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Today in History, July 16th

On July 16, 1945, the U.S. tested the first atomic bomb at Trinity in New Mexico. Plus Apollo 11's launch and DiMaggio's 56th straight game.

By Today in History Updated November 10, 2026 3 min read Sources checked

Published July 16, 2026 · Last updated November 10, 2026

July 16 is best known for 1945, when the United States set off the world’s first atomic bomb in the New Mexico desert. The date also saw Apollo 11 launch for the moon in 1969 and Joe DiMaggio stretch his hitting streak to 56 games in 1941.

The big story: The first atomic bomb is tested at Trinity (1945)

At 5:29:45 a.m. on July 16, 1945, a flash brighter than any sunrise lit up the desert near Alamogordo, New Mexico, about 120 miles south of Santa Fe. The device sat on a steel tower, and the tower simply ceased to exist. The blast equaled 15,000 to 20,000 tons of TNT, and the mushroom cloud climbed to about 40,000 feet. Scientists and a handful of officials watched from 10,000 yards away. The test, code-named Trinity, was the payoff of the Manhattan Project, the secret wartime program run by Brigadier General Leslie R. Groves, with J. Robert Oppenheimer leading the Los Alamos laboratory. Its roots went back to a 1939 letter from Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard warning President Franklin Roosevelt that Germany might build such a weapon. By the time the bomb worked, Germany had already surrendered. That left Japan as the only possible target, and within weeks the weapon would be used in war for the first time.

More events on July 16

Year	What happened
622	By traditional dating, the Prophet Muhammad’s migration from Mecca to Yathrib (Medina), known as the Hijrah, began.
1054	Cardinal Humbert of Silva Candida excommunicated Patriarch Michael Cerularius of Constantinople, and the back-and-forth that followed led to the split between the Eastern and Western churches.
1769	Father Junípero Serra founded Mission San Diego de Alcalá, the first Catholic mission in California.
1790	Congress’s Residence Act named a site on the Potomac River as the permanent national capital, the future Washington, D.C.
1935	The world’s first parking meters went into service in Oklahoma City.
1941	Joe DiMaggio of the New York Yankees hit safely in his 56th straight game, a Major League record.
1951	J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, his only full-length novel, was published.
1969	Apollo 11 lifted off from Kennedy Space Center, bound for the first crewed moon landing.
1973	Televised Senate Watergate testimony revealed that President Richard Nixon’s White House conversations had been secretly recorded.
1979	Saddam Hussein became president of Iraq.
2001	Belgium’s Jacques Rogge was chosen to succeed Juan Antonio Samaranch as president of the International Olympic Committee.
2004	Chicago’s Millennium Park opened to the public.

Born on July 16

1862: Ida B. Wells-Barnett, journalist and civil rights reformer who led a crusade against lynching, born in Holly Springs, Mississippi.
1907: Barbara Stanwyck, American film and television actress known for playing strong-willed women, born in Brooklyn.
1911: Ginger Rogers, American dancer and actress famed for her musicals with Fred Astaire, born in Independence, Missouri.