This Day in History

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July 15

1099 – First Crusade: Christian soldiers take the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem after the final assault of a difficult siege.

1149 – The reconstructed Church of the Holy Sepulchre is consecrated in Jerusalem.

1381 – John Ball, a leader in the Peasants' Revolt, is hanged, drawn and quartered in the presence of King Richard II of England.

1741 – Aleksei Chirikov sights land in Southeast Alaska. He sends men ashore in a longboat, making them the first Europeans to visit Alaska.

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: United States Army Lieutenant Zebulon Pike begins an expedition from Fort Bellefontaine near St. Louis, Missouri, to explore the west.

1834 – The Spanish Inquisition is officially disbanded after nearly 356 years.

1870 – Reconstruction Era of the United States: Georgia becomes the last of the former Confederate states to be readmitted to the Union.

1910 – In his book Clinical Psychiatry, Emil Kraepelin gives a name to Alzheimer's disease, naming it after his colleague Alois Alzheimer.

1916 – In Seattle, Washington, William Boeing and George Conrad Westervelt incorporate Pacific Aero Products (later renamed Boeing).

1954 – First flight of the Boeing 367-80, prototype for both the Boeing 707 and C-135 series.

1959 – The steel strike of 1959 begins, leading to significant importation of foreign steel for the first time in United States history.

1966 – Vietnam War: The United States and South Vietnam begin Operation Hastings to push the North Vietnamese out of the Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone.

1985 - Nude photos of Madonna taken in 1977 appeared in this months Playboy and Penthouse Magazines.

1998 - Aerosmith were forced to cancel a forthcoming US tour after Joey Kramer was involved in a freak accident. The drummer's car caught fire and was completely destroyed as he was filling up with petrol. He was admitted to hospital with second-degree burns.

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.

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 The Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.

2003 – AOL Time Warner disbands Netscape. The Mozilla Foundation is established on the same day.

2005, Victor Edward Willis, the original policeman in the Village People, was arrested after police found a gun and drugs in his convertible in Daly City, south of San Francisco. Willis also had an outstanding $15,000 felony warrant for possession of narcotics.

2006 – Twitter is launched, becoming one of the largest social media platforms in the world.

2015 - A judge trimmed more than $1m (£639,000) from the damages Pharrell Williams was ordered to pay after the Blurred Lines copyright trial. The case revolved around the question of whether Williams and his co-writer Robin Thicke had copied Marvin Gaye's 1977 hit 'Got To Give It Up'. The judge also gave Gaye's family a 50% cut of future earnings from the song.

Births

1573 – Inigo Jones; 1606 – Rembrandt; 1779 – Clement Clarke Moore; 1796 – Thomas Bulfinch; 1913 – Cowboy Copas; 1919 – Iris Murdoch; 1925 – Philip Carey ('Asa Buchanon' on One Life To Live); 1931 – Clive Cussler; 1935 – Alex Karras, Ken Kercheval; 1940 – Ronald Gene Simmons; 1944 – Millie Jackson, Jan-Michael Vincent; 1946 – Linda Ronstadt; 1947 – Peter Banks (Yes); 1948 – Artimus Pyle; 1950 – Arianna Huffington; 1951 – Jesse 'The Body' Ventura; 1952 – Marky Ramone, Johnny Thunders, Jeff Carlisi (.38 Special); 1953 – Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Alicia Bridges (I Love The Night Life); 1956 – Joe Satriani; 1961 – Lolita Davidovich, Forest Whitaker; 1963 – Brigitte Nielsen; 1966 – Jason Bonham; 1967 – Adam Savage (Mythbusters); 1968 – Eddie Griffin; 1972 – Scott Foley; 1973 – Brian Austin Green

Deaths

1381 – John Ball; 1871 – Tad Lincoln; 1904 – Anton Chekhov; 1940 – Robert Wadlow (8' 11'' tall); 1948 – John J. Pershing; 1958 – Julia Lennon (John's mother); 1991 – Bert Convy; 1997 – Gianni Versace; 2003 – Tex Schramm; 2006 – Robert H. Brooks (founded Hooters); 2012 – Celeste Holm; 2015 – Aubrey Morris (A Clockwork Orange)