Today in History, 7/15

1099: During the First Crusade, Christian soldiers take the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem after a long siege.
1381: John Ball, one of the leaders of the Peasant's Revolt is hanged, drawn and quartered in the presence of King Richard II of England.1458: Juan Ponce de Leon is born.
1573: Inigo Jones is born. He is the architect who brought Renaissance style across the channel and designed the Banqueting House at Whitehall.1606: Rembrandt is born. Here's his painting Christ in a Storm on the Sea of Galilee.1685: James Scott, the First Duke of Monmouth is executed at Tower Hill, London after his defeat at the Battle of Sedgemore on July 6.
1741: The Russian navigator Alexei Chirikov sights Alaska. He sends some men ashore in a longboat, making them the first Europeans to set foot in Alaska.1779: Clement Clarke Moore is born. He is most famous for writing A Visit From St. Nicholas, aka The Night Before Christmas.
1799: The Rosetta Stone is found in Egypt.1806: Lt. Zebulon Pike begins an expedition from Fort Belle Fountaine to explore the west. I've always liked the name Zebulon and, should I ever sire an heir, it's on the short list of boys' names.1815: Napoleon Bonaparte surrenders aboard the HMS Bellerophon.1870: Georgia becomes the last of the Confederate states to be readmitted to the Union.
1870: The Kingdom of Prussia and the Second French Empire kick off the Franco-Prussian War. The Prussians won and brought about the final unification of Germany.
1916: In Seattle, William Boeing and George Conrad Westervelt incorporate Pacific Aero Products, later renamed Boeing.
1918: During WWI, the Second Battle of the Marne begins.
1931: Kid Chocolate becomes Cuba's first world boxing champion.1931: Clive Cussler is born. He books about steely-eyed NUMA agent Dirk Pitt were great summer reading until he started writing himself as a character into his books.1935: Alex Karras is born. He played football or something, but I remember him best as the dad on Webster.

1944: Jan-Michael Vincent is born. He was most famous as the hotshot pilot of Airwolf but he was also great as the bored rich kid who wants to learn the hit man trade from Charles Bronson in The Mechanic.

1946: Linda Ronstadt is born.

1954: First flight of the Boeing 707, America's first jet airliner. The World Trade Center was designed to withstand a strike from one of these but not, unfortunately, a 747 which hadn't been built at the time the WTC was designed. 1956: Joe Satriani, guitar virtuoso, is born.

1959: The Steel Strike of 1959 begins, leading to the significant importation of foreign steel for the first time in US history.
1960: Willie Aames, Scott Baio's sidekick, is born.

1961: Forest Whittaker is born.1963: Brigitte Nielsen is born. She can't act, but she sure did look good in a metal bustier once upon a time.

1971: Richard Nixon announces that he will visit China in order to normalize relations.
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."


Today in History elements mostly cribbed from The History Channel, Wikipedia, The New York Times, The Jewish World Review, The Writer's Almanac and anything else I can dig up.