Today in History - July 15
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For Asia History: https://www.asiaobserver.org/category/news/on-this-day-in-asian-history
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668 Jul 15, Constantine II (37), emperor of Byzantium, died.
(MC, 7/15/02)
1099 Jul 15, Jerusalem fell to the crusaders who slaughtered the Jewish and Muslim inhabitants. The dead numbered about 3,000.
(V.D.-H.K.p.109)(HN, 7/15/98)(SSFC, 4/13/03, p.E3)
1174 Jul 15, Baldwin (13), son of Amalric I, was crowned Baldwin IV, king of Jerusalem.
(ON, 6/07, p.5)
1205 Jul 15, Pope Innocent III decreed that the Jews were doomed to perpetual servitude and subjugation due to crucifixion of Jesus.
(MC, 7/15/02)
1410 Jul 15, Lithuanian-Polish forces defeated the Teutonic Knights at the Battle of Tannenberg, Prussia, thereby halting the Knights’ eastward expansion along the Baltic and hastening their decline. Vytautas and Jogaila with hired mercenaries from Belarus along with Tartars and Czechs defeated the Teutonic Knights between Grunvald (Zalgiriai) and Tannenberg southeast of Malburg. Grand Master Ulrich von Jungingen and many of his nobles were killed. The war officially ended with the Treaty of Thorn in which the Knights gave up Zemaitija to Vytautas.
(COE)(H of L, 1931, p.52)(DrEE, 11/9/96, p.6)
1471 Jul 15, Eskender (d.1494), Emperor of Ethiopia, was born. Eskender was killed at age 22 fighting the Maya, a vanished ethnic group known for using poisoned arrows.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eskender)
1542 Jul 15, In 2007 an expert on the "Mona Lisa" says he had ascertained with certainty that Lisa Gherardini (b.1479), the symbol of feminine mystique, died on this day, and was buried at the Sant'Orsola convent in central Florence where she spent her final days.
(AFP, 1/19/07)
1573 Jul 15, Inigo Jones (d.1652), father of English classical architecture, was born in London. He restored St. Paul's Cathedral.
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.14)(MC, 7/15/02)
1606 Jul 15, The painter Rembrandt (d.1669) Harmenszoom van Rizn (Rijn), was born in Leiden, Netherlands. His paintings included "Old Woman Cutting Her Nails," "Night Watch," "Self Portrait Leaning Forward" (1628), "Two Studies of Saskia Asleep" (1635-1637), "Jupiter and Antiope" (1659) and "Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of Homer." He started making etchings in the 1620s when the medium was barely a 100 years old.
(WSJ, 10/1/96, p.A20)(SFC, 10/12/96, p.E3)(SFC, 5/17/97, p.E1)(AP, 7/15/97)
1609 Jul 15, Annibale Carracci (b.1560), Italian Baroque painter, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annibale_Carracci)
1663 Jul 15, King Charles II of England granted John Clarke a charter for the colony of Rhode Island guaranteeing freedom of worship. He granted the charter giving the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations an elected governor and legislature. Roger Williams (1603-1683) authored the Rhode Island and Providence Plantation Charter, which stated that religion and conscience should never be restrained by civil supremacy.
(http://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/ri04.asp)(AH, 4/07, p.21)
1685 Jul 15, James Scott, the Duke of Monmouth and illegitimate son of Charles II, was executed on Tower Hill in England, after his army was defeated at Sedgemoor.
(HN, 7/15/98)(MC, 7/15/02)
1700 Jul 15, Johann Christoph Richter, composer, was born.
(MC, 7/15/02)
1741 Jul 15, George Steller, an observer with Vitus Bering (1680-1741), claimed to see the American mainland (Alaska). Bering, a Danish-born mariner, was on an exploratory mission on behalf of Russia.
(WSJ, 9/12/00, p.A24)(SFEC, 3/23/97, p.T5)(ON, 2/06, p.2)
1779 Jul 15, Clement Moore, founder of the General Theological Seminary in New York City, was born.
(HN, 7/15/98)
1782 Jul 15, Farinelli (77), Italian castrato, died.
(MC, 7/15/02)
1788 Jul 15, Louis XVI jailed 12 deputies who protest new judicial reforms.
(HN, 7/15/98)
1789 Jul 15, The electors of Paris set up a "Commune" to live without the authority of the government.
(HN, 7/15/98)
1796 Jul 15, Thomas Bulfinch, historian and mythologist (The Age of Fable), was born.
(HN, 7/15/01)
1801 Jul 15, Pope Pius VII and Napoleon signed the Concordat of 1801 brokering religious peace with Rome and granting equality to Jews. It solidified the Roman Catholic Church as the majority church of France and brought back most of its civil status.
(Econ, 10/18/14, p.18)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concordat_of_1801)
1806 Jul 15, Lieutenant Zebulon Pike began his famous western expedition from Fort Belle Fountaine, near St. Louis, Missouri. Pike was the US Army officer who in 1805 led an exploring party in search of the source of the Mississippi River.
(HN, 7/15/99)(MC, 7/15/02)
1813 Jul 15, Napoleon Bonaparte's representatives met with the Allies in Prague to discuss peace terms.
(HN, 7/15/98)
1815 Jul 15, Napoleon Bonaparte was captured by the British Navy at Rochefort, France, while attempting to escape to America.
(ON, 4/06, p.5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon)
1830 Jul 15, 3 Indian tribes, Sioux, Sauk & Fox, signed a treaty giving the US most of Minnesota, Iowa & Missouri.
(MC, 7/15/02)
1834 Jul 15, Lord Napier of England arrived at Macao, China as the first chief superintendent of trade.
(HN, 7/15/98)
1836 Jul 15, William Winter, drama critic and essayist for The New York Times, was born.
(HN, 7/15/98)
1849 Jul 15, A Chilean tent community at the foot of Telegraph Hill, composed of some 700 miners, was assaulted by the lawless Society of Hounds street gang. Sam Roberts led the rampage and violent raid on the Little Chile tent community. The Hounds had specialized in “patriotic" assaults on Chileans. In response Sam Brannan call on volunteers to drive the Hounds out of town. A vigilante force of some 230 men rounded up 20 Hounds and imprisoned them on a warship. Popular justice brought 9 Hound members to court and sentenced them to a decade of hard labor. The Chilecito community stayed vibrant throughout the 1860s.
(SSFC, 1/5/03, p.A24)(SFC, 6/1/13, p.C2)(SFC, 12/28/13, p.C2)
1850 Jul 15, Mother Francis Xavier Cabrini, the first American canonized saint, was born.
(HN, 7/15/98)
1855 Jul 15, In San Francisco St. Ignatius Church on Market St. was dedicated by Archbishop Alemany. The simple wood and plaster structure cost $4,000. Anthony Maraschi, SJ, soon began construction for a school and residence.
(GenIV, Winter 04/05)
1857 Jul 15, British women and children were murdered in the second Cawnpore Massacre during the Indian Mutiny.
(HN, 7/15/98)
1857 Jul 15, Carl Czerny (66), Austrian pianist, composer, died.
(MC, 7/15/02)
1862 Jul 15, Lt. Isaac Brown took the Confederate ironclad C.S.S. Arkansas into the Mississippi River and engaged 3 Union ships near Vicksburg. The CSS Arkansas vs. USS Carondelet and Queen of the West engaged at Yazoo River.
(ON, 10/02, p.12)(MC, 7/15/02)
1863 Jul 15, Confederate raider Bill Anderson and his Bushwackers attacked Huntsville, Missouri, stealing $45,000 from the local bank.
(HN, 7/15/99)
1868 Jul 15, William Thomas Morton (b.1819), dentist, died in NYC. He was responsible for the first successful public demonstration of ether as an inhalation anesthetic. Morton's accomplishment was the key factor to the medical and scientific pursuit that we now refer to as anesthesiology.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Thomas_Green_Morton)
1868 Jul 15, The Torrent sank in Alaska’s Cook Inlet after tidal currents, among the world's most powerful, rammed it into a reef south of the Kenai Peninsula. About 130 Army soldiers had come north on the Torrent to build the first US military fort in south-central Alaska. About 20 sailors and 15 of the soldiers wives and children were also on board. All 155 people on board survived. Remnants of the wreckage were found in 2007.
(AP, 10/8/07)(www.adn.com/life/story/9364436p-9278126c.html)
1869 Jul 15, Margarine was patented by Hippolye Mega-Mouriss for use by French Navy.
(MC, 7/15/02)
1870 Jul 15, Georgia became the last of the Confederate states to be admitted to the Union.
(AP, 7/15/97)
1870 Jul 15, Manitoba entered confederation as the fifth Canadian province.
(AP, 7/15/07)
1883 Jul 15, Tom Thumb (44), famous small person (40"), died of a stroke.
(MC, 7/15/02)
1895 Jul 15, Ex-prime minister of Bulgaria Stephen Stambulov was murdered by Macedonian rebels.
(HN, 7/15/98)
1895 Jul 15, Stephen Stambulov, ex-prime minister of Bulgaria was murdered by Macedonian rebels.
(HN, 7/15/98)
1897 Jul 15, The gold-laden ship Excelsior from Alaska landed in San Francisco. Seattle mayor W.D. Wood was visiting and immediately resigned his job, hired a ship, and organized an expedition from SF to the Yukon territory.
(WSJ, 7/17/97, p.A20)
1897 Jul 15, W. Sheldon of NY patented a seed counter for retail seed sales.
(SFC, 4/13/05, p.G4)
1901 Jul 15, Over 74,000 Pittsburgh steel workers went on strike.
(HN, 7/15/98)
1904 Jul 15, Dorothy Fields, songwriter, was born.
(HN, 7/15/01)
1904 Jul 15, Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (44), Russian writer (Uncle Vanya), died of tuberculosis. Chekhov wrote his play "The Cherry Orchard" in this year. In 1998 Donald Rayfield published "Anton Chekhov: A Life." An assay of his plays was written by Maurice Vallency: "The Breaking string." Vladimir Nabokov examined his short stories in "Lectures on Russian Literature." In 1988 V.S. Pritchett wrote a biography. In 1998 Philip Callow published "Chekhov: The Hidden Ground," and Donald Rayfield published "Anton Chekhov: A Life." In 1999 Peter Constantine translated and published "Undiscovered Chekhov: Thirty-Eight New Stories."
(WUD, 1994, p.252)(WSJ, 11/5/97, p.A20)(WSJ, 3/9/98, p.A16)(SFEC, 5/31/98, p.8)(SFEC, 2/14/99, BR p.6)(MC, 7/15/02)
1906 Jul 15, Richard W. Armour, humorist, author of "Twisted Tales from Shakespeare," was born.
(HN, 7/15/98)
1907 Jul 15, The London Electrobus Company began picking up passengers in the world’s biggest trials of battery-powered buses. The service collapsed in 1909. It suffered from an investment scam led by Baron de Martigny, a Canadian music-hall artist, the front man for Edward Lehwess, a German lawyer and con-artist. In 1906 Lehwess had sold the company a worthless patent that caused investors to demand the return of some 80,000 pounds.
(Econ, 9/8/07, TQ p.10)
1912 Jul 15, British National Health Insurance Act went into effect.
(MC, 7/15/02)
1913 Jul 15, Hammond Innes, English novelist, was born.
(HN, 7/15/01)
1914 Jul 15, Gavin Maxwell, Scottish writer and naturalist (Ring of Bright Water), was born.
(HN, 7/15/01)
1914 Jul 15, Mexican president Huerta fled with 2 million pesos to Europe.
(MC, 7/15/02)
1916 Jul 15, The Boeing Co., originally known as Pacific Aero Products, was founded in Seattle by William Boeing.
(AP, 7/15/97)
1916 Jul 15, A series of engagements in the Battle of the Somme began at Delville Wood and continued to September 3 between the armies of the German Empire and the British Empire. A brigade of South Africans held the wood until 19 July at a cost of four-fifths of its men injured or killed.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Delville_Wood)(Econ, 8/2/14, p.46)
1917 Jul 15, Robert Conquest, English author (Back to Life), was born.
(MC, 7/15/02)
1918 Jul 15, The Second Battle of the Marne began during World War I.
(AP, 7/15/97)
1919 Jul 15, Iris Murdoch (d.1999), philosopher-novelist, was born in Dublin. She wrote 28 novels and in 1998 published "Existentialists and Mystics," a collection of writings from 1950 to the 1980s. Herein she tried to "recover the moral dimension of art."
(WSJ, 2/17/98, p.A20)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iris_Murdoch)(SFC, 2/9/99, p.A20)
1922 Jul 15, 1st duck-billed platypus was publicly exhibited in US at a NY zoo.
(MC, 7/15/02)
1929 Jul 15, Hugo Von Hofmannsthal, playwright, poet, died.
(MC, 7/15/02)
1933 Jul 15, Julian Bream, guitarist, was born.
(MC, 7/15/02)
1933 Jul 15, Wiley Post began the 1st solo flight around world.
(MC, 7/15/02)(ON, 12/03, p.12)
1941 Jul 15, Florey and Heatley presented freeze dried mold cultures (Penicillin).
(MC, 7/15/02)
1942 Jul 15, A group of 19 merchant ships were being escorted by the US Navy and Coast Guard from Norfolk, Va., to Key West, Fla., to deliver cargo for the war effort. En route Convoy KS-520 was attacked by the German U-576 off of Cape Hatteras near North Carolina. The German submarine damaged two ships and sank Bluefields. In retaliation, a US naval aircraft bombed the U-576. The two ships sank to the ocean floor 30 miles off the cape. All 45 members of U-576 were lost. Wreckage of the two ships was found on Aug 30, 2014.
(www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2014/20141021_ww11_vessels.html)
1942 Jul 15, The first supply flight from India to China over the 'Hump' was flown to help China's war effort.
(HN, 7/15/99)
1944 Jul 15, In Amsterdam Anne Frank (1929-1945) entered this in her diary: "In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart." In 1998 5 additional pages to her diary were reported. She died of typhoid in the spring of 1945 at the Bergen-Belson concentration camp.
(AP, 8/4/98)(SFC, 8/19/98, p.A16)
1944 Jul 15, Greenwich Observatory was damaged by German V1 rocket.
(MC, 7/15/02)
1946 Jul 15, Linda Ronstadt (singer: group: The Stone Poneys: Different Drum; solo: Blue Bayou, You're No Good, When Will I Be Loved, It's So Easy, Ooh Baby Baby, Hurt So Bad; actress: Pirates of Penzance), was born in Tucson, Arizona.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linda_Ronstadt)
1947 Jul 15, Convertibility of British sterling into US dollars, negotiated as part of a $5 billion US loan to Britain in 1946, came into effect. It caused an immediate run on the pound and was abandoned on August 20.
(WSJ, 6/20/08, p.A11)
1948 Jul 15, President Truman was nominated for another term of office by the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.
(AP, 7/15/97)
1948 Jul 15, John J. Pershing (87), [Black Jack], US general (Mexico, WW I), died.
(MC, 7/15/02)
1949 Jul 15, The Dusseldorf guidelines shaped the principles of West Germany's "social market" economy.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_market_economy)(Econ., 1/16/21, p.40)
1952 Jul 15, Jesse Ventura, [James Janos], wrestler, actor, politician (MN Governor), was born.
(MC, 7/15/02)
1953 Jul 15, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, president of Haiti (1991, 1994-1995), was born.
(MC, 7/15/02)
1953 Jul 15, Eugenio Balzan (b.1874), Italian journalist, died in Lugano. In 1933 he moved to Switzerland, living in Zurich and Lugano, where he invested his fortune with success. He left a substantial inheritance to his daughter Angela Lina Balzan (1892–1956), who at the time was suffering an incurable disease. Before her death, she left instructions for a foundation, the Balzan Prize Foundation. Since then it has two headquarters, the Prize administered from Milan, the Fund from Zurich.
(AP, 9/6/10)(www.balzan.org/en/history_1698.html)
1954 Jul 15, The Boeing “Dash 80," a prototype of the 707, made its first test flight.
(NPub, 2002, p.17)
1957 Jul 15, James M. Cox (b.1870), 3-time Ohio governor and founder of Cox Enterprises, died. Cox was defeated in the 1920 Presidential Election by fellow Ohioan Senator Warren G. Harding of Marion, Ohio. He left his family a business that included broadcast properties and a string of newspapers.
(WSJ, 6/2/07, p.A5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_M._Cox)
1958 Jul 15, President Eisenhower ordered 5,000 US Marines to Lebanon, at the request of that country’s president, Camille Chamoun, in the face of a perceived threat by Muslim rebels, to help end a short-lived civil war. Eisenhower justified his decision to send troops to the region on the basis that it was the "birthplace of three great religions," as well as having "two-thirds of the presently known oil deposits."
(SFEC, 4/13/97, p.T8)(AP, 7/15/98)(HN, 7/15/98)(Econ, 4/25/20, p.22)
1960 Jul 15, John F. Kennedy accepted the Democratic nomination for president of the United States.
(HN, 7/15/98)
1960 Jul 15, Lawrence Mervil Tibbett (63), baritone, died after surgery.
(MC, 7/15/02)
1961 Jul 15, Spain accepted equal rights for men and women.
(MC, 7/15/02)
1964 Jul 15, The Republican National Convention was held at the Cow Palace in Daly City, Ca. It elected Barry Goldwater as its presidential candidate. John Chancellor was ejected from the convention for blocking an aisle during a demonstration by the delegates.
(SFC, 7/13/96, p.A5)(WSJ, 8/5/96, p.A10)(AP, 7/15/97)
1965 Jul 15, US scientists displayed close-up photographs of the planet Mars taken by "Mariner Four." It passed over Mars at an altitude of 6,000 feet.
(AP, 7/15/00)
1967 Jul 15, In Alaska a major blizzard caught 7 climbers high on Mount McKinley (Denali). Five of 12 climbers managed to reach safety, but 7 were caught and froze to death. In 2007 James M. Tabor’s: “Forever on the Mountain: The Truth Behind One of Mountaineering's Most Controversial and Mysterious Disasters," was published.
(WSJ, 1/17/07, p.D6)
1968 Jul 15, The TV soap opera “One Life to Live" premiered. Its final episode was scheduled in the Fall of 2011.
(SFC, 4/15/11, p.F2)(www.ovguide.com/tv/one_life_to_live.htm)
1968 Jul 15, Commercial air travel began between US & USSR.
(www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1968/1968%20-%201275.html)
1968 Jul 15, Intel was founded. Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore had left Fairchild Semiconductor to form NM Electronics in Mountain View, Ca. In 1997 Tim Jackson published "Inside Intel: Andrew Grove and the Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Chip Company." Grove (1936-2016) joined Intel in this year as its first employee and became its president in 1979. They bought the rights to the name Intel from Intelco for $15,000.
(SFEC, 10/26/97, BR p.3)(SFEC, 12/21/97, p.A2)(SFC, 10/11/00, p.A6)(SFC, 7/16/03, p.B1)(Econ, 3/26/15, p.75)
1970 Jul 15, Frederik Lugt (b.1884), Dutch founder of the Fondation Custodia (1947), died in Paris. The foundation, which he founded with his wife, kept intact his collection of Old Master drawings at the Institut Neederlandais, the Dutch cultural center in Paris.
(Econ, 2/13/10, p.86)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frits_Lugt)
1971 Jul 15, President Nixon announced he would visit the People's Republic of China to seek a "normalization of relations."
(AP, 7/15/97)
1971 Jul 15, Seventeen UN members requested that a question of the "Restoration of the lawful rights of the People's Republic of China in the United Nations" be placed on the provisional agenda of the twenty-sixth session of the UN General Assembly.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_and_the_United_Nations)
1974 Jul 15, A military coup took place on Cyprus and archbishop-president Makarios fled. Nikos Giorgiades Sampson (d.2001 at 66) served as president for 8 days following the military coup that overthrew Archbishop Makarios. PM Bulent Ecevit ordered Turkish troops to invade Cyprus following the Greek Cypriot coup.
(www.cyprus-conflict.net/Greek%20v%20Turk%20narr%20-%201974.htm)
1975 Jul 15, Three American astronauts blasted off aboard an Apollo spaceship hours after two Soviet cosmonauts were launched aboard a Soyuz spacecraft for a mission that included a linkup of the two ships in orbit.
(AP, 7/15/97)
1976 Jul 15, School Children in Chowchilla, CA. were kidnapped by 3 young men, Richard (22) and James Schoenfeld (24) and Newhall Woods (24). The 26 children were herded into a moving van that was buried in a quarry near Livermore, Ca. and held for $5 million ransom. The children escaped after 16 hours and their captors were captured within 2 weeks. The men were sentenced to life in prison.
(SFC, 7/14/96, Z1 p.1)(AP, 7/15/97)
1976 Jul 15, Indonesia passed a law providing for annexation of East Timor, which the President of Indonesia signed on 17 July. East Timor became the 27th province of the Republic of Indonesia. The act was not recognized by the UN.
(G&M, 1/31/96, p.A-9)(www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/timor-bkg.htm)
1978 Jul 15, President Carter, in West Germany for an economic summit, presided over a "town meeting" during which he fielded questions from about 1,000 Berliners.
(AP, 7/15/04)
1978 Jul 15, Bob Dylan performed before some 200,000 fans at Blackbushe Airport, England, in the largest open-air concert audience at the time (for a single artist).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackbushe_Airport)
1979 Jul 15, President Carter delivered his "malaise" speech in which he lamented what he called a "crisis of confidence" in America.
(AP, 7/15/97)
1983 Jun 15, The US Supreme Court struck down state & local restrictions on abortion.
(www.rtl.org/html/hot_topics_html/supreme_court_decisions.html)
1983 Jul 15, In France a bomb explodes in front of the THY counter at Orly airport. 8 people were killed and more than sixty injured. A 29 years old Syrian-Armenian named Varadjian Garbidjian (d.2019) confessed to having planted the bomb. He admitted that the bomb was intended to have exploded once the plane was airborne. Karapetian (d.2019), who headed the French branch of the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia, later confessed to paying a passenger to check a bomb-carrying bag for him onto a Turkish Airlines flight, claiming he had too much luggage himself. Karapetian was sentenced to life imprisonment in France, but was released in 2001 on condition of his being deported to Armenia.
(http://armenians-1915.blogspot.com/2006/12/1273-this-month-in-history-armenian.html)(AP, 1/29/19)
1985 Jul 15, A gaunt-looking Rock Hudson appeared at a news conference with actress Doris Day to promote her cable television program. It was later revealed Hudson was suffering from AIDS.
(AP, 7/15/99)
1987 Jul 15, Former National Security Adviser John Poindexter testified at the Iran-Contra hearings that he had never told President Reagan about using Iranian arms sales money for the Contras in order to protect the president from possible political embarrassment.
(AP, 7/15/97)
1987 Jul 15, Izzatullah Wasifi (29) was arrested at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas for selling 650 grams (23 ounces) of heroin. Prosecutors said the drugs were worth $2 million on the street. Wasifi served three years and eight months in prison before winning parole. In 2007 Wasifi, a long time friend of Afghan Pres. Hamid Karzai, was appointed as general-director of Afghanistan’s General Independent Administration of Anti-Corruption and Bribery.
(AP, 3/9/07)
1987 Jul 15, In South Africa Ashley Kriel, an anti-apartheid activist was killed. Police officer Jeffrey Benzien later confessed to the killing and was absolved by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 1999.
