July 15

July 15 is the 196th day (197th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 169 days remaining.

Events

1099 - Christian soldiers take Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem after a difficult siege during First Crusade.

1207 - John of England expels Canterbury monks for supporting Archbishop of Canterbury Stephen Langton

1381 - John Ball, veteran of Peasants' Revolt, executed in the presence of Richard II of England

1410 - Battle of Grunwald (a.k.a. Tannenberg or Zalgiris), power of the Teutonic Knights broken by a defeat from Poles and Lithuanians

1685 - In England, the Duke of Monmouth is executed at Tower Hill, after he was defeated at the Battle of Sedgemore.

1789 - Marquis de la Fayette, by acclamation, named colonel-general of the new National Guard of Paris.

1799 - In the Egyptian village of Rosette, French Captain Pierre Bouchard finds the Rosetta Stone.

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

1862 - American Civil War: Confederates break naval blockade of Vicksburg, Mississippi.

1870 - Reconstruction: Georgia becomes the last of the former Confederate states to be readmitted to the Union.

1895 - Archie MacLaren scores County Championship record innings of 424 for Lancashire against Somerset at Taunton.

1916 - In Seattle, Washington, William Boeing incorporates 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 - 89 protesters are killed by the Austrian police in Vienna. See Massacre of July 15, 1927.

1929 - First weekly radio broadcast of Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

1931 - Kid Chocolate becomes Cuba's first world boxing champion.

1944 - World War II: Americans take Saipan

1953 - John Reginald Christie executed.

1954 - First flight of the Boeing 707, the first American jet passenger airliner.

1958 - In Lebanon, 5,000 United States Marines land in the capital Beirut in order to provide military support to the pro-Western government there.

1974 - In Nicosia, Cyprus, Greek-sponsored nationalists launch a coup d'état, deposing President Makarios and installing Nikos Sampson as Cypriot president.

1975 - Apollo Soyuz Test Project: Apollo and Soyuz spacecraft take off for U.S.-Soviet link-up in space.

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."

1988 - Die Hard opens in theaters, starring Bruce Willis

1989 - Punk rock band Bad Religion releases their sixth album, No Control.

1992 - A major fire consumes an entire city block in tourist destination Gatlinburg, Tennessee, destroying the Ripley's Believe It Or Not Museum and several other local businesses in the process. The block was rebuilt and re-opened in 1995.

1994 - Albert Belle of the Cleveland Indians caught with a corked bat.

1995 - Fluid Concepts & Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought by Douglas Hofstadter becomes the first item sold on Amazon.com

1996 - MSNBC cable-DBS channel launched

1996 - Hercules C-130 of the Royal Belgian Air Force carrying the Royal Netherlands Army marching band crashes on landing at Eindhoven Airport. Thirty-two people died in the flames, two people died of their injuries. Seven people sustained severe burns.

1997 - In Miami, Florida, serial killer Andrew Phillip Cunanan guns down Gianni Versace outside his home.

2002 - So-called "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. Lindh agrees to serve 10 years in prison for each of the charges.

2002 - Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and three other suspects convicted of 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 - Monorail service begins in Las Vegas.

2004 - 18 - The Open Championship in golf, known in North America as the British Open, takes place in Troon, Scotland.

2004 - The BBC airs the documentary "The Secret Agent", exposing racism by members of the British National Party.