Historical Events on 15 Jul

Historical Events on 15 Jul

1099 - First Crusade: Christian soldiers take the 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, is 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 men ashore in a longboat, making them the first Europeans to visit Alaska.
1789 - Gilbert du Motier, marquis de La Fayette, is named by acclamation colonel-general of the new National Guard of Paris.
1799 - The Rosetta Stone is found in the Egyptian village of Rosetta by French Captain Pierre-François Bouchard during Napoleon's Egyptian Campaign.
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 aboard HMS Bellerophon.
1823 - A fire destroys the ancient Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls in Rome.
1870 - Reconstruction era of the United States: 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: the Second Battle of the Marne 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 the Mormon Tabernacle Choir radio show, Music and the Spoken Word.
1934 - Continental Airlines commences operations.
1954 - First flight of the Boeing 367-80, prototype for both the Boeing 707 and C-135 series.
1955 - Eighteen Nobel laureates sign 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."
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.
1999 - The inaugural game at the Seattle Mariners' Safeco Field was held in Seattle, Washington.
2002 - "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh pleads guilty to supplying aid to the enemy and to possession of explosives during the commission of a felony.
2002 - Anti-Terrorism Court of Pakistan hands down the death sentence to British born Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and life terms to three others suspected 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.