(SFC, 2/19/99, p.B12)(www.doj.gov.za/trc/decisions/1999/99_benzien.html)
1987 Jul 15, Taiwan Pres. Chiang Ching-Kuo, son of Chiang Kai-Shek, ended 37 years of martial law. Official records state later showed that around 140,000 people were tried by military courts from 1949 to 1975 under Chiang's nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) government and as many as 8,000 executed.
(www.gio.gov.tw/taiwan-website/5-gp/rights/politics_01.htm)(SFC, 6/9/97, p.A8)(SFC, 6/10/97, p.A8)(AFP, 10/5/18)
1988 Jul 15, The leadership of the Teamsters Union chose William J. McCarthy to fill out the remaining term of the late Jackie Presser as president, narrowly rejecting Secretary-Treasurer Weldon Mathis, Presser's hand-picked successor.
(AP, 7/15/98)
1989 Jul 15, Leaders of the seven major industrial democracies, meeting in Paris, voiced support for democracy behind the Iron Curtain and condemned repression in China.
(AP, 7/15/99)
1990 Jul 15, Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev and visiting West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl held talks on the issue of a united Germany’s membership in NATO.
(AP, 7/15/00)
1990 Jul 15, East Germany opened its borders fully to Jews from the former Soviet republics.
(Econ, 5/7/05, p.48)
1990 Jul 15, Tens of thousands of people marched in Moscow to protest the Communist Party’s control of the government, the army and the KGB.
(AP, 7/15/00)
1991 Jul 15, Group of Seven leaders opened their 17th annual economic summit in London, plunging into debate over aid to the Soviet Union.
(AP, 7/15/01)
1991 Jul 15, Actor and game-show host Bernard Whalen Convy (57) died in Los Angeles, Ca., of a brain tumor. Early in his career, Convy was a member of a singing trio named the Cheers. Their “Black Denim Trousers" was a top-ten hit (1955). He was born July 23, 1933 in St. Louis, Missouri.
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0176622/)
1992 Jul 15, Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton claimed the Democratic presidential nomination at the party's convention in New York City.
(AP, 7/15/97)
1993 Jul 15, Authorities in Los Angeles announced eight arrests in connection with an alleged plot by white supremacists to ignite a race war by bombing a black church and killing prominent black Americans. Christopher Fisher, leader of the Fourth Reich Skinheads, was later sentenced to more than 8 years in federal prison while defendant Carl Daniel Boese was sentenced to nearly 5 years in prison; both had pleaded guilty to arson and conspiracy charges.
(AP, 7/15/03)
1994 Jul 15, During a baseball game between the Cleveland Indians and the Chicago White Sox in Chicago's Comiskey Park, umpire Dave Phillips ordered the bat of Albert Belle of the Indians to be removed from the game for later examination for illegal cork. The bat was then stolen by pitcher Jason Grimsley, who crawled through air ducts to take it. The Indians won the game 3-2 and later returned the bat under umpire threats and Belle was given a 10-game suspension that was reduced to 7 games.
(SFEC, 4/11/99, p.A3)
1994 Jul 15, Microsoft Corp. reached a settlement with the Justice Department, promising to end practices it used to corner the market for personal computer software programs. In a consent decree with the Justice Dept. Microsoft agreed to change contracts with PC makers and other software companies ending the government's antitrust investigation.
(AP, 7/15/99)(WSJ, 4/4/00, p.A16)
1994 Jul 15, In Hungary Gyula Horn, president of the Socialist Party, began serving as prime minister.
(AP, 6/20/13)
1995 Jul 15, A 19-year-old sales clerk was rescued after being buried in the rubble of a collapsed shopping mall in Seoul, South Korea, for 16 days.
(AP, 7/15/00)
1996 Jul 15, Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole picked New York congresswoman Susan Molinari to deliver the keynote address at the upcoming GOP convention.
(AP, 7/15/97)
1996 Jul 15, Arkansas Gov. Guy Tucker stepped down following a felony conviction in the Whitewater scandal. Lt. Gov. Mike Huckabee became governor.
(WSJ, 1/2/97, p.R2)(Econ, 2/3/07, p.33)
1996 Jul 15, The stock market took a tumble. The Nasdaq index dropped 43.11 points, its 2nd largest decline since 10/19/87 when it dropped 46.12 points.
(SFC, 7/16/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 15 MSNBC, a 24-hour all-news network, made its debut on cable and the Internet.
(AP, 7/15/97)
1996 Jul 15, An Algerian court sentenced 128 Muslim militants to death in absentia for their involvement in guerilla activities. Another 67 were sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment.
(SFC, 7/16/96, p.A7)
1996 Jul 15, A Belgian plane, Lockheed C-130, crashed during landing in the Netherlands and killed 32 people.
(WSJ, 7/16/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 15, In India 58 Hindu pilgrims died in stampedes during religious festivals at Ujjain, 465 miles south of New Delhi, and Hardwar, 125 miles north.
(WSJ, 7/16/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 15, In Israel/Palestine 135,000 Jewish settlers live in the West Bank and 5,000 live in Gaza. About 160,000 Israelis live in east Jerusalem, captured from Jordan in 1967 and then annexed. New settlements were being planned.
(SFC, 7/15/96, p.A10)
1996 Jul 15, In Nicaragua 6 soldiers were killed and one injured in an ambush in central Matagalpa province.
(SFC, 7/16/96, p.A7)
1997 Jul 15, Marine biologists diving from the Johnson Sea Link in the Gulf of Mexico discovered what appeared to be a new species of worm of the family polychaetes. The worms lived on top of frozen mounds of gas hydrates.
(SFC, 7/30/97, p.A11)
1997 Jul 15, Gianni Versace, Italian fashion designer, was shot to death outside his home in Miami Beach, Fla. Police searched for Andrew Philip Cunanan, 27, of San Diego as the primary suspect. Suspected serial killer Andrew Phillip Cunanan, was found dead eight days later. In 1999 Maureen Orth authored "Vulgar Favors: Andrew Cunanan, Gianni Versace and the Largest Failed Manhunt in US History."
(SFC, 7/17/97, p.A1)(AP, 7/15/98)(SFEC, 3/28/99, p.D9)
1997 Jul 15, In Algeria Abassi Madani, former leader of the Islamic Salvation Front, was released after serving 5 years of a 12 year sentence.
(SFC, 7/16/97, p.C12)
1997 Jul 15, In Algeria a court condemned 24 Muslim militants to death for their involvement in guerrilla activities.
(SFC, 7/16/97, p.A10)
1997 Jul 15-1997 Jul 20, In Colombia a right-wing death squad under Carlos Castano killed at least 49 suspected guerrilla sympathizers in Mapiripan, Meta province. In 1998 2 army sergeants, Juan Carlos Gamarra and Jose Miller Urena, were linked to the massacre. In 2001 Gen. Jaime Humberto Uscategui was given a 40-month sentence for failing to defend the town. In 2009 a court convicted Uscategui of murder and sentenced him to 40 years in prison for his role in the notorious massacre.
(SFC, 2/14/98, p.A8)(SFC, 7/11/98, p.A11)(SFC, 2/14/01, p.A16)(http://tinyurl.com/coyuh)(AP, 11/26/09)
1997 Jul 15, The Czech trade deficit was labeled as the largest in the world relative to its economy.
(SFC, 7/16/97, p.A1)
1997 Jul 15, In Liberia pres. candidate Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf (58), a banker and UN official, led a women’s solidarity march. She had recently emerged as the leading rival of warlord Charles Taylor.
(SFC, 7/16/97, p.A9)(SFC, 7/19/97, p.A9)
1997 Jul 15, In Northern Ireland pro-British militants shot and killed Bernadette Martin while she slept beside her Protestant boyfriend.
(SFEC,10/26/97, p.A20)
1997 Jul 15, In Serbia Slobodan Milosevic was elected president of the Yugoslav federation in a vote that opposition parties said was illegal.
(SFC, 7/16/97, p.C12)
1997 Jul 15, Eastern Slavonia was scheduled to be handed over to Croatian authorities. It had been seized by the Serbs in 1991. [see Jan 15, 1998]
(SFC, 1/22/96, p.C1)
1998 Jul 15, The Congressional Budget Office estimated federal surpluses of $1.55 trillion over the next decade.
(AP, 7/15/99)
1998 Jul 15, Direct flights between the US and Cuba resumed after 2 years. US authorities expanded a "security zone" to include most of the Florida coast to prevent anti-Castro protestors from entering Cuban waters.
(SFC, 7/16/98, p.A10)
1998 cJul 15, Richard Butler, chief of UNSCOM, ordered Scott Ritter in mid-July to place a listening device in Baghdad to enable the Americans to eavesdrop on Saddam Hussein.
(SFEC, 1/10/99, p.A24)
1998 Jul 15, A letter, supposedly written by Jo Byong Ho, a North Korean official, was said to be addressed to Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan. It said that the chief of the Pakistani Army, Gen. Jehangir Karamat, had been paid $3 million and asked that “agreed documents and components" be placed on a North Korean plane after delivering missile parts to Pakistan. The evidence suggested that Pakistan’s top military officials were involved in the secret sale of equipment to North Korea that enabled it to begin enriching uranium.
(SFC, 7/8/11, p.A4)
1998 Jul 15, Three days of ceremonies to bury Russia's last czar and his family, who were killed by the Bolsheviks, began in the city of Yekaterinburg.
(AP, 7/15/99)
1998 Jul 15, Sudanese rebels declared a 3 month cease fire to allow food shipments to reach hundreds of thousands hungry people in the southwest.
(WSJ, 7/16/98, p.A1)
1998 Jul 15, It was reported that Sweden’s highest administrative court ruled that anyone can read “sacred documents" of the Church of Scientology. 150 confidential pages of the “sacred documents" were restricted to only some 350 of 8 million Scientologists. Copies were given to the Swedish parliament by a Church enemy and made public. Scientology asserts, and the US agrees, that copyright was violated. The case may wind up in the European Court of Justice.
(SFC, 7/15/98, p.A8)(http://tinyurl.com/oq3lr)
1999 Jul 15, The Seattle Mariners played their first game in their new home, Safeco Field, losing to the San Diego Padres, 3-to-2.
(AP, 7/15/00)
1999 Jul 15, The Clinton administration conceded that workers exposed to beryllium deserved compensation for induced beryllium disease. Some 26,000 workers had been exposed over the last 50 years and there were an estimated 500 to 1000 cases of the disease.
(SFC, 7/16/99, p.A5)
1999 Jul 15, The US House voted to give Congress a pay raise of $4,600 in January and to double the next president's salary to $400,000.
(WSJ, 7/16/99, p.A1)
1999 Jul 15, The Religious Liberty Protection Act was signed by 107 House Democrats and 199 Republicans. It said local and state officials must bend their rules to accommodate religious claims.
(SFC, 8/14/99, p.C14)
1999 Jul 15, Pres. Clinton met with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak for the beginning of 5 days of talks.
(SFC, 7/16/99, p.A10)
1999 Jul 15, In Indonesia final election results showed Megawati's PDI-P party winning 34% of 122 million votes with Golgar at 22%.
(SFC, 7/16/99, p.A10)
2000 Jul 15, Lennox Lewis stopped Francois Botha at 2:39 of the second round to retain his WBC and IBF heavyweight titles in London.
(AP, 7/15/01)
2000 Jul 15, Former Rhode Island governor and longtime US senator John O. Pastore died at age 93.
(AP, 7/15/01)
2000 Jul 15, From China it was reported that an attack force of 700,000 ducks and chickens, trained to hunt and eat insects at the sound of a whistle, were placed in the locust-plagued fields of Xinjiang province.
(SFC, 7/15/00, p.A24)
2000 Jul 15, In Colombia 13 police officers were executed by rebels following their surrender to a missile attack in Roncesvalles.
(SFC, 7/17/00, p.A13)
2000 Jul 15, Iran test-fired an upgraded version of its 800-mil range, Shabab-3 missile.
(SFEC, 7/16/00, p.B9)
2000 Jul 15, In Sierra Leone UN troops freed 222 Indian peacekeepers and 11 military observers held by rebels since May 1. One Indian peacekeeper was killed and 7 others injured.
(SFEC, 7/16/00, p.B9)(SFC, 7/18/00, p.A12)
2001 Jul 15, In Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina left office. Pres. Shahabuddin Ahmad appointed Latifur Rahman to head a caretaker administration. At least 4 people were killed in street clashes.
(SFC, 7/16/01, p.A9)
2001 Jul 15, China's President Jiang Zemin arrived in Russia to sign a friendship treaty, the first between the former Communist rivals in more than 50 years.
(SFC, 7/16/01, p.A9)(AP, 7/14/02)
2001 Jul 15, In Colombia FARC guerrillas kidnapped Alam Jara, former governor of Meta state.
(SFC, 7/17/01, p.A7)
2001 Jul 15, In Israel PM Sharon and his Cabinet decided to build new towns in the Halutza Sands region of the Negev Desert. Shimon Peres met with Arafat in Cairo and a gun battle in Hebron left 20 Palestinians wounded.
(SFC, 7/16/01, p.A8)
2001 Jul 15, Gen. Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan met with PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee and talked on issues including, Kashmir, trade, terrorism and nuclear safeguards. They also agreed to continue discussions for a 2nd day.
(SFC, 7/16/01, p.A12)
2001 Jul 15, In South Korea landslides and flooding killed at least 40 people.
(SFC, 7/16/01, p.A9)
2002 Jul 15, The US Senate voted 97-0 for a bill to crack down on corporate accounting abuses.
(WSJ, 7/16/02, p.A1)
2002 Jul 15, John Walker Lindh agreed to serve 20 years in prison for fighting in Afghanistan in a plea bargain with the government. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Oct 4.
(WSJ, 7/16/02, p.A1)(SFC, 10/5/02, p.A1)
2002 Jul 15, A federal agency approved Navy plans for a sonar system to search out enemy submarines despite potential injury to whales and dolphins.
(SFC, 7/16/02, p.A1)
2002 Jul 15, In Stanton, Ca., Samantha Runnion (5) was kidnapped. Her body was found the next day in Riverside county. An autopsy revealed that she had been sexually abused and died from a crushed abdomen. A sample of DNA was also found under her fingernail. On July 19 police arrested Alejandro Avila (27), previously acquitted for child molestation. In 2005 Avila was convicted of kidnapping, murder and sexual assault. On May 16 a jury called for the death penalty. He was sentenced to death on July 22.
(SFC, 7/17/02, p.A2)(SFC, 7/20/02, p.A1)(SFC, 4/29/05, p.A4)(SFC, 5/17/05, p.B8)(SFC, 7/23/05, p.B7)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samantha_Runnion)
2002 Jul 15, A Canadian National freight train derailed and caught fire near Allenton, Wisc., and 34 of 107 cars jumped the tracks.
(SFC, 7/16/02, p.A4)
2002 Jul 15, Osama bin Laden is alive and planning another attack on the United States, said an Arab journalist with close ties to the militant's associates.
(Reuters, 7/15/02)
2002 Jul 15, Pfizer Corp. agreed to buy Pharmacia Corp. for stock valued at $60 billion.
(WSJ, 7/15/02, p.A1)
2002 Jul 15, In Mexico farmers ended their protest of a proposed new airport for Mexico City and released 19 hostages after the government promised to reconsider construction terms.
(SFC, 7/16/02, p.A5)
2002 Jul 15, In Nigeria women occupying a ChevronTexaco oil terminal agreed to end their eight-day siege after the company offered to hire at least 25 villagers and to build schools, electrical and water systems.
(AP, 7/15/02)
2002 Jul 15, A court in Pakistan sentenced British-born Islamic militant Sheikh Ahmed Omar Saeed to death for the kidnap and murder of U.S. reporter Daniel Pearl, drawing a threat of reprisals and calls for Muslims to respond. A Pakistani judge convicted four Islamic militants in the kidnap-slaying of Wall Street Journal correspondent Daniel Pearl.
(Reuters, 7/15/02)(SFC, 7/15/02, p.A1)(AP, 7/15/03)
2002 Jul 15, Nationwide demonstrations in Paraguay called for the ouster of Pres. Luis Gonzalez Macchi, who imposed a state of emergency.
(SFC, 7/16/02, p.A4)(SFC, 7/17/02, p.A9)
2002 Jul 15, Philippine gunmen shot dead four supporters of candidates as Filipinos voted in local community elections after a bloody campaign that left scores of people dead. The 90 day election campaign left 71 people dead.
(Reuters, 7/15/02)
2003 Jul 15, The American League beat the National League in the All-Star Game 7-6.
(AP, 7/15/04)
2003 Jul 15, Scott McClellan assumed his duties as White House press secretary.
(AP, 7/15/04)
2003 Jul 15, The Bush administration reported that this year's deficit will reach $445 billion. The Bush administration dramatically raised its budget deficit projections to $455 billion for the current fiscal year and $475 billion for the next, record levels fed by the limp economy, tax cuts and the battle against terrorism.
(SFC, 7/16/03, p.A1)(AP, 7/15/04)
2003 Jul 15, Tex Schramm (83), who turned the Dallas Cowboys into "America's Team," died in Dallas.
(AP, 7/15/04)
2003 Jul 15, Elisabeth Welch (99), American-born singer, died in London.
(AP, 7/15/04)
2003 Jul 15, Four US crew members were killed in a fiery crash of a Navy helicopter in Italy.
(AP, 7/16/03)
2003 Jul 15, Chad began pumping oil to Cameroon, part of a project to help alleviate crushing poverty in the two countries. The 4.2 billion project was funded by the World Bank on the condition that the oil money be used for development. Pres. Idris Deby later diverted the money to the general budget and for weapons.
(AP, 7/16/03)(SFC, 12/21/07, p.A31)
2003 Jul 15, Roberto Bolano (b.1953), Chilean author, died in Spain. His novel “2666" was published posthumously in 2006. In 2007 his novel “The Savage Detectives" (1998) was made available in English. His work explored both the condition of the writer and the chronic violence in Latin America.
(www.absoluteastronomy.com/enc3/roberto_bola%C3%B1o)(SSFC, 4/1/07, p.M1)(Econ., 5/9/20, p.24)
2003 Jul 15, The Colombian government and right-wing paramilitary fighters agreed to begin peace talks.
(AP, 7/16/03)
2003 Jul 15, In India health officials reported that mosquito-borne encephalitis had killed at least 110 children in Andhra Pradesh over the last 6 weeks.
(WSJ, 7/16/03, p.A1)
2003 Jul 15, Montserrat's governor declared the Caribbean island a disaster zone, days after a volcanic eruption spewed clouds of rock and ash over the British territory.
(AP, 7/16/03)
2003 Jul 15, Officials reported that Syrian troops had begun dismantling bases in Lebanon.
(SFC, 7/16/03, p.A3)
2004 Jul 15, President Bush signed into law a measure imposing mandatory prison terms for criminals who use identity theft in committing terrorist acts and other offenses.
(AP, 7/15/05)
2004 Jul 15, The Senate approved a plan to pay tobacco farmers $12 billion to give up federal quotas propping up their prices.
(AP, 7/15/05)
2004 Jul 15, The new $650 million, 4.4-mile Las Vegas Monorail began operations with stops at 7 stations between Sahara and Tropicana avenues.
(SSFC, 7/25/04, p.D2)
2004 Jul 15, Scientists reported that excess carbon dioxide spilled into the air by humans over the past 2 centuries has been taken up by the oceans. They warned that a continuation of this process could damage the ability of ocean creatures to make their shells.
(SFC, 7/16/04, p.A4)
2004 Jul 15, The Gates Foundation announced a $44.7 million award at the AIDS Conference in Bangkok to a consortium of TB and AIDS researchers. The 2 diseases were often linked. A UN report cited 7 countries as the hardest hit by the AIDS pandemic: Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Lesotho, Zambia, Malawi, the Central African Republic and Mozambique.
(WSJ, 7/15/04, p.B1)(SFC, 7/16/04, p.A6)
2004 Jul 15, Retired Air Force Gen. Charles W. Sweeney, who piloted the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki in the final days of World War II, died in Boston at age 84.
(AP, 7/15/05)
2004 Jul 15, In Kumbakonam, southern India, a short circuit ignited a thatched roof and fire raged through the Lord Krishna Middle School, killing 94 children and injuring more than 100. The children were trapped inside a locked building. In 2006 an inquiry commission found that a mixture of avarice, dishonesty and a blatant disregard of safety standards caused the devastating fire. In 2014 the owner of the primary school was sentenced to life in prison on charges including culpable homicide and endangerment, while his wife, the headmistress, the cook and the meal planner were each imprisoned for five years.
(AP, 7/17/04)(SFC, 7/17/04, p.A3)(Reuters, 9/4/06)(AP, 7/30/14)
2004 Jul 15, In Iraq attackers detonated a car bomb near police and government buildings in the western city of Haditha, killing 10 people. PM Alawi announced the formation of a new national security agency to fight the insurgency.
(AP, 7/15/04)(SFC, 7/16/04, p.A12)
2004 Jul 15, Israel said it will spend $11.1 million to change completed portions of its West Bank barrier, building new roads, underpasses and tunnels to try to ease Palestinian conditions.
(AP, 7/15/04)
2004 Jul 15, In western Nepal 11 suspected Maoist rebels including two local leaders were killed in armed clashes with security forces.
(AFP, 7/15/04)
2004 Jul 15, In Tanzania the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) sentenced former finance minister Emmanuel Ndindabahizi to life imprisonment for his role in the east African country's 1994 genocide.
(AP, 7/15/04)
2004 Jul 15, Thailand officials said avian flu had been detected in 10 of its 76 provinces.
(SFC, 7/16/04, p.A3)
2005 Jul 15, A US federal appeals court ruled that a Guantanamo detainee who once was Osama bin Laden's driver could be tried by military tribunal. However, the Supreme Court in June 2006 struck down the tribunals, saying they violated U.S. and international law.
(AP, 7/15/06)
2005 Jul 15, In SF District Court federal prosecutors in the BALCO case dropped 40 of 42 indictments against 3 men accused of providing performance-enhancing drugs to elite athletes.
(SFC, 7/16/05, p.A1)
2005 Jul 15, Bankrupt Enron Corp. agreed to pay up to 1.52 billion dollars to settle charges of market manipulation during the energy crisis that hit California and other western US states in 2000 and 2001.
(AFP, 7/16/05)
2005 Jul 15, California Gov. Schwarzenegger said he would quit his 2nd job as editor of two bodybuilding magazines following criticism of the lucrative moonlighting. Following this he soon severed ties with the Arnold Classic, a premier bodybuilding event.
(SFC, 7/15/05, p.A1)(SFC, 7/23/05, p.A1)
2005 Jul 15, Suspected Taliban gunmen kidnapped and hanged a pro-government tribal leader in southern Afghanistan. Agha Jan was kidnapped the previous day with his two sons, brother and two nephews from his home in southern Zabul province. The relatives were released unharmed. Suspected Taliban fighters raided a police post in southern Afghanistan, killing 7 policemen and losing 5 of their own men.
(AP, 7/15/05)(AP, 7/16/05)
2005 Jul 15, Officials said heavy rains and flash floods have killed 20 people and inundated tens of thousands of homes in Bulgaria and Romania.
