

BIRTHDAYS
1907: Orville Redenbacher
1925: Cal Tjader
1939: Denise LaSalle
1941: Desmond Dekker
1948: Ruben Blades
1952: Stewart Copeland
1958: Michael Flatley
1971: Ed Kowalczyk

DEATHS
1981: Harry Chapin
2003: Celia Cruz
2008: Jo Stafford
2012: Jon Lord
2014: Johnny Winter