On July 17, 1944, the Port Chicago Naval Magazine near San
Francisco experienced a catastrophic explosion when two
ammunition ships, the SS E.A. Bryan and the SS Quinault
Victory, detonated while loading munitions for Pacific troops.

ROSS SIMPSON

A Piper Saratoga similar to the accident aircraft.

On July 16, 1999, John F. Kennedy Jr. died when the light
aircraft he was piloting crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off
Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts.

Kennedy’s wife, Carolyn Bessette, and sister-in-law, Lauren
Bessette, were also on board and died.

The Piper Saratoga departed New Jersey‘s Essex County
Airport; its intended route was along the coastline of
Connecticut and across Rhode Island Sound to Martha’s
Vineyard Airport.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy Jr.
(November 25, 1960 – July 16, 1999

The world’s first parking meter, known as Park-O-Meter No.
1,was installed on the southeast corner of what was then
First Street and Robinson Avenue in Oklahoma City,
Oklahoma on July 16, 1935.

The parking meter was the brainchild of a man named Carl
C. Magee, who moved to Oklahoma City from New Mexico
in 1927.

                                             Carl Magee

On July 15, 1903, the newly formed Ford Motor Company took
its first order from Chicago dentist Ernst Pfenning: an $850 two
-cylinder Model A automobile with a tonneau (or backseat).

The car, produced at Ford’s plant on Mack Street (now Mack
Avenue) in Detroit, was delivered to Dr. Pfenning just over a
week later.

Dr. Pfenning’s order turned out to be the first of many from
around the country, launching Ford on its way to profitability.

Dr. Ernst Pfenning

Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947)

On July 15, 2006, the San Francisco-based podcasting company
Odeo officially released Twttr—later changed to Twitter—its short messaging service (SMS) for groups, to the public.

Born as a side project apart from Odeo’s main podcasting platform,
the free application allowed users to share short status updates
with groups of friends by sending one text message to a single
number (“40404”).

Internet entrepreneur/Twitter co-founder
Evan Clark Williams (53).