(AP, 7/15/05)
2005 Jul 15, An official said police in Egypt said they had arrested Magdy el-Nashar (33), an Egyptian biochemist, sought in the probe of the London bombings. He was taken into custody upon his arrival in Cairo from abroad.
(AP, 7/15/05)
2005 Jul 15, Hurricane Emily blew over Grenada and gathered force in the eastern Caribbean with winds of 135 mph. At least one person was killed.
(AP, 7/15/05)
2005 Jul 15, In India hardline Hindu activists broke the windows of a cinema, burned posters and shouted "traitor" in protests against leading actor Salman Khan who Indian media said had boasted of links with the underworld.
(Reuters, 7/15/05)
2005 Jul 15, Indonesian authorities said 3 people had died of suspected bird flu in the last 10 days. They had no contact with poultry and raised concern over human-to-human transmission. A small farm nearby was hit by the virus a few months earlier. This raised the regionwide deaths from bird flu to 57, mostly in Thailand and Vietnam
(WSJ, 7/18/05, p.A10)(WSJ, 7/22/05, p.A10)
2005 Jul 15, In Iraq a frenzy of attacks killed at least 30 people in 12 suicide bombings. 2 US Marines were killed in a roadside bombing near the Jordanian border. A suicide car bomb exploded on a bridge overlooking the home of President Jalal Talabani, killing three of his guards. In Nasiriyah, judge Nurredin Ahmed, a Kurd from the northern oil centre of Kirkuk, was shot dead at his home. Akram Ahmed Rasul al-Bayati, a major general in the old regime's disbanded military, and his son Ali, a policeman, were killed after being arrested by police commandos on July 10.
(AP, 7/16/05)(AFP, 7/16/05)(SFC, 7/16/05, p.A3)
2005 Jul 15, The Israeli military launched an airstrike at a van carrying a group of Hamas militants and a cache of homemade rockets in a Gaza City street, killing 4 people.
(AP, 7/15/05)
2005 Jul 15, Two Japanese tankers collided in the Pacific Ocean off the central Japan coast, sparking a blaze that killed one sailor and left five others missing.
(AP, 7/15/05)
2005 Jul 15, Nepal's king appointed a dozen loyalists to ministerial jobs.
(AP, 7/15/05)
2005 Jul 15, In Serbia a court convicted 4 former members of the Avengers, a Serbian paramilitary force, of abducting 16 Muslims from a bus in October, 1992, and taking them to Bosnia to be tortured and executed. The men in custody, Djordje Sevic and Dragutin Dragicevic, got 15 and 20 years respectively. Two others, Milan Lukic and Oliver Krsmanovic, were on the run and were tried in absentia, and received 20-year jail terms
(AP, 7/16/05)
2005 Jul 15, In South Africa a passenger bus plunged down a ravine near the southcentral coast, killing at least 24 people.
(AP, 7/15/05)
2005 Jul 15, Thailand's government, reeling from bold attacks by suspected separatists in the Muslim-dominated south, granted PM Thaksin Shinawatra sweeping powers to tap phones, directly command security forces and order curfews.
(AP, 7/15/05)
2006 Jul 15, In a chilly prelude to a Group of Eight (G8) summit in St. Petersburg, President Bush blocked Russia's entry into the World Trade Organization. Russia and the US failed to strike a bilateral deal allowing Russia to join the WTO but agreed to set a deadline to wrap up talks within three months.
(AP, 7/15/07)(Reuters, 7/15/06)
2006 Jul 15, US authorities extradited Jean Succar Kuri, a Mexican businessman with alleged ties to associates of a powerful state governor, to face charges in Mexico of child pornography, statutory rape and corruption of minors.
(AP, 7/16/06)
2006 Jul 15, Robert Wilson (64), theater and opera director, opened his $12 million Watermill Center on Long Island, NY. The arts center was setup to host conferences, student workshops and serve as an intercultural exchange.
(Econ, 7/22/06, p.82)
2006 Jul 15, Phoenix, Ariz., residents were reported to be in fear of 2 serial killers, who have struck in recent months. Six killings were being attributed to the "Baseline Killer," whose name refers to the street where he is believed to have committed his first crimes. The 2nd suspected predator, dubbed the "Serial Shooter," has been definitively linked to the Dec. 29 wounding of one man and authorities believe he could be responsible for a total of five shooting deaths.
(AP, 7/15/06)
2006 Jul 15, The space shuttle Discovery undocked from the international space station.
(AP, 7/15/07)
2006 Jul 15, More than 40 insurgents were killed as hundreds of coalition troops, many dropped by helicopter, wrested a desert town from the Taliban and U.S. forces battled militants across southern Afghanistan.
(AP, 7/16/06)
2006 Jul 15, Arab foreign ministers held an emergency summit in Cairo over Israel's expanding assault on Lebanon, the worst Israeli attack on its neighbor in 24 years.
(AP, 7/15/06)
2006 Jul 15, A gas explosion in a coal mine in Shanxi province killed at least 50 miners in the Linjiazhuang Coal Mine in Jinzhong. In Hunan province 14 coal miners were killed after rains burst a dam, flooding the pit and collapsing buildings above ground at the Shenjiawan Colliery.
(AP, 7/17/06)
2006 Jul 15, Thousands of Ecuadorian villagers fled their homes on the slopes of the Tungurahua volcano since it began erupting lava and toxic gases.
(AP, 7/16/06)
2006 Jul 15, GDP for the Falkland Islands was estimated at $25,000 per head. Fishing licenses around the Falkland Islands generated some $40 million a year. Seismic studies indicated a possible 500,000 barrels of oil in the surrounding waters. Britain insisted that it would not discuss sovereignty of the islands unless its 3,000 citizens there requested it.
(Econ, 7/15/06, p.38)
2006 Jul 15, In Haiti thousands of demonstrators demanding the return of ousted president Jean-Bertrand Aristide marched to the National Palace, pushing past riot police in a dramatic show of support for the exiled former leader.
(AP, 7/16/06)
2006 Jul 15, A Honduras newspaper quoted a senior military official that the United States is helping Honduras establish a new military base to combat international drug trafficking in the northeastern province of Gracias a Dios.
(AP, 7/15/06)
2006 Jul 15, Police investigating Bombay's deadly train bombings swept through several neighborhoods, rounding up more than 300 people for questioning.
(AP, 7/15/06)
2006 Jul 15, Heavy clashes between Iraqi soldiers and gunmen in downtown Baghdad left 11 people wounded. Provincial police in Ramadi confirmed that gunmen had killed a member of the Iraqi Islamic Party. Gunmen kidnapped Ahmed al-Sammarai, the head of Iraq's Olympic committee, and more than a dozen employees storming a sports conference in Baghdad. The kidnappers wore camouflage Iraqi police uniforms and security guards outside the meeting said they did not interfere because they thought the gunmen were legitimate law enforcement.
(AP, 7/15/06)(AP, 8/22/08)
2006 Jul 15, Israeli warplanes pounded Hezbollah's south Beirut stronghold and roads around the country killing at least 33 people. At least 12 Lebanese villagers, including women and children, were killed in what appeared to be an Israeli airstrike on a convoy of vehicles fleeing a village near the border with Israel in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah expanded its rocket fire, hitting another of Israel's main cities, and Israel warned that the guerrillas could strike Tel Aviv. At least 88 people have died in Lebanon, most of them civilians, in the four-day Israeli offensive, sparked by Hezbollah's capture of two Israeli soldiers. On the Israeli side, at least 15 have been killed, four civilians and 11 soldiers.
(AP, 7/15/06)(SSFC, 7/16/06, p.A1)
2006 Jul 15, Israeli aircraft fired at least one missile at a house in Gaza City. Palestinian rescue workers said two Palestinians were killed and many others wounded. Since the offensive began in Gaza, 86 Palestinians have been killed, many of them gunmen.
(AP, 7/15/06)
2006 Jul 15, US Middle East envoy David Welch flew into Tripoli for talks with Libyan officials on strengthening economic and financial ties between the two countries.
(AFP, 7/16/06)
2006 Jul 15, A landslide triggered by monsoon rains swept through a village in northwest Nepal before dawn, killing at least 17 people as they slept.
(AP, 7/15/06)
2006 Jul 15, In Karachi, Pakistan, hundreds of youths set fire to a Pizza Hut, two gas stations and a dozen vehicles after a funeral for an Islamic Shiite cleric killed in a suicide attack.
(AP, 7/15/06)
2006 Jul 15, In St. Petersburg, Russia, world leaders tore up a carefully prepared G8 summit agenda and turned their attention to a growing crisis in the Middle East, hoping to reach common ground on ways to stop the fighting. About 150 protesters faced off with police as they tried to exercise their right of assembly.
(AP, 7/15/06)
2006 Jul 15, The UN Security Council unanimously passed resolution 1718 condemning North Korea's multiple missile launches on July 5 and imposed limited sanctions; a defiant North said it would launch more missiles.
(AP, 7/16/07)(Econ, 2/28/09, p.63)
2007 Jul 15, The Los Angeles Times reported that about 45 percent of all foreign militants targeting US troops and Iraqi security forces were from Saudi Arabia, 15 percent from Syria and Lebanon, and 10 percent from North Africa.
(AFP, 7/15/07)
2007 Jul 15, In SF 2 coyotes, a male and female, were shot and killed in Golden Gate Park following recent attacks on leashed dogs.
(SFC, 7/17/07, p.D1)
2007 Jul 15, In Cheyenne, Wyoming, Robin Munis was shot in the head just after midnight Saturday as she sang with the classic rock and country group Ty and the Twisters. Police searched for David Munis (36), a National Guardsman with sniper training who they suspect shot his wife. Police located David Munis’ pickup truck the next in rural Albany County. As they closed in on the suspect and called for him to surrender, Munis shot himself in the chest. He was flown to Laramie, Wyoming, where he was pronounced dead on July 18th.
(AP, 7/15/07)(http://tinyurl.com/6669k3)
2007 Jul 15, A roadside bomb killed six Afghans working for a Western security company in the east of the country.
(Reuters, 7/15/07)
2007 Jul 15, Antun Gudelj (59), a Croatian man charged with killing three police officials in the early days of the 1991 Serb-Croat war, was extradited from Australia to Croatia to face a new trial after an earlier pardon.
(AP, 7/15/07)
2007 Jul 15, Botswana's President Festus Mogae (67) announced that he is to stand down next year after a decade at the helm of the diamond-rich southern African nation.
(AFP, 7/15/07)
2007 Jul 15, Britain released without charge 2 suspects in the failed car bomb attacks in London and Glasgow last month.
(AFP, 7/15/07)
2007 Jul 15, JCDecaux launched a bike rental system in Paris.
(Econ, 9/22/07, p.76)
2007 Jul 15, A minister said India's southern coastal Kerala state was reeling from an outbreak of mosquito-borne Chikungunya viral fever infections that have claimed 193 lives. Chikungunya, transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, was first detected in 1955 in Africa and last year caused the deaths of some 200 people on the French Indian ocean island of Reunion. Federal health minister Anbumani Ramadoss told parliament last year that some 1.1 million Indians were infected with Chikungunya.
(AFP, 7/16/07)
2007 Jul 15, A car bomb packed with explosives detonated in a central Baghdad square, killing 10 people and wounding 25. At least 18 other people were killed including 7 border guards in the northern Kani Khal area and 8 in shootings in the northern cities of Mosul and Kirkuk and several areas south of Baghdad. 22 bullet-riddled bodies were found dumped in various locations of Baghdad, apparently the latest victims of sectarian violence.
(AP, 7/15/07)(AP, 7/16/07)
2007 Jul 15, Mahmoud Darwish, the world's most recognized Palestinian poet, delivered a stinging tirade against Palestinian infighting in his first public appearance in decades in the Israeli city of Haifa.
(AP, 7/16/07)
2007 Jul 15, Typhoon Man-yi, one of the most powerful storms to hit Japan in decades, headed away from Tokyo after leaving four people dead or missing.
(AFP, 7/15/07)
2007 Jul 15, A Libyan foundation confirmed that families of Libyan children infected with AIDS have accepted compensation topping 460 million dollars, which could lead to a death sentence on six foreign medics being lifted.
(AFP, 7/15/07)
2007 Jul 15, Militants holed up in a Palestinian refugee camp in north Lebanon fired more rockets that landed in farm fields outside the camp as the army bombarded suspected hideouts inside the besieged settlement. Politicians from Lebanon's divided factions held a second day of talks in France to try to ease 8 months of deadlock.
(AP, 7/15/07)(AFP, 7/15/07)
2007 Jul 15, North Korea confirmed it has shut its nuclear reactor that provides the secretive state with material to make weapons-grade plutonium.
(Reuters, 7/15/07)
2007 Jul 15, Militants in northwest Pakistan disavowed a peace pact with the government. Suicide attacks and a roadside bomb together killed 44 people and wounded more than 100.
(AP, 7/15/07)
2007 Jul 15, Marina Pisareva (47), the deputy head of a small Russian division of German media company Bertelsmann AG, was found dead at her summer house near Moscow, possibly stabbed with her own dagger.
(AP, 7/16/07)
2007 Jul 15, Spanish officials said police investigating a child pornography ring have arrested 66 people and seized computer hard drives containing 48 million photographs and video images. The nationwide sweep came after a 10-month investigation.
(AP, 7/15/07)
2007 Jul 15, UN and African Union representatives gathered in Tripoli to evaluate Darfur.
(AP, 7/15/07)
2008 Jul 15, US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress the fragile economy is facing "numerous difficulties" including persistent strains in financial markets, rising joblessness and housing problems — despite the Fed's aggressive interest rate reductions and other fortifying steps.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, The SEC said it would immediately move to curb improper short selling in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as well as those of 17 financial firms. The move would be effective July 21 and expire after 30 days. The SEC also planned to consider extending the requirements to all stocks traded in the US.
(WSJ, 7/16/08, p.A1)
2008 Jul 15, Mei Ling Chen (46) of Taiwan was arrested in Sunnyvale, Ca., after customs inspectors at SF Int’l. Airport found $380,000 in counterfeit $100 bills in a package of dried seafood.
(SFC, 7/18/08, p.B11)
2008 Jul 15, Robin Long (25), a US Army deserter who had fled to Canada in 2005, was deported from British Columbia back to the US.
(SFC, 7/16/08, p.A9)
2008 Jul 15, General Motors Corp. said it will lay off salaried workers, cut truck production, suspend its dividend and borrow $2 billion to $3 billion to weather a severe downturn in the US market.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, Volkswagen announced that it would build a $1 billion car plant in Chattanooga, Tenn., and expected to open it as soon as 2011.
(WSJ, 7/30/08, p.C10)(www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiFdSOp19gU)
2008 Jul 15, It was reported that Hawaii’s Oahu island planned to export some 100,000 tons of trash a year to the mainland. At current rates its 200-acre municipal landfill would reach capacity in 15 years. Expanded recycling and a new boiler were also in the works.
(WSJ, 7/15/08, p.A2)
2008 Jul 15, In California 2 vehicles collided on a bridge and fell into the Delta-Mendota Canal near Westley. 6 farm workers and a septic truck driver died.
(SFC, 7/16/08, p.B3)(SFC, 7/17/08, p.B2)
2008 Jul 15, Gee Gee Engesser (b.19126), animal trainer and “Blond Bombshell" of the circus, died in Florida.
(WSJ, 8/23/08, p.A7)
2008 Jul 15, In Pennsylvania Betty Schirmer (56) was killed in an apparent car accident. In 2010 her husband, Pastor Arthur Burton Schirmer, was charged with killing her and staging the car accident. The charge also prompted an investigation into the suspicious death of his 1st wife, Jewel Schirmer, in 1999.
(SFC, 9/14/10, p.A4)(www.delmarvanow.com/article/20100914/NEWS01/100914005)
2008 Jul 15, In southwestern Afghanistan air strikes against extremist rebels killed 4 women and 5 children as well as several insurgents. NATO pulled soldiers out of the outpost in Wanat village in northeastern Kunar province, which militants had breached killing 9 US soldiers.
(AP, 7/16/08)
2008 Jul 15, Tens of thousands of Argentine farmers and government supporters staged dueling protests ahead of a Senate vote on a package of grain-export taxes that generated months of bitter farm strikes.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, In Australia the world's biggest Christian festival opened with a spectacular harbor-side mass for up to 150,000 pilgrims taking part in World Youth Day celebrations in Sydney headed by Pope Benedict XVI.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, Belgium PM Yves Leterme offered King Albert the resignation of his government after he acknowledged he would not make a deadline for a constitutional reform deal despite months of talks. He offered to resign after realizing it would be impossible to resolve deep divisions over increased autonomy for French- and Dutch-speaking Belgians.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, Tropical Storm Bertha headed back out over open ocean and away from the US mainland after it battered Bermuda, knocking out electricity to thousands on the Atlantic tourist island. Bertha entered its 13th day becoming the longest-lived July tropical storm in history.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, China voiced concern over an International Criminal Court prosecutor's decision to seek an arrest warrant for Sudan's president on charges of genocide in the African country's war-torn Darfur region.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, Croatia adopted a law that allows Sunday shopping only over the summer and Christmas holidays. It goes into effect January 1. The law also allows stores in gas, bus and train stations to open on Sundays year-round, along with those in hospitals. Bakeries, newsstands and flower shops are also exempt from the ban.
(AP, 7/16/08)
2008 Jul 15, The EU agreed to an emergency aid package for its fishing industry to cope with fuel prices.
(WSJ, 7/17/08, p.A8)
2008 Jul 15, In eastern India at least 20 members of a wedding party were killed when the jeep carrying them plunged into a roadside canal outside Patna, the capital of Bihar state.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, Indonesia's president acknowledged that his country carried out gross human rights abuses during East Timor's 1999 break for independence, but stopped short of offering a full apology and said no one would be prosecuted.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, In Iraq 2 suicide bombers blew themselves up in a crowd of army recruits at the Saad military camp in Baqouba, where devastating attacks persist despite security improvements elsewhere. At least 28 people died. In western Mosul, a bomb near an Iraqi police station killed four Iraqi civilians. Half an hour later, one Iraqi police officer and seven civilians died in a suicide car bombing in the east of the city. Three other bombs in Mosul wounded 15 people. The US military said it had captured the Iranian-trained leader of an explosives cell in Baghdad.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, Israel's Cabinet overwhelmingly approved an emotionally charged deal to trade a Lebanese militant convicted of killing three people for two Israeli soldiers captured by Hezbollah guerrillas and believed to be dead. Israeli troops arrested three Hamas council members in a dawn raid on the West Bank city of Nablus. Witnesses and residents said a total of 12 Hamas members were arrested.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, In Italy a judge in Venice indicted Saber Fadhil Hussein for plotting a terrorist attack on US bases in Iraq using ultra-light aircraft.
(SFC, 7/16/08, p.A9)
2008 Jul 15, Fishermen across Japan went on a massive one-day strike to protest skyrocketing fuel prices, the latest blow to the country's foundering fishing industry.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, Malaysian police issued an arrest warrant for opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim in connection with a sodomy accusation by a male former aide.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, In South Korea Won Jeong-hwa (34) was arrested and later confessed that she was a spy trained and commissioned by North Korea's intelligence agency. On Oct 15 she was sentenced to five years in prison for spying.
(AP, 8/27/08)(AP, 10/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, A plan for a referendum on self-determination in Spain's northern Basque Country became law in the region, setting the stage for a confrontation with the government in Madrid which has termed the poll illegal.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, In Sri Lanka fighting reportedly killed a total of 51 rebels and a soldier.
(AP, 7/16/08)
2008 Jul 15, In Switzerland Hannibal Kadhafi (32), the son of Libya’s leader, was arrested along with his wife Aline at a luxury hotel in Geneva after the servants, a Moroccan and a Tunisian, alleged they had been abused by the couple. The 2-day detention led to reprisals by Libya. Days after Hannibal Kadhafi’s arrest, Swiss businessmen Max Goeldi and Rachid Hamdani were detained in Libya on alleged visa violations. The servants later dropped their legal complaints after receiving some compensation. In November, 2009, Goeldi and Hamdani were handed over to the Swiss embassy in Tripoli. Libya then announced that they would go on trial on accusations of tax evasion and violating residency laws.
(AP, 9/2/08)(AP, 11/9/09)(AP, 11/12/09)
2008 Jul 15, Taiwan indicted 5 former ministers, who had served under former Pres. Chen Shui-bian, on corruption charges relating to misuse of special expense accounts.
(SFC, 7/16/08, p.A15)
2008 Jul 15, Turkey’s military said aircraft and artillery units had shelled rebel positions in Sirnak province, killing 22 rebels.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2009 Jul 15, Space shuttle Endeavour rocketed toward the international space station as engineers on Earth pored over launch pictures that showed debris breaking off the fuel tank and striking the craft.
(AP, 7/16/09)
2009 Jul 15, In Alaska Anthony Rollins, a 13-year decorated Anchorage police officer, was arrested after being indicted for assaulting multiple women while on duty.
(SFC, 7/16/09, p.A6)
2009 Jul 15, California tax officials said a bill to tax and regulate marijuana in California like alcohol would generate nearly $1.4 billion in revenue for the cash-strapped state.
(AP, 7/16/09)
2009 Jul 15, In Afghanistan at least 4 civilians were killed and 13 were wounded in a late night airstrike on the southern village of Shawalikot. 3 police were killed by a suicide car bomber in Nimroz province, and two Afghan army soldiers died in two other attacks in the south. NATO forces killed two insurgents in an attack in the east.
(AP, 7/16/09)(http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20090717/wl_mcclatchy/3274354)
2009 Jul 15, Luxury carmaker Jaguar, owned by India's Tata Motors, announced it would end Liverpool production of its X-Type car by the end of the year with the loss of up to 300 jobs.
(AFP, 7/15/09)
2009 Jul 15, In China the former head of oil giant Sinopec was sentenced to death after being found guilty of corrupt practices over many years, but state press reported that he will likely not be executed. The Beijing court had found Chen Tonghai guilty of graft amounting to 195.7 million yuan (28.8 million dollars) when he served in top Sinopec ranks from 1999 to 2007.
(AFP, 7/15/09)
2009 Jul 15, In Egypt the two-day Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) opened in Sharm-El-Sheik. 50 leaders from the 118-nation grouping of mostly of African, Asian and Latin American nations gathered for their 15th meeting to address the world's biggest problems, such as terrorism and financial instability. Cuba's Pres. Raul Castro called for an international financial system that better takes into account developing countries interests.
(AP, 7/15/09)
2009 Jul 15, The EU urged Canada to restore visa-free travel for Czech visitors, removed by Ottawa after hundreds of Roma from the central European country sought asylum.
(Reuters, 7/15/09)
2009 Jul 15, Honduras' interim government suggested that backers of ousted President Manuel Zelaya were taking up arms to return him to power and it reinstated an overnight curfew it had lifted only days earlier.
(AP, 7/16/09)
2009 Jul 15, In Ingushetia police officials said that the body of Natalya Estemirova (b.1959), a prominent rights activist, was found not far from the main city of Nazran, hours after she was kidnapped in Chechnya.
(AP, 7/15/09)(Econ, 7/25/09, p.23)
2009 Jul 15, In Iran a Russian-made Caspian Airlines TU-154 jet plane carrying nearly 170 people crashed shortly after takeoff from Tehran's Imam Khomeini International Airport. It was headed to the Armenian capital Yerevan. All on board were killed.
