Historical Events and Current Affairs on July 15

1099: First Crusade: Christian soldiers take Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem after the final assault of a difficult siege.
1207: John of England expels Canterbury monks for supporting Archbishop of Canterbury Stephen Langton.
1240: A Novgorodian army led by Alexander Nevsky defeats the Swedes in the Battle of the Neva.
1381: John Ball, a leader in the Peasants' Revolt, hanged, drawn and quartered in the presence of Richard II of England.
1410: Battle of Grunwald, allied forces of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania defeat the army of the Teutonic Order.
1685: James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth is executed at Tower Hill, England after his defeat at the Battle of Sedgemore on 6 July 1685.
1741: Alexei Chirikov sights land in Southeast Alaska. He sends some men aboard in a longboat, making them the first Europeans to visit Alaska
1789: Gilbert du Motier, marquis de La Fayette, by acclamation, named colonel-general of the new National Guard of Paris.
1799: Rosetta Stone is found in the Egyptian village of Rosetta, by French Captain Pierre-François Bouchard.
1806: Pike expedition: Near St. Louis, Missouri, United States Army Lieutenant Zebulon Pike begins an expedition from Fort Belle Fountaine to explore the west.
1815: Napoléon Bonaparte surrenders from aboard HMS Bellerophon.
1823: A fire destroys the ancient Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls in Rome.
1870: Post-American-Civil-War Reconstruction: Georgia becomes the last of the former Confederate states to be readmitted to the Union.
1870: Rupert's Land and the North-Western Territory are transferred to Canada from the Hudson's Bay Company, and the province of Manitoba and the North-West Territories are established from these vast territories.
1870: The Kingdom of Prussia and the Second French Empire commence the Franco-Prussian War
1888: The stratovolcano Mount Bandai erupts killing approximately 500 people.
1916: In Seattle, Washington, William Boeing and George Conrad Westervelt incorporate Pacific Aero Products (later renamed Boeing).
1918: World War I: Second Battle of the Marne - The battle begins near the River Marne with a German attack.
1927: Massacre of July 15, 1927: 89 protesters are killed by the Austrian police in Vienna.
1929: First weekly radio broadcast of Mormon Tabernacle Choir radio show, Music and the Spoken Word.
1931: Kid Chocolate becomes Cuba's first world boxing champion.
1934: Continental Airlines commenced operations
1954: First flight of the Boeing 707, the first American jet passenger airliner.
1955: Eighteen Nobel laureates signed the Mainau Declaration against nuclear weapons, later co-signed by thirty-four others.
1959: The steel strike of 1959 begins, leading to significant importation of foreign steel for the first time in United States history.
1974: In Nicosia, Cyprus, Greek-sponsored nationalists launch a coup d'état, deposing President Makarios and installing Nikos Sampson as Cypriot president.
1979: U.S. President Jimmy Carter gives his famous malaise speech, where he characterizes the greatest threat to the country as this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation.
1994: The new Ivybridge railway station, costing £380,000, opens in the town of Ivybridge, Devon, England.
1996: A Belgian Air Force C-130 Hercules carrying the Royal Netherlands Army marching band crashes on landing at Eindhoven Airport.
1997: In Miami, Florida, serial killer Andrew Phillip Cunanan guns down Gianni Versace outside his home.
2002: American Taliban John Walker Lindh pleads guilty to supplying aid to the enemy and for the possession of explosives during the commission of a felony.
2002: Anti-Terrorism Court of Pakistan gave the death sentence to British born Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and life terms to three other suspects in murdering Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.
2003: AOL Time Warner disbands Netscape Communications Corporation. The Mozilla Foundation is established on the same day.
2004: The BBC airs the documentary The Secret Agent, exposing racism by members of the British National Party.

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