Moments in Time

* On July 14, 1789, Parisian revolutionaries and mutinous troops storm and dismantle the Bastille, signaling the start of the French Revolution. The royal fortress had come to symbolize the tyranny of the Bourbon monarchs.

* On July 11, 1804, Vice President Aaron Burr fatally shoots his long-time political antagonist Alexander Hamilton in a duel. Charged with murder in New York and New Jersey, Burr, still the vice president, returned to Washington, D.C., where he finished his term immune from prosecution.

* On July 16, 1935, the world’s first parking meter is installed on the corner of First Street and Robinson Avenue in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Indignant opponents of the meters considered paying for parking un-American, as it forced drivers to pay what amounted to a tax on their cars.

* On July 12, 1957, Dwight Eisenhower becomes the first president to ride in a helicopter. Although helicopters had been tested since 1947, it was not until 10 years later that a president considered using the new machine for short, official trips to and from the White House.

* On July 10, 1962, the United States Patent Office issues Swedish engineer Nils Bohlin a patent for his three-point automobile safety belt. The National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966 made seat belts mandatory on all new American vehicles from the 1968 model year onward.

* On July 13, 1978, Ford Motor Company chairman Henry Ford II fires Lee Iacocca as Ford’s president. The following year, Iacocca was hired as president of the nearly bankrupt Chrysler Corporation, which ended up getting a $1.5 billion bailout from Congress.

* On July 15, 2002, John Walker Lindh, the “American Taliban,” accepts a plea-bargain deal and pleads guilty to one count of supplying services to the Taliban and carrying weapons. Lindh was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

(c) 2017 King Features Synd., Inc.