(AP, 7/15/09)
2009 Jul 15, In Iraq a suicide bomber killed six people, including an Iraqi policeman, in an attack on security forces in Ramadi, a former insurgent stronghold in western Anbar province. A bombing in Sadr City killed 5 people.
(AP, 7/15/09)(SFC, 7/16/09, p.A2)
2009 Jul 15, A court in Indian-run Kashmir ordered the arrest of four police officers for allegedly destroying evidence in the rape and murder of two women that triggered violent protests last month.
(AP, 7/15/09)
2009 Jul 15, In northwest Pakistan a roadside bomb exploded at a police checkpoint, killing a paramilitary soldier and a police officer and wounding six policemen in the Bannu area.
(AP, 7/15/09)
2009 Jul 15, In the Philippines five employees of a logging company, including a woman, were seized by eight guerrillas belonging to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in Kapai township in Lanao del Sur province. Army troops and police rescued the victims on July 18 near Kapai without a fire fight. Basit Kauyag was identified as the leader of the kidnappers.
(AP, 7/19/09)
2009 Jul 15, Mazen Abdul-Jawad (32), a Saudi man, appeared on the Lebanese-based LBC satellite TV station’s "Bold Red Line" program and shocked Saudis by publicly confessing to sexual exploits. More than 200 people soon filed legal complaints against Abdul-Jawad, dubbed a "sex braggart" by the media, and many Saudis said he should be severely punished. On July 31 Abdul-Jawad was detained for questioning. The Jiddah offices of the LBC station were closed soon thereafter.
(AP, 8/6/09)(AP, 8/9/09)
2009 Jul 15, In Turkmenistan President Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov led a ceremony for channeling water across hundreds of miles to create Golden Age Lake in the heart of the barren Karakum Desert, in a Soviet-style engineering feat that some experts fear could unleash an environmental catastrophe.
(AP, 7/16/09)
2009 Jul 15, In Venezuela National Guard troops seized a police station controlled by a leading opponent of President Hugo Chavez, sparking clashes between soldiers and protesters that authorities said injured eight people.
(AP, 7/15/09)
2010 Jul 15, The US Senate approved a 2,300 page bill for financial overhaul. The House passed the bill last month and Pres. Obama was expected to sign it into law.
(SFC, 7/16/10, p.A7)
2010 Jul 15, Hassan Nemazee (60), a wealthy Manhattan investment banker and former top Democratic fundraiser, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for defrauding banks of $292 million, some of which he donated to politicians including Barack Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Al Gore.
(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 15, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. agreed to pay $550 million and change its business practices to settle US regulatory claims it misled investors in collateralized debt obligations linked to subprime mortgages.
(SFC, 7/16/10, p.D1)
2010 Jul 15, Joe Jacob (54), venture capitalist, and Peter Gruber (68), chairman of Mandalay Entertainment, led a record $450 million investor group purchase of the Golden Gate Warriors basketball team based in Oakland, Ca.
(SFC, 7/16/10, p.A13)
2010 Jul 15, BP finally stopped oil from spewing into the sea, for the first time since an April 20 explosion on the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon oil rig killed 11 workers and unleashed the spill 5,000 feet beneath the water's surface.
(AP, 7/16/10)
2010 Jul 15, In Afghanistan police said they have killed a local Taliban commander, identified as Mullah Dawood, in a gunbattle. A NATO airstrike killed a Taliban commander, alias Qari Latif, responsible for a suicide attack on a US aid program. 12 other insurgents were also killed in the attack in Kunduz. A raid killed insurgent, Mullah Akhtar, who smuggled in foreign fighters through Iran, along with several other insurgents in Farah province.
(AP, 7/15/10)(AP, 7/16/10)
2010 Jul 15, Argentina legalized same-sex marriage, becoming the first country in Latin America to grant gays and lesbians all the legal rights, responsibilities and protections that marriage brings to heterosexual couples.
(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 15, Australian scientists reported their discovery of bizarre prehistoric sea life hundreds of kilometers below the Great Barrier Reef, in an unprecedented mission to document species under threat from ocean warming.
(AFP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 15, In Makhachkala, Dagestan, Artur Suleimanov, a bishop for the Russian evangelical denomination Osanna. was killed in a shooting. 2 militants were killed by police in a clash in the town of Khasavyurt the previous day.
(AP, 7/16/10)
2010 Jul 15, French oil firm Total SA said it has signed a deal to acquire Chevron Corp.'s stake in an offshore oil block near Nigeria's coastline.
(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 15, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev met for talks and are expected to oversee the signing of an array of deals between German and Russian companies worth billions of dollars.
(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 15, India unveiled a symbol for its rupee currency that it hopes will become as globally recognized as signs for the dollar, the yen, the pound and the euro. The symbol was designed by research student D Udaya Kumar, who earned $5,300 for his pains.
(AP, 7/15/10)(Econ, 7/24/10, p.43)
2010 Jul 15, In Iraq the US handed over the last detention facility under its control to Iraqi authorities, a milestone in Iraq's push for complete sovereignty. A car bomb in Tikrit and two other attacks killed 8 people, including 4 police officers, and wounded 14 others. A double suicide bombing against a Shiite mosque in southeast Iran killed 27 people, including members of the elite Revolutionary Guard in the provincial capital Zahedan. The insurgent group, Jundallah, claimed responsibility.
(AP, 7/15/10)(AP, 7/16/10)
2010 Jul 15, In northern Iraq a fire in a five-story hotel killed 28 people, half of them foreigners, in a harrowing blaze that forced several victims to jump to their deaths to escape a building without fire escapes in the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah.
{Iraq, Fire}
(AP, 7/16/10)
2010 Jul 15, An Israeli lieutenant colonel and one of his soldiers were convicted in a 2008 shooting of a bound and blindfolded Palestinian demonstrator. Video taken by a local resident showed the soldier firing a rubber-coated bullet from close range at the feet of the Palestinian man, whose hands were tied behind his back.
(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 15, Lebanon arrested a third person in a widening probe into a suspected network of Israeli spies employed in the country's telecom sector.
(AFP, 7/16/10)
2010 Jul 15, In Mexico members of a northern drug gang rammed a car that may have been packed with explosives or inflammable material into two police patrol trucks in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, killing two officers and a medical technician, and wounding nine people. The attack was said to be in retaliation for the arrest of a top leader of the La Linea drug gang, Jesus Acosta Guerrero, earlier in the day. It was the first time a drug cartel has used a car bomb to attack Mexican security forces. On Oct 20 Fernando Contreras was arrested in Chihuahua along with 14 others, several weapons and drugs. Police said Contreras had detonated the car bomb.
(AP, 7/16/10)(AP, 7/17/10)(AP, 10/21/10)
2010 Jul 15, In Myanmar Win Htein, a former aide to Myanmar's detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, was released from prison after 14 years behind bars.
(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 15, In Pakistan an apparent suicide bombing near a bus terminal in the Swat Valley killed five people and wounded at least 58.
(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 15, North Korea's military renewed its call for its own investigation into the March deadly sinking of a South Korean warship as it met with the US-led UN Command for the first time since the incident raised tensions on the Korean peninsula.
(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 15, Pakistan and India sought to improve their strained relationship with high-level talks aimed at rebuilding trust that was fractured by the terrorist attacks that killed 166 people in the Indian city of Mumbai nearly two years ago.
(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 15, A last-minute deal at a meeting of the Kimberley Process certification scheme in Russia authorized Zimbabwe to sell two batches of diamonds under strict monitoring and regulation through Sept. 1.
(AP, 7/16/10)
2010 Jul 15, In Sudan aid officials said the government has issued expulsion orders against two top relief officials in Darfur after the International Criminal Court charged President Omar al-Beshir with genocide over the seven-year conflict there. When the ICC issued a warrant for Beshir's arrest for the other charges in March last year, the Sudanese government expelled 13 relief organizations from Darfur. Three journalists working for the opposition Rai al-Shaab newspaper were handed jail terms ranging from two to five years for publishing "false reports."
(AFP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 15, Sudanese police said at least 33 people have been killed and several others were missing following powerful floods in eastern Sudan.
(AFP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 15, The Vatican issued a new set of norms to respond to the worldwide clerical abuse scandal. The norms extend from 10 to 20 years the statute of limitations on priestly abuse and also codify for the first time that possessing or distributing child pornography is a canonical crime.
(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 15, Vietnam’s state media reported that Vietnam has published the first issue of a human rights magazine to help counter what it calls "erroneous and hostile allegations."
(AP, 7/15/10)
2011 Jul 15, Thomas Drake (54), a former senior official for the national Security Agency (NSA), was sentenced to a year’s probation for leaking information about the NSA to the Baltimore Sun in 2006.
(SFC, 7/16/11, p.A6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Andrews_Drake)
2011 Jul 15, In Atlanta, Georgia, security guard Nkosi Thandiwe (22) opened fire on 3 women in a parking garage killing one and wounding two. He was arrested and charged with murder.
(SFC, 7/16/11, p.A5)
2011 Jul 15, In western Afghanistan insurgents killed at least six Afghan soldiers in an ambush on an army patrol.
(AP, 7/16/11)
2011 Jul 15, In Argentina French tourists Cassandre Bouvier (29) and Houria Moumni (20) were raped and killed by a group of men who followed the academics from Sorbonne University up a popular hiking trail, the Quebrada de San Lorenzo, outside the provincial capital of Salta.
(AP, 8/16/11)
2011 Jul 15, In Bahrain Zainab Hasan Ahmed al-Jumaa (47) suffocated after inhaling tear gas fired by riot police during a demonstration near her home in Sitra, the hub of Bahrain's oil industry.
(AP, 7/16/11)
2011 Jul 15, BBC journalists began a 24-hour strike in a row over job losses, disrupting some of the British broadcaster's flagship programs.
(AFP, 7/15/11)
2011 Jul 15, Rebekah Brooks (43), the embattled chief executive of Rupert Murdoch's British News International, quit as the phone hacking scandal forced the once-mighty media baron to sacrifice his cherished aide. Les Hinton, chide executive of the Murdoch owned Dow Jones & Co., published of the Wall Street Journal, also announced his resignation.
(AP, 7/15/11)(SFC, 7/16/11, p.A4)(Econ, 7/23/11, p.23)
2011 Jul 15, Christian Emde (28) and Robert Baum (24) were arrested in the English port town of Dover. In 2012 the 2 German men pleaded guilty to possessing information useful for terrorist acts. Emde was sentenced to 16 months in jail, Baum to 12 months.
(AP, 2/6/12)
2011 Jul 15, In Burundi lawyer Suzanne Bukuru was arrested and imprisoned for helping French journalists get an interview with victims she is representing in a rape trial involving a Frenchman Patrice Faye (58). On July 25 lawyers in Burundi announced a week-long strike in protest at the arrest of Bukuru for "complicity in espionage."
(AFP, 7/25/11)
2011 Jul 15, Cuban authorities shut down Canadian firm Tri-Star Caribbean and arrested company president Sarkis Yacoubian. The company, considered a competitor of Tokmakjian Group, did around $30 million in business with Cuba. Ontario-based Tokmakjian Group, one of the top Canadian companies doing business on the communist-run island, was shut down in September.
(Reuters, 9/16/11)
2011 Jul 15, In Egypt thousands of protesters rallied across the country, capping a week of nationwide sit-ins to demand political change as anger grows with the military rulers over the slow pace of reform.
(AFP, 7/15/11)
2011 Jul 15, UNICEF said at least 17,584 measles cases, including 114 deaths, have been reported by Ethiopian health officials in the first half of the year. The WHO said says at least 462 cases of measles, including 11 deaths, have been confirmed in recent months among Somali refugee children in the Kenyan refugee complex known as Dadaab.
(AP, 7/15/11)
2011 Jul 15, In Haiti four pilgrims died when a boulder fell on them on the peak day of a three-day Voodoo festival at the sacred site of Saut d'Eau.
(AP, 7/15/11)
2011 Jul 15, Indonesian police arrested Abrori Ali, the headmaster of an Islamic boarding school in the Sumba island town of Bima, after a man there died earlier this week, reportedly while trying to teach students how to make homemade bombs.
(AP, 7/15/11)
2011 Jul 15, In southern Iraq a US soldier was killed while conducting military operations.
(AP, 7/16/11)
2011 Jul 15, In Jordan government supporters attacked pro-reform protesters to stop them from gathering in a main square in the capital. At least 17 people, including journalists and policemen, were injured when police tried to stop clashes between pro-reform demonstrators and government supporters in central Amman.
(AP, 7/15/11)(AFP, 7/16/11)
2011 Jul 15, Some 1,000 Israelis and Palestinians gathered in east Jerusalem for a protest march to support the Palestinian bid for United Nations recognition.
(AFP, 7/15/11)
2011 Jul 15, Italy passed a $99 billion austerity package. The nation’s debt was the highest in the Eurozone at nearly 120% of GDP. The euro70 billion package did not entail any significant reduction in the wages, perks and privileges of the notoriously bloated, handsomely paid political elite, despite repeated promises such cuts would be carried out.
(SFC, 7/16/11, p.A2)(AP, 7/21/11)
2011 Jul 15, In Kashmir a handful of fighters, allegedly from Lashkar-e-Taiba, died in a shootout with Indian soldiers.
(Econ, 7/23/11, p.38)
2011 Jul 15, In a statement following a meeting in Istanbul of the so-called Contact Group on Libya, more than 30 nations, including the United States, declared that Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's regime is no longer legitimate and formally recognized Libya's main opposition group as the legitimate government until a new interim authority is created.
(AP, 7/15/11)
2011 Jul 15, In Mexico at least 12 state police officers and a bystander were killed in an ambush on a highway in the western state of Sinaloa. Fighting among inmates in a Nuevo Laredo prison near the US border killed 7 prisoners and allowed at least 59 others to escape.
(AP, 7/15/11)
2011 Jul 15, In Nigeria assailants from the Boko Haram sect threw a bomb at a police patrol car in Maiduguri wounding seven civilians. Colonel Victor Ebhaleme said a bomb was planted and a police van drove over it, exploding and injuring eight policemen.
(AP, 7/15/11)(AFP, 7/15/11)
2011 Jul 15, In Nigeria a second building collapsed since the start of the month in Lagos killing two people. 6 others were rescued.
(AFP, 7/16/11)
2011 Jul 15, A former military doctor was extradited from Paraguay to Argentina to face charges that include stealing babies from political prisoners during Argentina's dictatorship. Dr. Norberto Atilo Bianco allegedly helped run a clandestine maternity ward inside the epidemiology section of the Argentine army's Campo de Mayo military hospital in 1977 and 1978.
(AP, 7/16/11)
2011 Jul 15, Saudi authorities beheaded a man convicted of attacking a woman and snapping nude photos of her in order to blackmail her for sex.
(AP, 7/16/11)
2011 Jul 15, Somali pirates holding South Korean hostages demanded that the South Korean government release pirate prisoners and pay compensation for a commando raid that killed several pirates earlier this year.
(AP, 7/15/11)
2011 Jul 15, Syrian security forces killed at least 28 protesters as hundreds of thousands flooded the streets nationwide in the largest anti-government demonstrations since the uprising began more than four months ago. Casualties included 14 people in a suburb of Damascus, three in the northwestern city of Idlib, three in the central city of Homs and one in Daraa.
(AP, 7/15/11)(AP, 7/16/11)(SFC, 7/16/11, p.A3)
2011 Jul 15, Tunisian police fired tear gas to break up an anti-government protest in the capital, with demonstrators accusing the authorities of using violence to end their peaceful action.
(AFP, 7/15/11)
2011 Jul 15, Turkish prosecutors launched an investigation into a Kurdish proclamation of autonomy in the country's southeast as the military deployed elite forces to the region where tensions are running high following the deadliest clash between troops and rebels in about three years.
(AP, 7/15/11)
2011 Jul 15, A Turkish court charged 14 suspected al-Qaida militants for allegedly planning to attack the US Embassy in the Turkish capital.
(AP, 7/16/11)
2011 Jul 15, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced that he will return to Cuba to begin a new phase of cancer treatment that will include chemotherapy.
(AP, 7/15/11)
2011 Jul 15, In Yemen tribesmen killed a colonel and two of his aides in an ambush on their convoy in the Sharab al-Rona area of Taez. Tens of thousands of anti-regime protesters prayed at University Square. Tens of thousands of regime supporters also turned out. A security official said 7 civilians were killed and 30 wounded in Republican Guards shelling in Taez.
(AFP, 7/15/11)(AP, 7/15/11)(SFC, 7/16/11, p.A2)(AFP, 7/21/11)
2012 Jul 15, The Chinese province of Hunan urged parents to seek immediate treatment for children showing symptoms of hand, foot and mouth disease after official figures showed 112 people died from the illness last month.
(AFP, 7/15/12)
2012 Jul 15, In Ethiopia the leaders of Congo and Rwanda agreed in principle to back a neutral international armed force to combat Congo's newest rebellion and other fighters terrorizing civilians in the country's mineral-rich east. The African Union said it could help by sending soldiers.
(AP, 7/16/12)
2012 Jul 15, The Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Center confirmed that Laszlo Csatary (97), accused of complicity in the killings of 15,700 Jews, had been tracked down to the Hungarian capital. He served during World War II as a senior Hungarian police officer in the Slovakian city of Kosice, then under Hungarian rule. Csatary was taken into custody on July 18 and charged with war crimes.
(AFP, 7/16/12)(AP, 7/18/12)
2012 Jul 15, Iraq signed a gas exploration deal with Pakistan Petroleum.
(AFP, 7/15/12)
2012 Jul 15, Jordanian anti-riot police fired tear gas to break up a crowd of some 200 angry Libyans who attacked Tripoli's embassy with stones, over unpaid medical bills.
(AFP, 7/15/12)
2012 Jul 15, In northern Mali some 400 combatants of the government-backed Gandakoy militia were reported to have broken ranks and joined the Islamists, bolstering the radicals' edge over ethnic Tuareg rebels in the area.
(AP, 7/15/12)
2012 Jul 15, Namibia's annual seal hunt, which will see some 86,000 Cape fur seals slaughtered by end November, began amid outcry from conservation groups that brand it a massacre for trade purposes. The animals are harvested for their pelts, fat, which is used in beauty products and male sexual organs, believed to have aphrodisiac properties in Asia.
(AFP, 7/14/12)
2012 Jul 15, In Nepal at least 38 pilgrims were killed when an overcrowded bus carrying them from India to a Hindu festival swerved off a highway and plunged into the Gandak river.
(AFP, 7/15/12)
2012 Jul 15, Sewing needles were found in 5 sandwiches on flights originating in Amsterdam. One passenger on a flight to Minneapolis was injured. The other needles were on two flights to Atlanta and one to Seattle. The sandwiches were made in the Amsterdam kitchen of catering company Gate Gourmet.
(AP, 7/17/12)
2012 Jul 15, In northwestern Pakistan a mortar round hit a house belonging to a paramilitary soldier, killing his wife and three of his children near the Khyber tribal area.
(AP, 7/15/12)
2012 Jul 15, A senior Palestinian official, Osama Mansour, suspected of embezzling public funds fell to his death from the third-floor kitchen window of a West Bank security compound where he was being interrogated.
(AP, 7/16/12)
2012 Jul 15, The Republic of Congo held elections for a new parliament. The Congolese Labour Party of President Denis Sassou Nguesso retained its dominance in the first round of legislative elections in results announced on July 20. The PCT took 57 of the 69 seats that were won outright in the first-round vote. The other places in the 135-seat parliament will be decided in a second round scheduled for August 5.
(AP, 7/15/12)(AFP, 7/20/12)
2012 Jul 15, A Russian Soyuz rocket blasted off from Kazakhstan with an international crew of three toward the International Space Station in a mission testing the reliability of Russia's crisis-prone space program. On board were NASA's Sunita Williams, Japan's Akihiko Hoshide and Yury Malenchenko of Russia.
(AFP, 7/15/12)
2012 Jul 15, South Africa's Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, a former wife of Pres. Zuma, won a tightly fought vote to become the first woman to head the African Union Commission.
(AFP, 7/16/12)(Econ, 7/21/12, p.43)
2012 Jul 15, Syrian troops bombarded rebel areas in several parts of the country as violence across the country reportedly killed 105 people. The International Committee of the Red Cross said Sunday it now considers the conflict in Syria to be a full-blown civil war, meaning international humanitarian law applies throughout the country.
(AFP, 7/15/12)(AP, 7/15/12)(AFP, 7/16/12)
2012 Jul 15, Officials in the United Arab Emirates inaugurated a key overland oil pipeline bypassing the Strait of Hormuz, giving the OPEC member insurance against Iranian threats to block the strategic waterway.
(AP, 7/15/12)
2013 Jul 15, In New Hampshire Beatrice Munyenyezi (43), a Rwanda woman who became a citizen in 2003, was sentenced to 10 years in prison. She was convicted of lying to obtain US citizenship by denying her role as a roadblock commander in the 1994 Rwanda genocide.
(SFC, 7/16/13, p.A4)
2013 Jul 15, In Philadelphia Michael Scripps (36), a descendent of the founder of the Detroit News, was sentenced to 9 years in priuson for stealing $3.6 million from his mother and disabled uncle.
(SFC, 7/16/13, p.A4)
2013 Jul 15, In Bangladesh Ghulam Azam (91), a former chief of an Islamic party, was sentenced to 90 years in jail for crimes against humanity during the country's 1971 independence war, angering both supporters who said the trial was politically motivated and opponents who said he should be executed.
(AP, 7/15/13)
2013 Jul 15, Bangladesh approved a labor law to boost worker rights, including the freedom to form trade unions, after a factory building collapse in April killed 1,132 garment workers and sparked debate over labor safety and rights.
(Reuters, 7/15/13)
2013 Jul 15, In Cameroon the body of Eric Ohena Lembembe, a prominent gay rights activist, was discovered at his home in the capital, Yaounde, after he was unreachable for two days.
(AP, 7/16/13)
2013 Jul 15, A Chilean appeals court ruled against the world's largest gold mining company, favoring Chilean Indians who accuse Barrick Gold Corp. of contaminating their water downstream and creating more doubts about the future of the world's highest gold mine.
(AP, 7/15/13)
2013 Jul 15, In China the Hunan Provincial People's High Court ruled in favor of Tang Hui, who last year was sentenced to 18 months in a labor camp for petitioning for harsher penalties for the men who abducted, raped and prostituted her 11-year-old daughter.
(AP, 7/15/13)
2013 Jul 15, The Congolese army claimed that it killed 120 rebels in eastern Congo.
(AP, 7/15/13)
2013 Jul 15, In Egypt at least 3 people were killed and 17 wounded when suspected militants fired rocket-propelled grenades at a bus carrying workers in the North Sinai province early today. Clashes in central Cairo between police and supporters of deposed Pres. Morsi left at least 7 people dead. Authorities arrested 401 people over clashes.
(Reuters, 7/15/13)(Econ, 7/20/13, p.45)
2013 Jul 15, In France Greenpeace activists occupied a nuclear power plant site before dawn, a media stunt deeply embarrassing to the government, which is intent on demonstrating that France's reliance on nuclear power is safe.
