Today in History: July 16

622 A.D.: The Muslim calendar, dating from the beginning of the year in which Mohammed and his make the Hijira to Medina, begins with 1 Muharram 1 A.H.

1769: Fr. Junipero Serra founds San Diego de Alcalá, the first mission in California, which he names for St. Didacus, a Spaniard who is patron saint of the Franciscan laity.

1782: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart has his first big Vienna success with the premiere of his Abduction from the Seraglio.

1821: Mary Baker Eddy is born at Bow, New Hampshire.  In 1879, at age 58, she’ll found the Church of Christ, Scientist.

1880: Forty-nine year-old Dr. Emily Howard Stowe, a graduate of the New York Medical College for Women, becomes the first woman licensed to practice medicine in Canada.

1898: Labor lawyer Trygve Halvdan Lie (Oslo Law 1919) is born at Kristiania (now Oslo), Norway.  An admirer of Lenin, he’ll be elected in 1946 as a compromise candidate to become the first Secretary General of the United Nations.

1951: First-time novelist Jerome David Salinger publishes his The Catcher in the Rye, which will become one of the most-assiged novels in college history.

1997: The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above 8,000 for the first time, hitting a record 8,038.88.

2005: The most-awaited book in the history of the known universe, J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, is released in stores throughout the English-speaking world.