(AP, 7/15/13)
2013 Jul 15, Pirates seized the Maltese-flagged Cotton tanker on July 15 near Gabon's Port Gentil in the first reported attack in that area in the past five years. On July 22 the vessel’s operator said the oil products tanker and its 24 Indian crew have been released.
(Reuters, 7/22/13)
2013 Jul 15, In in southeastern Guinea at least two people were killed and six others injured in clashes. Mobs from rival ethnic groups took to the streets and gunfire rang out across Nzerekore, Guinea's second largest town, after a man accused of being a thief was killed.
(Reuters, 7/15/13)
2013 Jul 15, India officially declared that nearly 6,000 people were missing a month after flash floods ravaged large parts of its northern state of Uttarakhand, but stopped short of saying they were presumed dead.
(Reuters, 7/15/13)
2013 Jul 15, Nissan launched a new Datsun in India, three decades after shelving the brand that helped win Western acceptance of Japanese autos. The reimagined Datsun, a five-seat hatchback, will go on sale in India next year for under 400,000 rupees (about $6,670).
(AP, 7/15/13)
2013 Jul 15, In Iraq attacks across the country killed 9 people, including a 10-year-old boy.
(AP, 7/15/13)
2013 Jul 15, In Libya assailants shot air force Colonel Fathi al-Omami as he opened a shop he owned in Derna.
(Reuters, 7/16/13)
2013 Jul 15, The Mexican government announced plans to invest about $100 billion in rail, road, telecom and port projects over the next five years, including Mexico's first high-speed rail links.
(AP, 7/15/13)
2013 Jul 15, Mexican marines captured Zetas leader Miguel Angel Trevino Morales (40) before dawn as they intercepted a pickup truck with $2 million in cash in the countryside outside the border city of Nuevo Laredo. Morales was taken into custody along with a bodyguard and an accountant and 8 guns.
(AP, 7/16/13)
2013 Jul 15, Northern Ireland rioters threw petrol bombs, bricks, bottles and fireworks at police in a third night of violence around traditional Protestant marches, wounding one officer early today.
(Reuters, 7/15/13)
2013 Jul 15, Panama's president said the country has seized a North Korean-flagged freighter carrying what appeared to be ballistic missiles and other arms that had set sail from Cuba. North Korea and Cuba said the weapons were antiquated and were being sent for repair. North Korea called for the release of the ship and its and 35 crew members.
(AP, 7/16/13)(SFC, 7/18/13, p.A4)(SFC, 7/19/13, p.A2)
2013 Jul 15, Spain’s former treasurer Luis Barcenas began talking about about two decades of illicit Popular party (PP) financing.
(Econ, 7/20/13, p.48)0
2013 Jul 15, Syrian troops overnight pounded rebel-held villages around the city of Idlib with rockets, artillery and airstrikes, killing at least 29 people including six children. A car bomb exploded overnight outside the police headquarters in Deir Atiyeh, killing at least 13 people including 10 policemen. Government troops backed by tanks and artillery moved into Qaboun, a rebel-held district of Damascus, stepping up efforts to drive opposition fighters from the capital and build on battlefield gains elsewhere in the country. The Qaboun Coordination Committee, an activist group, said at least 60 people had been killed in Qaboun over the last few days by the shelling and subsequent clashes. Pro-government gunmen killed 7 members of a local Syrian reconciliation group near Homs, as troops shot dead 9 people including a child at a checkpoint in a suburb of the capital.
(AP, 7/15/13)(Reuters, 7/15/13)(AP, 7/16/13)
2014 Jul 15, Comic book hero Archie Andrews died in today’s installment of Life with Archie No. 36 as he took an assassin’s bullet aimed at his gay best friend. Archie first appeared in comics in 1941.
(SFC, 7/16/14, p.F6)
2014 Jul 15, California’s Water Resources Control Board approved emergency regulations that allow local law enforcement and water agencies to impose a maximum $500-a-day fine on water wasters.
(SFC, 7/16/14, p.A1)
2014 Jul 15, In Utah John Swallow (51) and Mark Shurtleff (56), both former state attorneys general, were arrested on a battery of bribery charges.
(SFC, 7/16/14, p.A6)
2014 Jul 15, Reynolds American agreed to by Lorillard for $27.4 billion uniting two of the country’s largest tobacco producers.
(SFC, 7/16/14, p.C6)
2014 Jul 15, In Afghanistan a car packed with explosives exploded as it sped through a crowded market in the eastern province of Paktika, killing 43 people with 74 wounded. In Kabul a remote control bomb concealed by a roadside killed 2 employees of President Karzai's media office and wounded five.
(Reuters, 7/15/14)(Reuters, 7/17/14)
2014 Jul 15, In Australia a class-action settlement against electricity provider SP AusNet awarded survivors of a 2009 wildfire nearly 500 million Australian dollars, the largest such compensation in the nation's history. The wildfire killed 119 people and was the biggest in a series of blazes that tore through the southern Australian state of Victoria.
(AP, 7/15/14)
2014 Jul 15, In Brazil leaders of the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) met for their 6th annual summit. They created two financial institutions: The New Development Bank (NDB) to finance infrastructure with $50 billion to start and the $100 billion Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA) to tide over members in financial difficulties.
(AP, 7/15/14)(Econ, 7/19/14,p.62)
2014 Jul 15, British PM David Cameron pushed through his biggest government shake-up since coming to power in 2010, promoting women and Eurosceptics to senior roles ahead of a national election in May, 2015.
(Reuters, 7/15/14)
2014 Jul 15, Britain's financial regulator announced new limitations on what payday lenders can charge their customers. From January payday loan rates must not exceed a daily rate of 0.8 percent of the amount borrowed. Customers must never have to pay back more in fees and interest than the amount borrowed.
(AP, 7/15/14)
2014 Jul 15, In Cambodia about 200 protesters marched to a park in Phnom Penh and attached an orange banner that read "Free the Freedom Park" to the surrounding razor wire barricade. As armed police watched from inside the public park, several dozen security guards attempted to disperse the rally. Three leaders of the opposition CNRP were arrested and denied bail.
(AP, 7/16/14)(Econ, 7/19/14, p.37)
2014 Jul 15, China’s top anti-corruption watchdog said Zhang Youren, a former senior executive at a state-owned military giant, has been expelled from the ruling Communist Party for taking bribes and other "massive" corruption.
(Reuters, 7/15/14)
2014 Jul 15, In southern China an explosion went off on a bus that then caught fire in Guangzhou, killing 2 people and injuring at least six.
(AP, 7/15/14)
2014 Jul 15, Croatia published a "name and shame" list of more than 5,000 organizations which have withheld more than one monthly salary from their employees this year, in an effort to stamp out widespread cheating of staff.
(Reuters, 7/16/14)
2014 Jul 15, An Egyptian truce proposal for the conflict in Gaza quickly unraveled, after the Islamic militant Hamas rejected the plan. Gaza militants fired scores of rockets at Israel and Israel responded with more than a dozen air strikes. Aid agencies warned that hundreds of thousands of Gazans were without water after air strikes wrecked the water and sewage system. The whole strip was threatened with a water crisis. Local officials in Gaza said the death toll had risen to 192.
(AP, 7/15/14)(Reuters, 7/15/14)
2014 Jul 15, Israeli warplanes struck three administrative and military targets in Syria's Golan at dawn, killing 2 security guards and 2 women. The air raids came after the Israeli army said a rocket fired from Syria hit the Israeli-occupied sector of the Golan Heights.
(AFP, 7/15/14)
2014 Jul 15, Jean-Claude Juncker, former Luxembourg PM, won broad endorsement from the European Parliament to be the next head of the executive European Commission.
(Reuters, 7/15/14)
2014 Jul 15, In Georgia Erosi Kitsmarishvili, the founder of the Rustavi 2 TV channel, was found dead in his car with a bullet in his head.
(AP, 7/16/14)
2014 Jul 15, Germany's Federal Cartel Office said it has imposed fines totaling 338 million euros ($460 million) on 21 sausage manufacturers for colluding on prices.
(AP, 7/15/14)
2014 Jul 15, Hong Kong's Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying formally asked Beijing for legal changes that would ultimately let residents of the southern Chinese city elect his successor, but he downplayed calls for the public to nominate candidates free of China's vetting.
(AP, 7/15/14)
2014 Jul 15, An Iranian F-4 fighter jet crashed shortly after taking off from a military air base in Shiraz killing two pilots on board.
(AP, 7/15/14)
2014 Jul 15, Iraqi lawmakers broke their deadlock and elected a new speaker of parliament, taking the first formal step toward forming a new government that is widely seen as crucial to confronting militants who have overrun much of the country. Sunni lawmaker Salim al-Jubouri won with 194 votes in the 328-seat parliament. Iraqi forces withdrew from the militant-held city of Tikrit after their new offensive met heavy resistance.
(AP, 7/15/14)(Reuters, 7/16/14)
2014 Jul 15, An Israeli civilian was killed by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip, the first Israeli fatality in more than a week of fighting with Palestinian militants.
(Reuters, 7/16/14)
2014 Jul 15, In Libya a Filipino construction worker was kidnapped by militia men. He was later beheaded by his captors, becoming the first Filipino casualty in the renewed violence. His decomposed body was found July 20 in a hospital in Benghazi. In response the Filipino foreign ministry soon announced a "mandatory" evacuation of all 13,000 of its nationals living in Libya.
(AP, 7/22/14)(AFP, 8/1/14)
2014 Jul 15, Pakistani as authorities rushed aid to over 800,000 people who have fled the northwestern tribal region for safety. The military said it has cleared Miran Shah of militants, killing 447 of them while losing 26 soldiers there since the start of the June 15 operation.
(AP, 7/15/14)
2014 Jul 15, A Pakistani court sentenced a man to death on blasphemy charges. Mohammad Zulfiqar (50), alleged to be mentally ill, was charged with blasphemy after writing what were considered to be blasphemous comments on the walls of a Lahore neighborhood in 2008.
(AP, 7/15/14)
2014 Jul 15, In the Philippines tens of thousands of people hunkered down in evacuation centers while three people were reported missing as Typhoon Rammasun pounded its eastern coast amid warnings of giant storm surges and heavy floods.
(AFP, 7/15/14)
2014 Jul 15, The World Bank said that it and its private sector arm have committed concessional loans of up to $4.2 billion to the Philippines to help the country reduce poverty, create jobs and sustain growth as it recovers from the impact of a devastating typhoon and separatist rebellion.
(AP, 7/15/14)
2014 Jul 15, In Russia a rush-hour subway train derailed in Moscow, killing 22 people and sending 150 others to the hospital. Investigators soon detained two metro workers for alleged safety breaches.
(AP, 7/15/14)(AFP, 7/16/14)
2014 Jul 15, In Somalia more than 200 suspects were arrested in a security sweep aimed at stemming a wave of militant attacks in Mogadishu.
(AP, 7/15/14)
2014 Jul 15, In eastern Ukraine an airstrike demolished an apartment block, killing at least 11 civilians. The government denied blame.
(AP, 7/15/14)(SFC, 7/16/14, p.A2)
2015 Jul 15, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts said "Star Wars" creator George Lucas, groundbreaking actresses Rita Moreno and Cicely Tyson, singer Carole King, rock band the Eagles and acclaimed music director Seiji Ozawa will receive this year's Kennedy Center Honors.
(AP, 7/15/15)
2015 Jul 15, California regulators ordered Uber to pay a $7.3 million fine and hand over required information about safety and accessibility or shut down in the company’s home state.
(SFC, 7/16/15, p.C6)
2015 Jul 15, The Colorado Bard of health voted 6-2 against adding PTSD to the list of ailments eligible for treatment with marijuana.
(SFC, 7/17/15, p.A6)
2015 Jul 15, The Solar Impulse team said it is suspending its journey in Hawaii to at least next April after the plane suffered battery damage during its flight from Japan.
(SFC, 7/16/15, p.A5)
2015 Jul 15, In Austria the Vienna regional court found Oliver N. (17) guilty of participating in a terror organization and incitement to terrorism and sentenced him to 2 ½ years in prison for joining the Islamic State group.
(AP, 7/15/15)
2015 Jul 15, In Bahrain a man accidentally blew himself up as he tried to plant a bomb targeting police in a Shi'ite Muslim village.
(Reuters, 7/15/15)
2015 Jul 15, Bulgaria’s interior ministry said a man (21), suspected of belonging to a network of Islamist hackers responsible for attacks on more than 3,500 websites worldwide, has been arrested. The man was said to be part of a group using the acronym MECA (Middle East Cyber Army).
(AFP, 7/15/15)
2015 Jul 15, A Cameroon governor said the country's north has banned women from wearing burkas and face-covering veils in response to the July 12 attacks that left 14 dead. The Far North Region also banned Muslims from meeting in large groups without permission.
(AP, 7/15/15)
2015 Jul 15, In China Wan Li (99), a politician known for his reform policies, died in Beijing. Wan was best known for the reform policies that he began implementing in the late 1970s, especially in rural China.
(AP, 7/15/15)
2015 Jul 15, Egypt’s military foiled an attempted attack on a military post on a highway linking Cairo with the Red Sea coast. The driver of a car that was carrying 500 kg (1,100 pounds) of dynamite refused to stop at a checkpoint, drawing fire from the troops. The car then swerved off the road and the driver was killed.
(AP, 7/16/15)
2015 Jul 15, The European Commission published its assessment of Greece's bailout request, taking a different view of Athens' debt sustainability than the IMF, but also signaling a possibility of debt relief.
(Reuters, 7/15/15)
2015 Jul 15, In Germany Oskar Groening (94), known as the "bookkeeper of Auschwitz," was sentenced to four years in prison for his role in the murder of 300,000 people at the Nazi death camp. Groening, who had been sent to work at the camp in 1942, inspected people's luggage, removing and counting any bank notes and sending them on to SS offices in Berlin, where they helped to fund the Nazi war effort.
(Reuters, 7/15/15)
2015 Jul 15, In Greece municipal workers, pharmacists and others went on strike to protests the impact that new reforms will have on their livelihoods.
(Econ, 7/18/15, p.41)
2015 Jul 15, In eastern India police recovered the remains of a man who was beaten to death and burnt by a mob last week over allegations of sorcery in Odisha's Rayagada district. Ten people have been arrested.
(Reuters, 7/15/15)
2015 Jul 15, Iraqi journalist Jala al-Abadi (b.1988), who was taken from his home with his phone and laptop on June 4, was executed in Mosul by firing squad after being sentenced by an IS court.
(AFP, 7/18/15)
2015 Jul 15, Ireland’s transgender people won legal recognition of their status through the passage of the Gender Recognition Bill, allowing them to change their legal gender with no medical or state intervention.
(Reuters, 7/16/15)
2015 Jul 15, In Italy a Milan court convicted 11 former Pirelli managers, including two former CEOs, on charges of manslaughter and gave them prison sentences for the deaths of about 20 workers who developed tumors or lung disease after being exposed to asbestos.
(AP, 7/15/15)
2015 Jul 15, Japan-based Toyota said it is recalling 625,000 Prius hybrid vehicles worldwide because they can stall without warning.
(AP, 7/15/15)
2015 Jul 15, The Lebanese army said troops have confiscated a drone in the eastern Bekaa Valley as it was being taken to insurgents on the Syrian side of the border.
(AP, 7/15/15)
2015 Jul 15, Macedonia's main political leaders reached a final agreement early today to resolve a protracted and severe political crisis that has roiled the small Balkan country for months.
(AP, 7/15/15)
2015 Jul 15, Mexico opened its energy sector with an auction of oil exploration rights ending the 77-year monopoly of Pemex. In the first round only two of fourteen blocks on offer were sold, to a Mexican-British-American consortium.
(Econ, 7/18/15, p.8)
2015 Jul 15, In southeastern Niger Boko Haram jihadists killed 16 civilians in an attack on a village near Bosso. Another person succumbed later to their wounds.
(AFP, 7/18/15)
2015 Jul 15, The Pakistani military shot down a small Indian spy drone in Kashmir. Indian and Pakistani troops exchanged fire in Kashmir, killing a woman and wounding at least 4 other people on the Indian-controlled side.
(Reuters, 7/15/15)(AP, 7/15/15)
2015 Jul 15, In the Philippines nearly 500 policemen launched simultaneous raids on drug dens and other criminal hideouts in the southern city of Davao, killing 7 suspects and arresting 39 others in one of the largest single-day anti-crime operations this year. Army troops and police in Sulu province shot Mahmur Jupuri, a suspected Abu Sayyaf militant, who they said was linked to the kidnappings of seven people. Jupuri was killed and his companion was wounded.
(AP, 7/15/15)
2015 Jul 15, Some 335 migrants arrived in port in Augusta, Sicily, after a week at sea. Parents of a 10-year-old Syrian girl with diabetes said she died after the smugglers threw her insulin overboard. Police in Sicily soon arrested three Egyptians who allegedly were in charge of the smuggling boat.
(AP, 7/18/15)
2015 Jul 15, In south-central Somalia a US drone strike destroyed a vehicle belonging to al Shabaab militants. The attack targeted al-Shabab commander Ismael Jabhad and three other fighters near Bardhere. Kenya said at least 30 Shebab militants were killed.
(Reuters, 7/16/15)(AFP, 7/16/15)(SFC, 7/17/15, p.A2)
2015 Jul 15, In Syria 13 civilians, among them 7 children, were killed in aerial attacks by the government on the northern province of Aleppo. 22 IS fighters were killed when regime warplanes struck a convoy traveling between the provinces of Deir Ezzor in the east and Hasakeh in the northeast. Al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate and its Islamist allies launched an attack on the last two Shiite Muslim villages under regime control in northwest Idlib province.
(AFP, 7/15/15)
2015 Jul 15, Ukraine said 8 government troops were killed and 16 wounded in the war-torn east over the last 24-hours.
(AP, 7/15/15)
2015 Jul 15, In Yemen loyalists of exiled President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi, buoyed by their recapture of the airport, seized more ground in second city Aden as they pressed their biggest fightback yet against Iran-backed rebels. Saudi-led warplanes carried out six raids on rebel positions before dawn.
(AFP, 7/15/15)
2016 Jul 15, The US released once top secret pages from a 2003 congressional report into the 9/11 attacks that questioned whether Saudis, who were in contact with hijackers, knew what they were planning.
(SFC, 7/16/16, p.A5)
2016 Jul 15, The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that Herbalife has agreed to a $200 million settlement for consumer relief along with requirements to restructure it business practices.
(SFC, 7/16/16, p.D1)
2016 Jul 15, The Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that US officials have wrongly allowed the Navy to use sonar at levels that could harm whales and other marine animals.
(SSFC, 7/17/16, p.C1)
2016 Jul 15, San Diego police arrested Jon David Guerrero (39) following an attack on a homeless man. Police believed Guerrero was responsible for the five attacks since July 3 that killed three homeless men.
(SSFC, 7/17/16, p.A13)
2016 Jul 15, Florida murder suspect Dayonte Resiles (21) disappeared after bolting from a courtroom in Broward County. On July 17 officials said he received help from his girlfriend and three others as part of a plot that had been planned during jailhouse calls and visits. Two more accomplices were soon arrested. Resiles was arrested on July 20 in West Palm Beach.
(AP, 7/17/16)(SFC, 7/21/16, p.A7)
2016 Jul 15, GOP front runner Donald Trump named Indiana Gov. Mike Pence as his running mate.
(SFC, 7/16/16, p.A6)
2016 Jul 15, Albania's ruling Socialists said they will accept any changes the opposition Democratic Party make to a judicial reform package, provided they are amenable to the European Union and the United States.
(AP, 7/15/16)
2016 Jul 15, Brazil said it has deported the Franco-Algerian nuclear physicist Adlene Hicheur after rejecting a request for an extension to his work visa. He was convicted in 2012 for his involvement in a French terror plot. Local press reports said Hicheur had been deported to France.
(Reuters, 7/16/16)
2016 Jul 15, British PM Theresa May visited Scotland and met with First Minister Nicola Sturgeon in Edinburgh seeking to dampen speculation about another Scottish vote for independence, while insisting she is willing to listen to proposals about Scotland's future relationship with the European Union.
(AP, 7/15/16)
2016 Jul 15, Britain listed the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), aka Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP), as a terrorist organization. This pleased China, which had demanded Western support for its fight against a group it says seeks to split off its western region of Xinjiang.
(Reuters, 7/20/16)
2016 Jul 15, State media said China aims to launch a series of offshore nuclear power platforms to promote development in the South China Sea, days after an international court ruled Beijing had no historic claims to most of the waters.
(Reuters, 7/15/16)
2016 Jul 15, Chinese prosecutors said a human rights lawyer and three activists have been indicted on subversion charges.
(AP, 7/15/16)
2016 Jul 15, In eastern China 8 people in Longkou city, Shandong province, were killed when the construction elevator they were in plummeted from an apartment building.
(AP, 7/17/16)
2016 Jul 15, Egypt launched a program of having Muslim clerics read a standardized government-written sermon at Friday prayers, a move by the state to tighten control over religious discourse.
(AP, 7/15/16)
2016 Jul 15, The Supreme Court in Guinea-Bissau upheld the nomination of PM Baciro Dja, bolstering President Jose Mario Vaz in a power struggle with rival and former PM Carlos Correia.
(Reuters, 7/16/16)
2016 Jul 15, Thousands of Iraqis defied warnings from authorities and rallied in the heart of Baghdad, renewing pressure on the government to carry out reforms targeting corruption and sectarianism.
(AFP, 7/15/16)
2016 Jul 15, Rescuers saved 366 migrants from rickety boats trying to cross the Mediterranean to Italy but at least 20 people were reported to have drowned. The survivors were mainly from Nigeria, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Bangladesh.
(Reuters, 7/16/16)
2016 Jul 15, Japanese messaging app Line rocketed in its Tokyo trading debut after an eye-popping jump in NY a day earlier, as investors cheered the year's biggest technology share sale.
(AP, 7/15/16)
2016 Jul 15, In Kashmir widespread anti-India protests and clashes erupted in dozens of places, even as authorities prevented tens of thousands of people from offering prayers in big mosques with a lockdown in place for a seventh straight day.
(AP, 7/15/16)
2016 Jul 15, North Korea presented to media a man it alleges is a South Korean spy who tried to enter the North to kidnap children. Detainee Ko Hyon Chol (53) said he apologized for a crime he called "unforgivable." He was arrested May 27 on an island in the Amnok River which runs along the border between North Korea and China.
(AP, 7/15/16)
2016 Jul 15, Pakistani fashion model and social media star Qandeel Baloch, real name Fauzia Azeem, was strangled by her brother Waseem in what appeared to be an honor killing in Multan, Punjab province. Her social media photos had challenged social norms. Waseem was arrested on July 17 and confessed to killing his sister. In 2019 Waseem was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison.
(AP, 7/16/16)(Reuters, 7/16/16)(AP, 7/17/16)(Econ, 7/23/16, p.32)(SFC, 9/28/19, p.A2)
2016 Jul 15, South Koreans protesting against a plan to deploy a US missile defense system in their district blocked a minibus carrying PM Hwang Kyo-ahn for several hours. A day earlier the government announced that the southeastern county of Seongju had been chosen as the site for a Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) battery aimed at countering what it sees as the threat from North Korea's missile and nuclear program.
(Reuters, 7/15/16)
2016 Jul 15, Turkey foiled a coup attempt by a faction of the army against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's rule. 161 people, not including the putschists, were reported killed in the coup attempt, with 2,839 soldiers detained on suspicion of involvement. More than 230 people were killed among them 145 civilians who had taken to the streets to confront the rebellious soldiers.
(AFP, 7/16/16)(Econ, 7/23/16, p.14)
2016 Jul 15, In Turkey Gen. Zekai Aksakalli ordered Sgt. Omer Halisdemir to kill Brigadier General Semih Terzi, one of the suspected coup ringleaders. By shooting Terzi dead outside special forces headquarters in Ankara, Halisdemir broke the putschists' chain of command although he was subsequently killed by the plotters.
(Reuters, 8/21/17)
2016 Jul 15, The UN said at least 300 people were killed and 42,000 fled their homes this month during the July 8-11 intense gun battles in Juba, South Sudan. The dead included two Chinese peacekeepers.
(AFP, 7/15/16)(Reuters, 7/29/16)
2016 Jul 15, UNESCO put four new sites on its World Heritage List. The new sites, announced in Istanbul, include China's Zuojiang Huashan rock art cultural landscape, Iran's ancient aqueducts known as Qanat, and India's archaeological site of Nalanda Mahavihara. The World Heritage Committee also selected Micronesia's artificial islets of Nan Madol and simultaneously placed it on the List of World Heritage in Danger.
(AP, 7/15/16)
2016 Jul 15, Zimbabwe delayed paying its soldiers for a second successive month, underlining the worsening economic crisis that has triggered recent protests.
(AFP, 7/18/16)
2017 Jul 15, American actor Martin Landau (b.1928) died at UCLA Medical Center. He starred in the Mission Impossible TV series for three seasons from its debut in 1966. He won an Oscar for his portrayal of aging horror movie star Bela Lugosi in “Ed Wood" (1994).
(SFC, 7/17/17, p.A6)
2017 Jul 15, In Chicago community activist William Cooper (58) was fatally shot on the South Side by someone in a passing car.
(SFC, 7/17/17, p.A5)
2017 Jul 15, In Minnesota Justine Ruszczyk Damond, an Australian woman who called 911 to report what she believed to be an active sexual assault, was shot and killed by a Minneapolis police Officer Mohamed Noor. The case was later handed to prosecutors for possible charges. On March 20, 2018, Officer Noor was charged with murder and manslaughter.
(AP, 7/18/17)(SFC, 9/13/17 p.A6)(AP, 3/21/18)
2017 Jul 15, China named rising political star Chen Miner as Communist Party boss in southwestern Chongqing, cementing his reputation as a favorite of President Xi Jinping ahead of a leadership reshuffle at a key party congress in the autumn.
(Reuters, 7/15/17)
2017 Jul 15, Chinese legal activist Xu Zhiyong was released from prison at the end of a four-year sentence. He had helped found the New Citizens Movement, which at the time organized monthly dinners to discuss China's constitution and other legal issues.
(AP, 7/15/17)
2017 Jul 15, In France the Energy Observer, a boat that fuels itself, set off around the world from Paris on a six-year journey that its designers hope will serve as a model for emissions-free energy networks of the future. The boat was originally designed in 1983 and enjoyed a successful career in open-sea sailing races before skippers Frederic Dahirel and Victorien Erussard and a French research institute converted it into the Energy Observer project.
(AP, 7/15/17)
2017 Jul 15, Indonesia’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology said that it was preparing for the total closure of the Telegram app in Indonesia, where it has several million users, if it didn't develop procedures to block unlawful content.
(AP, 7/16/17)
2017 Jul 15, In Iran police shot dead a man who attacked a clergyman and other people with a knife at a metro station in Tehran.
(Reuters, 7/15/17)
2017 Jul 15, Israeli security forces locked down parts of Jerusalem's Old City and an ultra-sensitive holy site remained closed after an attack that killed two police officers and heightened Israeli-Palestinian tensions.
(AFP, 7/15/17)
2017 Jul 15, In Ivory Coast gunmen attacked military bases in Abidjan and the northern city of Korhogo early today, but were repulsed. Three assailants and three soldiers were reported killed. A police station in Abobo was also attacked. The attackers were said to be demobilized fighters from former rebels who controlled the north during the 2002 to 2011 crisis.
(Reuters, 7/15/17)(AFP, 7/15/17)
2017 Jul 15, Libya’s Benina international airport officially reopened for commercial flights amid a heavy security presence after a three-year closure due to fighting in Benghazi.
(Reuters, 7/15/17)
2017 Jul 15, Thousands of Malians took to the streets to protest against a planned referendum on constitutional changes that would give extra powers to President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, create new regions and recognize the Tuareg's ethnic homeland.
(Reuters, 7/15/17)
2017 Jul 15, In Myanmar Rohingya Muslim women lined up to tell reporters of missing husbands, mothers and sons as international media were escorted for the first time to a village in northern Rakhine state affected by violence since October.
(Reuters, 7/15/17)
2017 Jul 15, A Pakistan official said that laboratory testing shows that water from Lake Rawal is "fit for human consumption" after tons of dead fish were found in the water body on Islamabad's outskirts. The Lake Rawal reservoir is used as the main source of water for the garrison city of Rawalpindi.
(AP, 7/15/17)
2017 Jul 15, Hamas described the closure of the site in a statement as a "religious war" and spokesman Fawzi Barhoum called on the Palestinian "uprising" to target the Israeli army and West Bank settlers.
(AP, 7/15/17)
2017 Jul 15, In Senegal a wall collapsed in a Dakar stadium during extra time at the League Cup final between Stade de Mbour and US Ouakam killing eight people. The match was marred by clashes between rival fans. In August ten football fans were arrested in connection with the stampede.
(AFP, 7/16/17)(AFP, 8/8/17)
2017 Jul 15, In Singapore around 400 protesters gathered at Speakers' Corner on calling for an independent inquiry into whether PM Lee Hsien Loong abused his power in a battle with his siblings over what to do with their late father's house.
(Reuters, 7/15/17)
2017 Jul 15, In South Korea thousands of people celebrated gay rights with song, dance and a march in Seoul, amid rain and boisterous protests by conservative Christians.
(AFP, 7/15/17)
2017 Jul 15, In Turkey thousands of people marched from several Istanbul neighborhoods to converge at the iconic July 15 Martyrs' Bridge in a "national unity march" to commemorate the one year anniversary of Turkey's failed coup attempt.
(AP, 7/15/17)
2018 Jul 15, In Massachusetts a bystander and police Officer Michael Chesna (42) died from wounds sustained when a suspect took the officer's gun and fired following a vehicle crash and foot chase. Suspect Emanuel Lopes (20) was taken into custody.
(SFC, 7/16/18, p.A4)
2018 Jul 15, In Kansas City, Mo., police fatally shot a man suspected of shooting and wounding three police officers.
(SFC, 7/16/18, p.A4)
2018 Jul 15, In New Mexico a collision involving a passenger bus and three other vehicles on I-25 killed three people. Authorities later reported that one of the injured passengers was carrying a backpack filled with almost $100,000.
(SFC, 7/16/18, p.A4)(SFC, 7/23/18, p.A4)
2018 Jul 15, In Afghanistan a suicide bomber on foot struck outside the building of the Rural Rehabilitation and Development Ministry in Kabul, killing seven people and wounding 15 as staff were leaving the office in the evening rush hour. The Taliban stormed a police checkpoint late today in eastern Nangarhar province and killed seven policemen. Five Taliban fighters were killed in the attack. A government airstrike left 20 Taliban fighters dead in the Khogyani district of Nangarhar province.
(Reuters, 7/15/18)(AP, 7/16/18)
2018 Jul 15, Cameroon arrested four soldiers suspected of shooting dead two women and two children in the country's far north where its army is battling jihadist group Boko Haram. A video of the incident emerged last week and provoked international outcry.
(AP, 7/19/18)
2018 Jul 15, Congo DRC state television reported that Pres. Kabila has appointed General John Numbi to the role of inspector general of the Congolese Armed Forces. Numbi has been placed under sanctions by the US, EU and Switzerland for alleged killings of scores of civilians by forces controlled by him over several years.
(Reuters, 7/15/18)
2018 Jul 15, Egypt's parliament backed a draft bill that grants foreigners citizenship if they deposit the sum of at least 7 million Egyptian pounds, or about $391,000, in a local bank, save it there for five years and reside in the country during that period. The bill still faced another parliament session and final approval by the president, Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, before it can become a law.
(AP, 7/16/18)
2018 Jul 15, Human Rights Watch accused Egyptian authorities of using state-of-emergency and counterterrorism laws and to unjustly prosecute journalists, activists and critics for their peaceful criticism.
(SFC, 7/16/18, p.A2)
2018 Jul 15, In Finland about 2,500 protesters demonstrated in support of human rights, democracy and the environment in Helsinki, a day before US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin hold a summit in the Finnish capital.
(Reuters, 7/15/18)
2018 Jul 15, Germany said it had agreed with Italy to take in 50 of the 450 migrants aboard two EU border agency vessels, matching similar pledges by France and Malta.
(AFP, 7/15/18)
2018 Jul 15, Hungarian PM Viktor Orban denounced EU sanctions imposed on Russia, during a visit to Pres. Vladimir Putin in Moscow ahead of the Moscow World Cup final.
(AFP, 7/15/18)
2018 Jul 15, In eastern India Maoist rebels ambushed a unit of government forces, leaving two soldiers dead and another wounded in Chhattisgarh state.
(AP, 7/15/18)
2018 Jul 15, Iraqis demanding better public services and jobs took to the streets for the sixth day in the southern oil-rich province of Basra, as authorities put security forces on high alert and blocked the internet in the country's Shiite heartland. Dozens of demonstrators were wounded. The internet was off service across the country for a second consecutive day and foreign airlines announced the suspension of flights.
(AP, 7/15/18)(AFP, 7/15/18)
2018 Jul 15, In Indian-controlled Kashmir at least seven people were killed and 22 others injured when a boulder rolled down from a mountain and fell on local tourists bathing at a waterfall in the Jammu region.
(AP, 7/15/18)
2018 Jul 15, Israel deported Ebru Ozkan, a week after indicting her for smuggling money and goods to the Palestinian Islamist militant group while visiting as a tourist. On July 26 The Washington Post reported that Trump had asked Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu during a July 14 phone call to let Ozkan go in what the White House envisaged as an indirect trade for Pastor Andrew Brunson. Ankara said it had not agreed to any Ozkan-Brunson swap.
(Reuters, 7/27/18)
2018 Jul 15, In Malaysia Manny Pacquiao (39) of the Philippines won a seventh-round knockout of Lucas Matthysse of Argentina to claim the World Boxing Association welterweight title.
(AP, 7/15/18)
2018 Jul 15, In northeastern Mali gunmen shot dead 14 civilians in an attack on a village near the border with Niger.
(Reuters, 7/16/18)
2018 Jul 15, In north-central Mexico gunmen burst into a funeral home in Zacatecas state killing five people with 17 left wounded.
(AP, 7/26/18)
2018 Jul 15, In Nicaragua at least ten people were shot dead as police and paramilitary groups attacked roadblocks set up by anti-government demonstrators demanding the resignation of Pres. Daniel Ortega.
(SFC, 7/16/18, p.A2)
2018 Jul 15, Two Palestinians, a man (35) and his son (13), were killed in a blast in a house west of Gaza City.
(Reuters, 7/15/18)
2018 Jul 15, In Russia Croatia lost France 4-2 to in the World cup final.
(AP, 7/16/18)
2018 Jul 15, Syrian government forces unleashed hundreds of missiles on a rebel-held area near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Jets, believed to be Russian, bombed an opposition held town in Quenitra province in the first such aerial strike in a year. Rebel fighters began to leave the Deraa al-Balad neighborhood which had been under rebel control for years.
(AP, 7/15/18)(Reuters, 7/15/18)
2018 Jul 15, In Syria suspected Israeli missiles hit a military position late today in northern Aleppo province where elite Iranian forces were stationed. Nine pro-regime fighters were reported killed in the strikes, at least six of them Syrian. State media denied any casualties.
(AFP, 7/16/18)
2018 Jul 15, Turkey issued presidential decrees reshaping key political, military and bureaucratic institutions as part of the transformation to a powerful executive presidency triggered by last month's election.
(Reuters, 7/15/18)
2018 Jul 15, A United Arab Emirates court dismissed a criminal case against the head of embattled Abraaj private equity group over bounced cheques for millions of dollars.
(AFP, 7/15/18)
2019 Jul 15, The Trump administration said it would take steps to make it more difficult for immigrants arriving on the southern border to seek asylum in the United States, putting the onus on them to ask for shelter in other countries. The Trump administration said it will end asylum protections for most migrants who arrive at the US-Mexican border.
(Reuters, 7/15/19)(SFC, 7/16/19, p.A5)
2019 Jul 15, In California a $12 million deal was announced whereby Delaware North, the former concessionaire of Yosemite, agreed to relinquish its claimed ownership of park names and other intellectual property.
(SFC, 7/16/19, p.A1)
2019 Jul 15, In Maryland a Baltimore police officer was shot as well as a suspect at a drug treatment center.
(AP, 7/15/19)
2019 Jul 15, L. Bruce Laingen (96), the top American diplomat at the US Embassy in Tehran when it was overrun by Iranian protesters in 1979, died in Maryland. He was one of 52 Americans held hostage there for more than a year.
(AP, 7/18/19)
2019 Jul 15, Jerry Bausby (43) of Kansas City, Mo., was found guilty in the March 2016 death of his daughter, Daizsa Bausby (18). He was convicted of second-degree murder, sodomy, incest and sexual abuse.
(AP, 7/16/19)
2019 Jul 15, In Virginia James Fields Jr. (22), the white supremacist who killed Heather Heyer with his car in 2017 in Charlottesville, was sentenced to life in prison plus 419 years.
(SFC, 7/16/19, p.A5)
2019 Jul 15, It was reported that a new contraceptive vaginal ring prevents pregnancy for a year and allows women to have complete control over conception, according to a report that details the results of two clinical trials testing the safety and efficacy of the device.
(Reuters, 7/15/19)
2019 Jul 15, The Bank of England said mathematician Alan Turing, whose cracking of a Nazi code helped the Allies to win World War Two but who committed suicide after being convicted for homosexuality, will appear on the Bank of England's new 50-pound banknote.
(Reuters, 7/15/19)
2019 Jul 15, Civil disobedience group Extinction Rebellion staged protests in five British cities, aiming to renew pressure on the government to take bolder action to tackle climate change and slow the worldwide loss of plant and animal species.
(Reuters, 7/15/19)
2019 Jul 15, Walmart Chile said it would resume talks with a union of 17,000 workers who walked off the job last week amid a major push by the global retail giant to automate jobs and slash costs.
(Reuters, 7/15/19)
2019 Jul 15, China's Huawei Technologies said it would invest $3.1 billion in Italy over the next three years, as the Chinese telecoms giant called on Rome to ensure the "transparent, efficient and fair" use of its 'golden power' on 5G network development.
(Reuters, 7/15/19)
2019 Jul 15, European Union nations threw their diplomatic weight behind the unraveling Iran nuclear deal, trying to rescue the pact from collapsing under US pressure.
(AP, 7/15/19)
2019 Jul 15, German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen (60) said she is resigning from Chancellor Angela Merkel's Cabinet to focus on becoming the next head of the European Commission, the top job in the European Union.
(AP, 7/15/19)
2019 Jul 15, Bayer AG said US regulators approved Gadavist, its contrast agent for use in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), to assess patients with known or suspected coronary artery disease.
(Reuters, 7/15/19)
2019 Jul 15, German authorities shut down a busy stretch of highway A14 after a truck carrying 17 tons of cocoa caught fire.
(AP, 7/15/19)
2019 Jul 15, An Italian court in Bolzano found Mullah Krekar (63) guilty of attempting to overthrow the Kurdish government in northern Iraq and create an Islamic caliphate. Krekar, a refugee from Iraqi Kurdistan, has lived in Norway since 1991.
(AP, 7/18/19)
2019 Jul 15, Human Rights Watch said Kuwait has deported eight arrested Egyptian members of the Muslim Brotherhood group, convicted at home on terrorism charges.
(AP, 7/16/19)
2019 Jul 15, A delegation of three former Lebanese premiers asked Saudi Arabia for financial assistance to help shore up their country’s deteriorating finances ahead of a probable shift toward austerity.
(Bloomberg, 7/17/19)
2019 Jul 15, Police in Nepal said that 67 people had died as a result of the monsoonal rains that began last week.
(SFC, 7/16/19, p.A2)
2019 Jul 15, Palestinians denounced President Donald Trump's attack on US Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a Michigan Democrat, accusing him of racism and saying it once again proves his bias against the Palestinian people.
(AP, 7/15/19)
2019 Jul 15, The United Nations reported that more than 821 million people suffered from hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition worldwide last year. The number has risen now for the third year in a row.
(AFP, 7/15/19)
2019 Jul 15, The World Health Organization (WHO) warned that Ebola's arrival in eastern Congo's main city of Goma severely raises the risk of the virus spreading if it takes root in this metropolis near the border with Rwanda. Goma's first confirmed Ebola case was confirmed a day earlier.
(Reuters, 7/15/19)(SFC, 7/16/19, p.A4)
2019 Jul 15, Yemen's warring sides concluded an overnight meeting that discussed the redeployment of forces from the flashpoint port city of Hodeida.
(AP, 7/15/19)
2019 Jul 15, Zimbabwe data showed that prices of cooking oil and other basics soared as inflation nearly doubled in June, piling pressure on a population struggling with shortages and stirring memories of economic chaos a decade ago.
(Reuters, 7/15/19)
2020 Jul 15, The Trump administration imposed sanctions on companies connected to a Russian businessman who is close to Russian President Vladimir Putin and suspected of helping finance the covert social media campaign aimed at American voters ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
(AP, 7/15/20)
2020 Jul 15, It was reported that US Mail deliveries could be delayed by a day or more under cost-cutting efforts being imposed by the new postmaster general. The plan eliminates overtime for hundreds of thousands of postal workers and says employees must adopt a "different mindset" to ensure the Postal Service’s survival during the coronavirus pandemic.
(AP, 7/15/20)
2020 Jul 15, US Customs placed a detention order on imports of products made by subsidiaries of the world's largest medical glove maker, Malaysia's Top Glove Corp Bhd, an action taken against firms suspected of using forced labor.
(Reuters, 7/15/20)
2020 Jul 15, US authorities alleged in a lawsuit that former Gambian President Yahya Jammeh used bribery proceeds and stolen government funds to buy a mansion in a suburb of Washington, DC, as they sought to seize the property. Jammeh reportedly acquired at least 281 properties during his time in office and operated more than 100 private bank accounts directly or through companies or foundations in which he has shares or an interest.
(AP, 7/16/20)
2020 Jul 15, The US military accused Russian mercenaries fighting on the side of eastern Libya forces of planting land mines and improvised explosive devices in and around the Libyan capital, Tripoli.
(AP, 7/15/20)
2020 Jul 15, A US judge halted the execution of Wesley Ira Purkey (68), a man said to be suffering from dementia, who had been set to die by lethal injection in the federal government’s second execution after a 17-year hiatus. Purkey, convicted of a gruesome 1998 kidnapping and killing, was scheduled for execution this evening at the US Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana.
(AP, 7/15/20)
2020 Jul 15, A federal judge in California late today blocked a rollback by the Trump administration of a rule on slashing emissions of the powerful greenhouse gas methane from oil and gas operations on federal and tribal lands.
(Reuters, 7/16/20)
2020 Jul 15, California to date had 353,412 cases of coronavirus and 7,341 deaths. The SF Bay Area had 38,374 cases and 674 deaths. Total cases nationwide reached over 3,491,935 with the death toll at 137,277.
(sfist.com, 7/15/20)
2020 Jul 15, Fast-food staffers across Illinois and California filed complaints with city officials, walked from their jobs and staged strikes against quick service giants McDonald's and Burger King, demanding better treatment and proper workplace protections from the raging pandemic.
(Good Morning America, 7/16/20)
2020 Jul 15, Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp issued an executive order late today, which outright banned cities and counties in the state from issuing mask orders to help stop the spread of COVID-19.
(Good Morning America, 7/16/20)
2020 Jul 15, Atlanta teenager Julian Conley (19), suspected in the killing an 8-year-old girl near the Wendy's where Rayshard Brooks was killed by police last month, surrendered. Secoriea Turner, was shot to death while riding in a car with her mother and a friend on July 4. Conley's attorney said his client witnessed the shooting, but did not open fire himself.
(AP, 7/16/20)(SFC, 7/16/20, p.A4)
2020 Jul 15, A US judge sentenced former Honolulu police officer John Rabago (44), to four years in prison for forcing a homeless man to lick a public urinal, telling him to imagine someone doing that to his two young daughters.
(NBC News, 7/15/20)
2020 Jul 15, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt announced that he has tested positive for the coronavirus, weeks after attending a campaign rally for President Trump in Tulsa.
(Yahoo News, 7/15/20)
2020 Jul 15, It was reported that federal agents have seized more than 20 vehicles and the money from 10 bank accounts belonging to married US Army veterans in Texas, saying the pair used personal information stolen from soldiers to defraud the military out of as much as $11 million. Kevin Pelayo and Cristine Fredericks allegedly used a transportation reimbursement program for federal employees to swindle the Army out of $2.3 million to $11.3 million.
(AP, 7/16/20)
2020 Jul 15, Texas reported a record number of new COVID-19 cases and deaths with 10,791 new cases and 110 new fatalities. Texas has now 282,365 confirmed cases and 3,432 fatalities statewide.
(Good Morning America, 7/15/20)
2020 Jul 15, BD Corp. said the US government will buy Becton, Dickinson and Co's COVID-19 testing devices and kits, as it ramps up its testing for the virus that has been spreading at an alarming rate.
(Reuters, 7/15/20)
2020 Jul 15, Peacock, a US TV video streaming service, was launched by NBCUniversal, a part of the cable provider Comcast.
(Econ., 7/18/20, p.52)
2020 Jul 15, Tweets promising bitcoin rewards hit some of the platform's largest accounts this afternoon, rolling through some of the largest and most influential Twitter accounts. Big companies were hit as were major political and politics-adjacent figures. Twitter put out a statement promising to investigate and "fix it," and locked down the accounts of those impacted and restricted all verified accounts.
(Good Morning America, 7/16/20)
2020 Jul 15, The Financial Stability Board (FSB), an international body that coordinates regulation for the Group of 20 major economies, warned global financial system remains vulnerable to further liquidity stresses and a potential "sudden and sharp" market repricing as economies continue to reel from the COVID-19 pandemic. FSB chair Randal Quarles is also vice chair of the US Federal Reserve, which has taken a raft of measures to keep cheap money flowing and prop up ailing companies.
(Reuters, 7/15/20)
2020 Jul 15, A global review of published studies found that the death rate for COVID-19 intensive care patients has dropped by about one-third since the start of the pandemic, due at least in part to better hospital care.
(Reuters, 7/15/20)
2020 Jul 15, In Bulgaria thousands of mostly young people took to the streets for a seventh day to protest against the government, accusing it of corruption, authoritarian rule and dependence on criminal groups. PM Boyko Borissov's center-right government faced a vote of no-confidence brought by the left-wing opposition.
(SFC, 7/16/20, p.A2)
2020 Jul 15, China's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs said China is facing outbreaks of a debilitating virus in cattle that causes a condition called 'lumpy skin disease', following an incident on a farm in the eastern province of Zhejiang this week. Taiwan also reported its first case of the disease this month on Kinmen Island. The disease does not affect people and is thought to be spread by flies or mosquitoes.
(Reuters, 7/15/20)
2020 Jul 15, In Colombia Mario Paciolla (33), a UN volunteer from Naples, was found dead at his home in San Vicente de Caguán, a town in the southern jungle long used as a strategic rearguard for rebel groups and drug traffickers.
(The Guardian, 7/23/20)
2020 Jul 15, The European Union executive urged member states to launch earlier and broader vaccination campaigns against flu this year to reduce the risk of simultaneous influenza and COVID-19 outbreaks in the autumn.
(Reuters, 7/15/20)
2020 Jul 15, A European court overruled a 2016 decision that ordered Apple to pay $14.9 billion in unpaid taxes to Ireland.
(SFC, 7/16/20, p.C2)
2020 Jul 15, France's new PM Jean Castex laid out $110 billion in new spending to rescue the virus-battered economy from its worst crisis since World War II.
(SFC, 7/16/20, p.A6)
2020 Jul 15, It was reported that death threats in Guatemala have driven two anti-corruption prosecutors from the country in the past year, and their unit’s leader has a protective order from a regional human rights commission because he is constantly harassed and threatened.
(AP, 7/15/20)
2020 Jul 15, In Indonesia the death toll from a flash flood in South Sulawesi province rose to 21 with two people missing. The flooding began July 13 triggered by heavy rains that caused three rivers to overflow.
(SFC, 7/16/20, p.A2)
2020 Jul 15, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu announced a plan to distribute hundreds of dollars in grants to every Israeli in order to stimulate the country's sagging economy, days after thousands of people took to the streets to protest his handling of the coronavirus crisis.
(AP, 7/15/20)
2020 Jul 15, Mongolia's health ministry said a boy (15) has died of bubonic plague after eating an infected marmot in Gobi-Altai province.
(SFC, 7/16/20, p.A2)
2020 Jul 15, Peru's Pres. Martin Vizcarra reshuffled his cabinet, sacked the health minister and brought in Pedro Cateriano as prime minister as coronavirus cases passed 350,000 with at least 13,000 deaths.
(Econ., 7/25/20, p.24)
2020 Jul 15, An airstrike by a Saudi-led coalition killed at least 10 civilians, including six children and two women, in the mountainous northern Yemeni province of Jawf.
(AP, 7/15/20)
2020 Jul 15, International scientists released a study that found the greenhouse effect multiplied the chance of the Siberia region’s prolonged heat by at least 600 times, and maybe tens of thousands of times. They found that without climate change the type of prolonged heat that hit Siberia would happen once in 80,000 years, “effectively impossible without human influence".
(AP, 7/15/20)
2020 Jul 15, In Tunisia PM Elyes Fakhfakh (b.1972) resigned over allegations of conflict of interest.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elyes_Fakhfakh)(Econ., 8/15/20, p.41)
2020 Jul 15, The United Nations Security Council heard that up to 1.1 million barrels of oil could spill into the Red Sea causing a disaster four times worse than the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill. The Yemeni-government owned tanker, FSO Safer, started taking on water in May.
(NBC News, 7/16/20)
2020 Jul 15, It was reported that the United Nations has asked the Nicolas Maduro regime to dismantle criminal gangs running gold mines in Venezuela's Amazon region. Nearly 150 people are reported to have died in or around the gold mines from March 2016 to 2020. Venezuelan human rights and environmental groups have said that legal and illegal mining are rapidly decimating Venezuela's Amazon. A UN report on Venezuela cited documented cases of executions, torture and forced disappearances. Among the atrocities cited is the execution of 38 young men by Pres. Nicolas Maduro’s hit squads.
(The Independent, 7/15/20)(AP, 7/18/20)
2020 Jul 15, It was reported that coronavirus cases in Venezuela have jumped in recent weeks and two top lieutenants of President Nicolas Maduro have tested positive, triggering warnings from health workers that the pandemic may overwhelm the country's already battered healthcare system.
(AP, 7/15/20)
2020 Jul 15, Zimbabwe postponed the reopening of schools citing rising numbers of confirmed cases of COVID-19. New cases numbered 1,064 along with 20 deaths.
(SFC, 7/16/20, p.A6)
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668 Jul 15, Constantine II (37), emperor of Byzantium, died.
(MC, 7/15/02)
1099 Jul 15, Jerusalem fell to the crusaders who slaughtered the Jewish and Muslim inhabitants. The dead numbered about 3,000.
(V.D.-H.K.p.109)(HN, 7/15/98)(SSFC, 4/13/03, p.E3)
1174 Jul 15, Baldwin (13), son of Amalric I, was crowned Baldwin IV, king of Jerusalem.
(ON, 6/07, p.5)
1205 Jul 15, Pope Innocent III decreed that the Jews were doomed to perpetual servitude and subjugation due to crucifixion of Jesus.
(MC, 7/15/02)
1410 Jul 15, Lithuanian-Polish forces defeated the Teutonic Knights at the Battle of Tannenberg, Prussia, thereby halting the Knights’ eastward expansion along the Baltic and hastening their decline. Vytautas and Jogaila with hired mercenaries from Belarus along with Tartars and Czechs defeated the Teutonic Knights between Grunvald (Zalgiriai) and Tannenberg southeast of Malburg. Grand Master Ulrich von Jungingen and many of his nobles were killed. The war officially ended with the Treaty of Thorn in which the Knights gave up Zemaitija to Vytautas.
(COE)(H of L, 1931, p.52)(DrEE, 11/9/96, p.6)
1471 Jul 15, Eskender (d.1494), Emperor of Ethiopia, was born. Eskender was killed at age 22 fighting the Maya, a vanished ethnic group known for using poisoned arrows.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eskender)
1542 Jul 15, In 2007 an expert on the "Mona Lisa" says he had ascertained with certainty that Lisa Gherardini (b.1479), the symbol of feminine mystique, died on this day, and was buried at the Sant'Orsola convent in central Florence where she spent her final days.
(AFP, 1/19/07)
1573 Jul 15, Inigo Jones (d.1652), father of English classical architecture, was born in London. He restored St. Paul's Cathedral.
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.14)(MC, 7/15/02)
1606 Jul 15, The painter Rembrandt (d.1669) Harmenszoom van Rizn (Rijn), was born in Leiden, Netherlands. His paintings included "Old Woman Cutting Her Nails," "Night Watch," "Self Portrait Leaning Forward" (1628), "Two Studies of Saskia Asleep" (1635-1637), "Jupiter and Antiope" (1659) and "Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of Homer." He started making etchings in the 1620s when the medium was barely a 100 years old.
(WSJ, 10/1/96, p.A20)(SFC, 10/12/96, p.E3)(SFC, 5/17/97, p.E1)(AP, 7/15/97)
1609 Jul 15, Annibale Carracci (b.1560), Italian Baroque painter, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annibale_Carracci)
1663 Jul 15, King Charles II of England granted John Clarke a charter for the colony of Rhode Island guaranteeing freedom of worship. He granted the charter giving the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations an elected governor and legislature. Roger Williams (1603-1683) authored the Rhode Island and Providence Plantation Charter, which stated that religion and conscience should never be restrained by civil supremacy.
(http://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/ri04.asp)(AH, 4/07, p.21)
1685 Jul 15, James Scott, the Duke of Monmouth and illegitimate son of Charles II, was executed on Tower Hill in England, after his army was defeated at Sedgemoor.
(HN, 7/15/98)(MC, 7/15/02)
1700 Jul 15, Johann Christoph Richter, composer, was born.
(MC, 7/15/02)
1741 Jul 15, George Steller, an observer with Vitus Bering (1680-1741), claimed to see the American mainland (Alaska). Bering, a Danish-born mariner, was on an exploratory mission on behalf of Russia.
(WSJ, 9/12/00, p.A24)(SFEC, 3/23/97, p.T5)(ON, 2/06, p.2)
1779 Jul 15, Clement Moore, founder of the General Theological Seminary in New York City, was born.
(HN, 7/15/98)
1782 Jul 15, Farinelli (77), Italian castrato, died.
(MC, 7/15/02)
1788 Jul 15, Louis XVI jailed 12 deputies who protest new judicial reforms.
(HN, 7/15/98)
1789 Jul 15, The electors of Paris set up a "Commune" to live without the authority of the government.
(HN, 7/15/98)
1796 Jul 15, Thomas Bulfinch, historian and mythologist (The Age of Fable), was born.
(HN, 7/15/01)
1801 Jul 15, Pope Pius VII and Napoleon signed the Concordat of 1801 brokering religious peace with Rome and granting equality to Jews. It solidified the Roman Catholic Church as the majority church of France and brought back most of its civil status.
(Econ, 10/18/14, p.18)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concordat_of_1801)
1806 Jul 15, Lieutenant Zebulon Pike began his famous western expedition from Fort Belle Fountaine, near St. Louis, Missouri. Pike was the US Army officer who in 1805 led an exploring party in search of the source of the Mississippi River.
(HN, 7/15/99)(MC, 7/15/02)
1813 Jul 15, Napoleon Bonaparte's representatives met with the Allies in Prague to discuss peace terms.
(HN, 7/15/98)
1815 Jul 15, Napoleon Bonaparte was captured by the British Navy at Rochefort, France, while attempting to escape to America.
(ON, 4/06, p.5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon)
1830 Jul 15, 3 Indian tribes, Sioux, Sauk & Fox, signed a treaty giving the US most of Minnesota, Iowa & Missouri.
(MC, 7/15/02)
1834 Jul 15, Lord Napier of England arrived at Macao, China as the first chief superintendent of trade.
(HN, 7/15/98)
1836 Jul 15, William Winter, drama critic and essayist for The New York Times, was born.
(HN, 7/15/98)
1849 Jul 15, A Chilean tent community at the foot of Telegraph Hill, composed of some 700 miners, was assaulted by the lawless Society of Hounds street gang. Sam Roberts led the rampage and violent raid on the Little Chile tent community. The Hounds had specialized in “patriotic" assaults on Chileans. In response Sam Brannan call on volunteers to drive the Hounds out of town. A vigilante force of some 230 men rounded up 20 Hounds and imprisoned them on a warship. Popular justice brought 9 Hound members to court and sentenced them to a decade of hard labor. The Chilecito community stayed vibrant throughout the 1860s.
(SSFC, 1/5/03, p.A24)(SFC, 6/1/13, p.C2)(SFC, 12/28/13, p.C2)
1850 Jul 15, Mother Francis Xavier Cabrini, the first American canonized saint, was born.
(HN, 7/15/98)
1855 Jul 15, In San Francisco St. Ignatius Church on Market St. was dedicated by Archbishop Alemany. The simple wood and plaster structure cost $4,000. Anthony Maraschi, SJ, soon began construction for a school and residence.
(GenIV, Winter 04/05)
1857 Jul 15, British women and children were murdered in the second Cawnpore Massacre during the Indian Mutiny.
(HN, 7/15/98)
1857 Jul 15, Carl Czerny (66), Austrian pianist, composer, died.
(MC, 7/15/02)
1862 Jul 15, Lt. Isaac Brown took the Confederate ironclad C.S.S. Arkansas into the Mississippi River and engaged 3 Union ships near Vicksburg. The CSS Arkansas vs. USS Carondelet and Queen of the West engaged at Yazoo River.
(ON, 10/02, p.12)(MC, 7/15/02)
1863 Jul 15, Confederate raider Bill Anderson and his Bushwackers attacked Huntsville, Missouri, stealing $45,000 from the local bank.
(HN, 7/15/99)
1868 Jul 15, William Thomas Morton (b.1819), dentist, died in NYC. He was responsible for the first successful public demonstration of ether as an inhalation anesthetic. Morton's accomplishment was the key factor to the medical and scientific pursuit that we now refer to as anesthesiology.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Thomas_Green_Morton)
1868 Jul 15, The Torrent sank in Alaska’s Cook Inlet after tidal currents, among the world's most powerful, rammed it into a reef south of the Kenai Peninsula. About 130 Army soldiers had come north on the Torrent to build the first US military fort in south-central Alaska. About 20 sailors and 15 of the soldiers wives and children were also on board. All 155 people on board survived. Remnants of the wreckage were found in 2007.
(AP, 10/8/07)(www.adn.com/life/story/9364436p-9278126c.html)
1869 Jul 15, Margarine was patented by Hippolye Mega-Mouriss for use by French Navy.
(MC, 7/15/02)
1870 Jul 15, Georgia became the last of the Confederate states to be admitted to the Union.
(AP, 7/15/97)
1870 Jul 15, Manitoba entered confederation as the fifth Canadian province.
(AP, 7/15/07)
1883 Jul 15, Tom Thumb (44), famous small person (40"), died of a stroke.
(MC, 7/15/02)
1895 Jul 15, Ex-prime minister of Bulgaria Stephen Stambulov was murdered by Macedonian rebels.
(HN, 7/15/98)
1895 Jul 15, Stephen Stambulov, ex-prime minister of Bulgaria was murdered by Macedonian rebels.
(HN, 7/15/98)
1897 Jul 15, The gold-laden ship Excelsior from Alaska landed in San Francisco. Seattle mayor W.D. Wood was visiting and immediately resigned his job, hired a ship, and organized an expedition from SF to the Yukon territory.
(WSJ, 7/17/97, p.A20)
1897 Jul 15, W. Sheldon of NY patented a seed counter for retail seed sales.
(SFC, 4/13/05, p.G4)
1901 Jul 15, Over 74,000 Pittsburgh steel workers went on strike.
(HN, 7/15/98)
1904 Jul 15, Dorothy Fields, songwriter, was born.
(HN, 7/15/01)
1904 Jul 15, Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (44), Russian writer (Uncle Vanya), died of tuberculosis. Chekhov wrote his play "The Cherry Orchard" in this year. In 1998 Donald Rayfield published "Anton Chekhov: A Life." An assay of his plays was written by Maurice Vallency: "The Breaking string." Vladimir Nabokov examined his short stories in "Lectures on Russian Literature." In 1988 V.S. Pritchett wrote a biography. In 1998 Philip Callow published "Chekhov: The Hidden Ground," and Donald Rayfield published "Anton Chekhov: A Life." In 1999 Peter Constantine translated and published "Undiscovered Chekhov: Thirty-Eight New Stories."
(WUD, 1994, p.252)(WSJ, 11/5/97, p.A20)(WSJ, 3/9/98, p.A16)(SFEC, 5/31/98, p.8)(SFEC, 2/14/99, BR p.6)(MC, 7/15/02)
1906 Jul 15, Richard W. Armour, humorist, author of "Twisted Tales from Shakespeare," was born.
(HN, 7/15/98)
1907 Jul 15, The London Electrobus Company began picking up passengers in the world’s biggest trials of battery-powered buses. The service collapsed in 1909. It suffered from an investment scam led by Baron de Martigny, a Canadian music-hall artist, the front man for Edward Lehwess, a German lawyer and con-artist. In 1906 Lehwess had sold the company a worthless patent that caused investors to demand the return of some 80,000 pounds.
(Econ, 9/8/07, TQ p.10)
1912 Jul 15, British National Health Insurance Act went into effect.
(MC, 7/15/02)
1913 Jul 15, Hammond Innes, English novelist, was born.
(HN, 7/15/01)
1914 Jul 15, Gavin Maxwell, Scottish writer and naturalist (Ring of Bright Water), was born.
(HN, 7/15/01)
1914 Jul 15, Mexican president Huerta fled with 2 million pesos to Europe.
(MC, 7/15/02)
1916 Jul 15, The Boeing Co., originally known as Pacific Aero Products, was founded in Seattle by William Boeing.
(AP, 7/15/97)
1916 Jul 15, A series of engagements in the Battle of the Somme began at Delville Wood and continued to September 3 between the armies of the German Empire and the British Empire. A brigade of South Africans held the wood until 19 July at a cost of four-fifths of its men injured or killed.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Delville_Wood)(Econ, 8/2/14, p.46)
1917 Jul 15, Robert Conquest, English author (Back to Life), was born.
(MC, 7/15/02)
1918 Jul 15, The Second Battle of the Marne began during World War I.
(AP, 7/15/97)
1919 Jul 15, Iris Murdoch (d.1999), philosopher-novelist, was born in Dublin. She wrote 28 novels and in 1998 published "Existentialists and Mystics," a collection of writings from 1950 to the 1980s. Herein she tried to "recover the moral dimension of art."
(WSJ, 2/17/98, p.A20)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iris_Murdoch)(SFC, 2/9/99, p.A20)
1922 Jul 15, 1st duck-billed platypus was publicly exhibited in US at a NY zoo.
(MC, 7/15/02)
1929 Jul 15, Hugo Von Hofmannsthal, playwright, poet, died.
(MC, 7/15/02)
1933 Jul 15, Julian Bream, guitarist, was born.
(MC, 7/15/02)
1933 Jul 15, Wiley Post began the 1st solo flight around world.
(MC, 7/15/02)(ON, 12/03, p.12)
1941 Jul 15, Florey and Heatley presented freeze dried mold cultures (Penicillin).
(MC, 7/15/02)
1942 Jul 15, A group of 19 merchant ships were being escorted by the US Navy and Coast Guard from Norfolk, Va., to Key West, Fla., to deliver cargo for the war effort. En route Convoy KS-520 was attacked by the German U-576 off of Cape Hatteras near North Carolina. The German submarine damaged two ships and sank Bluefields. In retaliation, a US naval aircraft bombed the U-576. The two ships sank to the ocean floor 30 miles off the cape. All 45 members of U-576 were lost. Wreckage of the two ships was found on Aug 30, 2014.
(www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2014/20141021_ww11_vessels.html)
1942 Jul 15, The first supply flight from India to China over the 'Hump' was flown to help China's war effort.
(HN, 7/15/99)
1944 Jul 15, In Amsterdam Anne Frank (1929-1945) entered this in her diary: "In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart." In 1998 5 additional pages to her diary were reported. She died of typhoid in the spring of 1945 at the Bergen-Belson concentration camp.
(AP, 8/4/98)(SFC, 8/19/98, p.A16)
1944 Jul 15, Greenwich Observatory was damaged by German V1 rocket.
(MC, 7/15/02)
1946 Jul 15, Linda Ronstadt (singer: group: The Stone Poneys: Different Drum; solo: Blue Bayou, You're No Good, When Will I Be Loved, It's So Easy, Ooh Baby Baby, Hurt So Bad; actress: Pirates of Penzance), was born in Tucson, Arizona.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linda_Ronstadt)
1947 Jul 15, Convertibility of British sterling into US dollars, negotiated as part of a $5 billion US loan to Britain in 1946, came into effect. It caused an immediate run on the pound and was abandoned on August 20.
(WSJ, 6/20/08, p.A11)
1948 Jul 15, President Truman was nominated for another term of office by the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.
(AP, 7/15/97)
1948 Jul 15, John J. Pershing (87), [Black Jack], US general (Mexico, WW I), died.
(MC, 7/15/02)
1949 Jul 15, The Dusseldorf guidelines shaped the principles of West Germany's "social market" economy.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_market_economy)(Econ., 1/16/21, p.40)
1952 Jul 15, Jesse Ventura, [James Janos], wrestler, actor, politician (MN Governor), was born.
(MC, 7/15/02)
1953 Jul 15, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, president of Haiti (1991, 1994-1995), was born.
(MC, 7/15/02)
1953 Jul 15, Eugenio Balzan (b.1874), Italian journalist, died in Lugano. In 1933 he moved to Switzerland, living in Zurich and Lugano, where he invested his fortune with success. He left a substantial inheritance to his daughter Angela Lina Balzan (1892–1956), who at the time was suffering an incurable disease. Before her death, she left instructions for a foundation, the Balzan Prize Foundation. Since then it has two headquarters, the Prize administered from Milan, the Fund from Zurich.
(AP, 9/6/10)(www.balzan.org/en/history_1698.html)
1954 Jul 15, The Boeing “Dash 80," a prototype of the 707, made its first test flight.
(NPub, 2002, p.17)
1957 Jul 15, James M. Cox (b.1870), 3-time Ohio governor and founder of Cox Enterprises, died. Cox was defeated in the 1920 Presidential Election by fellow Ohioan Senator Warren G. Harding of Marion, Ohio. He left his family a business that included broadcast properties and a string of newspapers.
(WSJ, 6/2/07, p.A5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_M._Cox)
1958 Jul 15, President Eisenhower ordered 5,000 US Marines to Lebanon, at the request of that country’s president, Camille Chamoun, in the face of a perceived threat by Muslim rebels, to help end a short-lived civil war. Eisenhower justified his decision to send troops to the region on the basis that it was the "birthplace of three great religions," as well as having "two-thirds of the presently known oil deposits."
(SFEC, 4/13/97, p.T8)(AP, 7/15/98)(HN, 7/15/98)(Econ, 4/25/20, p.22)
1960 Jul 15, John F. Kennedy accepted the Democratic nomination for president of the United States.
(HN, 7/15/98)
1960 Jul 15, Lawrence Mervil Tibbett (63), baritone, died after surgery.
(MC, 7/15/02)
1961 Jul 15, Spain accepted equal rights for men and women.
(MC, 7/15/02)
1964 Jul 15, The Republican National Convention was held at the Cow Palace in Daly City, Ca. It elected Barry Goldwater as its presidential candidate. John Chancellor was ejected from the convention for blocking an aisle during a demonstration by the delegates.
(SFC, 7/13/96, p.A5)(WSJ, 8/5/96, p.A10)(AP, 7/15/97)
1965 Jul 15, US scientists displayed close-up photographs of the planet Mars taken by "Mariner Four." It passed over Mars at an altitude of 6,000 feet.
(AP, 7/15/00)
1967 Jul 15, In Alaska a major blizzard caught 7 climbers high on Mount McKinley (Denali). Five of 12 climbers managed to reach safety, but 7 were caught and froze to death. In 2007 James M. Tabor’s: “Forever on the Mountain: The Truth Behind One of Mountaineering's Most Controversial and Mysterious Disasters," was published.
(WSJ, 1/17/07, p.D6)
1968 Jul 15, The TV soap opera “One Life to Live" premiered. Its final episode was scheduled in the Fall of 2011.
(SFC, 4/15/11, p.F2)(www.ovguide.com/tv/one_life_to_live.htm)
1968 Jul 15, Commercial air travel began between US & USSR.
(www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1968/1968%20-%201275.html)
1968 Jul 15, Intel was founded. Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore had left Fairchild Semiconductor to form NM Electronics in Mountain View, Ca. In 1997 Tim Jackson published "Inside Intel: Andrew Grove and the Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Chip Company." Grove (1936-2016) joined Intel in this year as its first employee and became its president in 1979. They bought the rights to the name Intel from Intelco for $15,000.
(SFEC, 10/26/97, BR p.3)(SFEC, 12/21/97, p.A2)(SFC, 10/11/00, p.A6)(SFC, 7/16/03, p.B1)(Econ, 3/26/15, p.75)
1970 Jul 15, Frederik Lugt (b.1884), Dutch founder of the Fondation Custodia (1947), died in Paris. The foundation, which he founded with his wife, kept intact his collection of Old Master drawings at the Institut Neederlandais, the Dutch cultural center in Paris.
(Econ, 2/13/10, p.86)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frits_Lugt)
1971 Jul 15, President Nixon announced he would visit the People's Republic of China to seek a "normalization of relations."
(AP, 7/15/97)
1971 Jul 15, Seventeen UN members requested that a question of the "Restoration of the lawful rights of the People's Republic of China in the United Nations" be placed on the provisional agenda of the twenty-sixth session of the UN General Assembly.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_and_the_United_Nations)
1974 Jul 15, A military coup took place on Cyprus and archbishop-president Makarios fled. Nikos Giorgiades Sampson (d.2001 at 66) served as president for 8 days following the military coup that overthrew Archbishop Makarios. PM Bulent Ecevit ordered Turkish troops to invade Cyprus following the Greek Cypriot coup.
(www.cyprus-conflict.net/Greek%20v%20Turk%20narr%20-%201974.htm)
1975 Jul 15, Three American astronauts blasted off aboard an Apollo spaceship hours after two Soviet cosmonauts were launched aboard a Soyuz spacecraft for a mission that included a linkup of the two ships in orbit.
(AP, 7/15/97)
1976 Jul 15, School Children in Chowchilla, CA. were kidnapped by 3 young men, Richard (22) and James Schoenfeld (24) and Newhall Woods (24). The 26 children were herded into a moving van that was buried in a quarry near Livermore, Ca. and held for $5 million ransom. The children escaped after 16 hours and their captors were captured within 2 weeks. The men were sentenced to life in prison.
(SFC, 7/14/96, Z1 p.1)(AP, 7/15/97)
1976 Jul 15, Indonesia passed a law providing for annexation of East Timor, which the President of Indonesia signed on 17 July. East Timor became the 27th province of the Republic of Indonesia. The act was not recognized by the UN.
(G&M, 1/31/96, p.A-9)(www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/timor-bkg.htm)
1978 Jul 15, President Carter, in West Germany for an economic summit, presided over a "town meeting" during which he fielded questions from about 1,000 Berliners.
(AP, 7/15/04)
1978 Jul 15, Bob Dylan performed before some 200,000 fans at Blackbushe Airport, England, in the largest open-air concert audience at the time (for a single artist).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackbushe_Airport)
1979 Jul 15, President Carter delivered his "malaise" speech in which he lamented what he called a "crisis of confidence" in America.
(AP, 7/15/97)
1983 Jun 15, The US Supreme Court struck down state & local restrictions on abortion.
(www.rtl.org/html/hot_topics_html/supreme_court_decisions.html)
1983 Jul 15, In France a bomb explodes in front of the THY counter at Orly airport. 8 people were killed and more than sixty injured. A 29 years old Syrian-Armenian named Varadjian Garbidjian (d.2019) confessed to having planted the bomb. He admitted that the bomb was intended to have exploded once the plane was airborne. Karapetian (d.2019), who headed the French branch of the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia, later confessed to paying a passenger to check a bomb-carrying bag for him onto a Turkish Airlines flight, claiming he had too much luggage himself. Karapetian was sentenced to life imprisonment in France, but was released in 2001 on condition of his being deported to Armenia.
(http://armenians-1915.blogspot.com/2006/12/1273-this-month-in-history-armenian.html)(AP, 1/29/19)
1985 Jul 15, A gaunt-looking Rock Hudson appeared at a news conference with actress Doris Day to promote her cable television program. It was later revealed Hudson was suffering from AIDS.
(AP, 7/15/99)
1987 Jul 15, Former National Security Adviser John Poindexter testified at the Iran-Contra hearings that he had never told President Reagan about using Iranian arms sales money for the Contras in order to protect the president from possible political embarrassment.
(AP, 7/15/97)
1987 Jul 15, Izzatullah Wasifi (29) was arrested at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas for selling 650 grams (23 ounces) of heroin. Prosecutors said the drugs were worth $2 million on the street. Wasifi served three years and eight months in prison before winning parole. In 2007 Wasifi, a long time friend of Afghan Pres. Hamid Karzai, was appointed as general-director of Afghanistan’s General Independent Administration of Anti-Corruption and Bribery.
(AP, 3/9/07)
1987 Jul 15, In South Africa Ashley Kriel, an anti-apartheid activist was killed. Police officer Jeffrey Benzien later confessed to the killing and was absolved by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 1999.
(SFC, 2/19/99, p.B12)(www.doj.gov.za/trc/decisions/1999/99_benzien.html)
1987 Jul 15, Taiwan Pres. Chiang Ching-Kuo, son of Chiang Kai-Shek, ended 37 years of martial law. Official records state later showed that around 140,000 people were tried by military courts from 1949 to 1975 under Chiang's nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) government and as many as 8,000 executed.
(www.gio.gov.tw/taiwan-website/5-gp/rights/politics_01.htm)(SFC, 6/9/97, p.A8)(SFC, 6/10/97, p.A8)(AFP, 10/5/18)
1988 Jul 15, The leadership of the Teamsters Union chose William J. McCarthy to fill out the remaining term of the late Jackie Presser as president, narrowly rejecting Secretary-Treasurer Weldon Mathis, Presser's hand-picked successor.
(AP, 7/15/98)
1989 Jul 15, Leaders of the seven major industrial democracies, meeting in Paris, voiced support for democracy behind the Iron Curtain and condemned repression in China.
(AP, 7/15/99)
1990 Jul 15, Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev and visiting West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl held talks on the issue of a united Germany’s membership in NATO.
(AP, 7/15/00)
1990 Jul 15, East Germany opened its borders fully to Jews from the former Soviet republics.
(Econ, 5/7/05, p.48)
1990 Jul 15, Tens of thousands of people marched in Moscow to protest the Communist Party’s control of the government, the army and the KGB.
(AP, 7/15/00)
1991 Jul 15, Group of Seven leaders opened their 17th annual economic summit in London, plunging into debate over aid to the Soviet Union.
(AP, 7/15/01)
1991 Jul 15, Actor and game-show host Bernard Whalen Convy (57) died in Los Angeles, Ca., of a brain tumor. Early in his career, Convy was a member of a singing trio named the Cheers. Their “Black Denim Trousers" was a top-ten hit (1955). He was born July 23, 1933 in St. Louis, Missouri.
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0176622/)
1992 Jul 15, Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton claimed the Democratic presidential nomination at the party's convention in New York City.
(AP, 7/15/97)
1993 Jul 15, Authorities in Los Angeles announced eight arrests in connection with an alleged plot by white supremacists to ignite a race war by bombing a black church and killing prominent black Americans. Christopher Fisher, leader of the Fourth Reich Skinheads, was later sentenced to more than 8 years in federal prison while defendant Carl Daniel Boese was sentenced to nearly 5 years in prison; both had pleaded guilty to arson and conspiracy charges.
(AP, 7/15/03)
1994 Jul 15, During a baseball game between the Cleveland Indians and the Chicago White Sox in Chicago's Comiskey Park, umpire Dave Phillips ordered the bat of Albert Belle of the Indians to be removed from the game for later examination for illegal cork. The bat was then stolen by pitcher Jason Grimsley, who crawled through air ducts to take it. The Indians won the game 3-2 and later returned the bat under umpire threats and Belle was given a 10-game suspension that was reduced to 7 games.
(SFEC, 4/11/99, p.A3)
1994 Jul 15, Microsoft Corp. reached a settlement with the Justice Department, promising to end practices it used to corner the market for personal computer software programs. In a consent decree with the Justice Dept. Microsoft agreed to change contracts with PC makers and other software companies ending the government's antitrust investigation.
(AP, 7/15/99)(WSJ, 4/4/00, p.A16)
1994 Jul 15, In Hungary Gyula Horn, president of the Socialist Party, began serving as prime minister.
(AP, 6/20/13)
1995 Jul 15, A 19-year-old sales clerk was rescued after being buried in the rubble of a collapsed shopping mall in Seoul, South Korea, for 16 days.
(AP, 7/15/00)
1996 Jul 15, Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole picked New York congresswoman Susan Molinari to deliver the keynote address at the upcoming GOP convention.
(AP, 7/15/97)
1996 Jul 15, Arkansas Gov. Guy Tucker stepped down following a felony conviction in the Whitewater scandal. Lt. Gov. Mike Huckabee became governor.
(WSJ, 1/2/97, p.R2)(Econ, 2/3/07, p.33)
1996 Jul 15, The stock market took a tumble. The Nasdaq index dropped 43.11 points, its 2nd largest decline since 10/19/87 when it dropped 46.12 points.
(SFC, 7/16/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 15 MSNBC, a 24-hour all-news network, made its debut on cable and the Internet.
(AP, 7/15/97)
1996 Jul 15, An Algerian court sentenced 128 Muslim militants to death in absentia for their involvement in guerilla activities. Another 67 were sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment.
(SFC, 7/16/96, p.A7)
1996 Jul 15, A Belgian plane, Lockheed C-130, crashed during landing in the Netherlands and killed 32 people.
(WSJ, 7/16/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 15, In India 58 Hindu pilgrims died in stampedes during religious festivals at Ujjain, 465 miles south of New Delhi, and Hardwar, 125 miles north.
(WSJ, 7/16/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 15, In Israel/Palestine 135,000 Jewish settlers live in the West Bank and 5,000 live in Gaza. About 160,000 Israelis live in east Jerusalem, captured from Jordan in 1967 and then annexed. New settlements were being planned.
(SFC, 7/15/96, p.A10)
1996 Jul 15, In Nicaragua 6 soldiers were killed and one injured in an ambush in central Matagalpa province.
(SFC, 7/16/96, p.A7)
1997 Jul 15, Marine biologists diving from the Johnson Sea Link in the Gulf of Mexico discovered what appeared to be a new species of worm of the family polychaetes. The worms lived on top of frozen mounds of gas hydrates.
(SFC, 7/30/97, p.A11)
1997 Jul 15, Gianni Versace, Italian fashion designer, was shot to death outside his home in Miami Beach, Fla. Police searched for Andrew Philip Cunanan, 27, of San Diego as the primary suspect. Suspected serial killer Andrew Phillip Cunanan, was found dead eight days later. In 1999 Maureen Orth authored "Vulgar Favors: Andrew Cunanan, Gianni Versace and the Largest Failed Manhunt in US History."
(SFC, 7/17/97, p.A1)(AP, 7/15/98)(SFEC, 3/28/99, p.D9)
1997 Jul 15, In Algeria Abassi Madani, former leader of the Islamic Salvation Front, was released after serving 5 years of a 12 year sentence.
(SFC, 7/16/97, p.C12)
1997 Jul 15, In Algeria a court condemned 24 Muslim militants to death for their involvement in guerrilla activities.
(SFC, 7/16/97, p.A10)
1997 Jul 15-1997 Jul 20, In Colombia a right-wing death squad under Carlos Castano killed at least 49 suspected guerrilla sympathizers in Mapiripan, Meta province. In 1998 2 army sergeants, Juan Carlos Gamarra and Jose Miller Urena, were linked to the massacre. In 2001 Gen. Jaime Humberto Uscategui was given a 40-month sentence for failing to defend the town. In 2009 a court convicted Uscategui of murder and sentenced him to 40 years in prison for his role in the notorious massacre.
(SFC, 2/14/98, p.A8)(SFC, 7/11/98, p.A11)(SFC, 2/14/01, p.A16)(http://tinyurl.com/coyuh)(AP, 11/26/09)
1997 Jul 15, The Czech trade deficit was labeled as the largest in the world relative to its economy.
(SFC, 7/16/97, p.A1)
1997 Jul 15, In Liberia pres. candidate Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf (58), a banker and UN official, led a women’s solidarity march. She had recently emerged as the leading rival of warlord Charles Taylor.
(SFC, 7/16/97, p.A9)(SFC, 7/19/97, p.A9)
1997 Jul 15, In Northern Ireland pro-British militants shot and killed Bernadette Martin while she slept beside her Protestant boyfriend.
(SFEC,10/26/97, p.A20)
1997 Jul 15, In Serbia Slobodan Milosevic was elected president of the Yugoslav federation in a vote that opposition parties said was illegal.
(SFC, 7/16/97, p.C12)
1997 Jul 15, Eastern Slavonia was scheduled to be handed over to Croatian authorities. It had been seized by the Serbs in 1991. [see Jan 15, 1998]
(SFC, 1/22/96, p.C1)
1998 Jul 15, The Congressional Budget Office estimated federal surpluses of $1.55 trillion over the next decade.
(AP, 7/15/99)
1998 Jul 15, Direct flights between the US and Cuba resumed after 2 years. US authorities expanded a "security zone" to include most of the Florida coast to prevent anti-Castro protestors from entering Cuban waters.
(SFC, 7/16/98, p.A10)
1998 cJul 15, Richard Butler, chief of UNSCOM, ordered Scott Ritter in mid-July to place a listening device in Baghdad to enable the Americans to eavesdrop on Saddam Hussein.
(SFEC, 1/10/99, p.A24)
1998 Jul 15, A letter, supposedly written by Jo Byong Ho, a North Korean official, was said to be addressed to Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan. It said that the chief of the Pakistani Army, Gen. Jehangir Karamat, had been paid $3 million and asked that “agreed documents and components" be placed on a North Korean plane after delivering missile parts to Pakistan. The evidence suggested that Pakistan’s top military officials were involved in the secret sale of equipment to North Korea that enabled it to begin enriching uranium.
(SFC, 7/8/11, p.A4)
1998 Jul 15, Three days of ceremonies to bury Russia's last czar and his family, who were killed by the Bolsheviks, began in the city of Yekaterinburg.
(AP, 7/15/99)
1998 Jul 15, Sudanese rebels declared a 3 month cease fire to allow food shipments to reach hundreds of thousands hungry people in the southwest.
(WSJ, 7/16/98, p.A1)
1998 Jul 15, It was reported that Sweden’s highest administrative court ruled that anyone can read “sacred documents" of the Church of Scientology. 150 confidential pages of the “sacred documents" were restricted to only some 350 of 8 million Scientologists. Copies were given to the Swedish parliament by a Church enemy and made public. Scientology asserts, and the US agrees, that copyright was violated. The case may wind up in the European Court of Justice.
(SFC, 7/15/98, p.A8)(http://tinyurl.com/oq3lr)
1999 Jul 15, The Seattle Mariners played their first game in their new home, Safeco Field, losing to the San Diego Padres, 3-to-2.
(AP, 7/15/00)
1999 Jul 15, The Clinton administration conceded that workers exposed to beryllium deserved compensation for induced beryllium disease. Some 26,000 workers had been exposed over the last 50 years and there were an estimated 500 to 1000 cases of the disease.
(SFC, 7/16/99, p.A5)
1999 Jul 15, The US House voted to give Congress a pay raise of $4,600 in January and to double the next president's salary to $400,000.
(WSJ, 7/16/99, p.A1)
1999 Jul 15, The Religious Liberty Protection Act was signed by 107 House Democrats and 199 Republicans. It said local and state officials must bend their rules to accommodate religious claims.
(SFC, 8/14/99, p.C14)
1999 Jul 15, Pres. Clinton met with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak for the beginning of 5 days of talks.
(SFC, 7/16/99, p.A10)
1999 Jul 15, In Indonesia final election results showed Megawati's PDI-P party winning 34% of 122 million votes with Golgar at 22%.
(SFC, 7/16/99, p.A10)
2000 Jul 15, Lennox Lewis stopped Francois Botha at 2:39 of the second round to retain his WBC and IBF heavyweight titles in London.
(AP, 7/15/01)
2000 Jul 15, Former Rhode Island governor and longtime US senator John O. Pastore died at age 93.
(AP, 7/15/01)
2000 Jul 15, From China it was reported that an attack force of 700,000 ducks and chickens, trained to hunt and eat insects at the sound of a whistle, were placed in the locust-plagued fields of Xinjiang province.
(SFC, 7/15/00, p.A24)
2000 Jul 15, In Colombia 13 police officers were executed by rebels following their surrender to a missile attack in Roncesvalles.
(SFC, 7/17/00, p.A13)
2000 Jul 15, Iran test-fired an upgraded version of its 800-mil range, Shabab-3 missile.
(SFEC, 7/16/00, p.B9)
2000 Jul 15, In Sierra Leone UN troops freed 222 Indian peacekeepers and 11 military observers held by rebels since May 1. One Indian peacekeeper was killed and 7 others injured.
(SFEC, 7/16/00, p.B9)(SFC, 7/18/00, p.A12)
2001 Jul 15, In Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina left office. Pres. Shahabuddin Ahmad appointed Latifur Rahman to head a caretaker administration. At least 4 people were killed in street clashes.
(SFC, 7/16/01, p.A9)
2001 Jul 15, China's President Jiang Zemin arrived in Russia to sign a friendship treaty, the first between the former Communist rivals in more than 50 years.
(SFC, 7/16/01, p.A9)(AP, 7/14/02)
2001 Jul 15, In Colombia FARC guerrillas kidnapped Alam Jara, former governor of Meta state.
(SFC, 7/17/01, p.A7)
2001 Jul 15, In Israel PM Sharon and his Cabinet decided to build new towns in the Halutza Sands region of the Negev Desert. Shimon Peres met with Arafat in Cairo and a gun battle in Hebron left 20 Palestinians wounded.
(SFC, 7/16/01, p.A8)
2001 Jul 15, Gen. Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan met with PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee and talked on issues including, Kashmir, trade, terrorism and nuclear safeguards. They also agreed to continue discussions for a 2nd day.
(SFC, 7/16/01, p.A12)
2001 Jul 15, In South Korea landslides and flooding killed at least 40 people.
(SFC, 7/16/01, p.A9)
2002 Jul 15, The US Senate voted 97-0 for a bill to crack down on corporate accounting abuses.
(WSJ, 7/16/02, p.A1)
2002 Jul 15, John Walker Lindh agreed to serve 20 years in prison for fighting in Afghanistan in a plea bargain with the government. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Oct 4.
(WSJ, 7/16/02, p.A1)(SFC, 10/5/02, p.A1)
2002 Jul 15, A federal agency approved Navy plans for a sonar system to search out enemy submarines despite potential injury to whales and dolphins.
(SFC, 7/16/02, p.A1)
2002 Jul 15, In Stanton, Ca., Samantha Runnion (5) was kidnapped. Her body was found the next day in Riverside county. An autopsy revealed that she had been sexually abused and died from a crushed abdomen. A sample of DNA was also found under her fingernail. On July 19 police arrested Alejandro Avila (27), previously acquitted for child molestation. In 2005 Avila was convicted of kidnapping, murder and sexual assault. On May 16 a jury called for the death penalty. He was sentenced to death on July 22.
(SFC, 7/17/02, p.A2)(SFC, 7/20/02, p.A1)(SFC, 4/29/05, p.A4)(SFC, 5/17/05, p.B8)(SFC, 7/23/05, p.B7)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samantha_Runnion)
2002 Jul 15, A Canadian National freight train derailed and caught fire near Allenton, Wisc., and 34 of 107 cars jumped the tracks.
(SFC, 7/16/02, p.A4)
2002 Jul 15, Osama bin Laden is alive and planning another attack on the United States, said an Arab journalist with close ties to the militant's associates.
(Reuters, 7/15/02)
2002 Jul 15, Pfizer Corp. agreed to buy Pharmacia Corp. for stock valued at $60 billion.
(WSJ, 7/15/02, p.A1)
2002 Jul 15, In Mexico farmers ended their protest of a proposed new airport for Mexico City and released 19 hostages after the government promised to reconsider construction terms.
(SFC, 7/16/02, p.A5)
2002 Jul 15, In Nigeria women occupying a ChevronTexaco oil terminal agreed to end their eight-day siege after the company offered to hire at least 25 villagers and to build schools, electrical and water systems.
(AP, 7/15/02)
2002 Jul 15, A court in Pakistan sentenced British-born Islamic militant Sheikh Ahmed Omar Saeed to death for the kidnap and murder of U.S. reporter Daniel Pearl, drawing a threat of reprisals and calls for Muslims to respond. A Pakistani judge convicted four Islamic militants in the kidnap-slaying of Wall Street Journal correspondent Daniel Pearl.
(Reuters, 7/15/02)(SFC, 7/15/02, p.A1)(AP, 7/15/03)
2002 Jul 15, Nationwide demonstrations in Paraguay called for the ouster of Pres. Luis Gonzalez Macchi, who imposed a state of emergency.
(SFC, 7/16/02, p.A4)(SFC, 7/17/02, p.A9)
2002 Jul 15, Philippine gunmen shot dead four supporters of candidates as Filipinos voted in local community elections after a bloody campaign that left scores of people dead. The 90 day election campaign left 71 people dead.
(Reuters, 7/15/02)
2003 Jul 15, The American League beat the National League in the All-Star Game 7-6.
(AP, 7/15/04)
2003 Jul 15, Scott McClellan assumed his duties as White House press secretary.
(AP, 7/15/04)
2003 Jul 15, The Bush administration reported that this year's deficit will reach $445 billion. The Bush administration dramatically raised its budget deficit projections to $455 billion for the current fiscal year and $475 billion for the next, record levels fed by the limp economy, tax cuts and the battle against terrorism.
(SFC, 7/16/03, p.A1)(AP, 7/15/04)
2003 Jul 15, Tex Schramm (83), who turned the Dallas Cowboys into "America's Team," died in Dallas.
(AP, 7/15/04)
2003 Jul 15, Elisabeth Welch (99), American-born singer, died in London.
(AP, 7/15/04)
2003 Jul 15, Four US crew members were killed in a fiery crash of a Navy helicopter in Italy.
(AP, 7/16/03)
2003 Jul 15, Chad began pumping oil to Cameroon, part of a project to help alleviate crushing poverty in the two countries. The 4.2 billion project was funded by the World Bank on the condition that the oil money be used for development. Pres. Idris Deby later diverted the money to the general budget and for weapons.
(AP, 7/16/03)(SFC, 12/21/07, p.A31)
2003 Jul 15, Roberto Bolano (b.1953), Chilean author, died in Spain. His novel “2666" was published posthumously in 2006. In 2007 his novel “The Savage Detectives" (1998) was made available in English. His work explored both the condition of the writer and the chronic violence in Latin America.
(www.absoluteastronomy.com/enc3/roberto_bola%C3%B1o)(SSFC, 4/1/07, p.M1)(Econ., 5/9/20, p.24)
2003 Jul 15, The Colombian government and right-wing paramilitary fighters agreed to begin peace talks.
(AP, 7/16/03)
2003 Jul 15, In India health officials reported that mosquito-borne encephalitis had killed at least 110 children in Andhra Pradesh over the last 6 weeks.
(WSJ, 7/16/03, p.A1)
2003 Jul 15, Montserrat's governor declared the Caribbean island a disaster zone, days after a volcanic eruption spewed clouds of rock and ash over the British territory.
(AP, 7/16/03)
2003 Jul 15, Officials reported that Syrian troops had begun dismantling bases in Lebanon.
(SFC, 7/16/03, p.A3)
2004 Jul 15, President Bush signed into law a measure imposing mandatory prison terms for criminals who use identity theft in committing terrorist acts and other offenses.
(AP, 7/15/05)
2004 Jul 15, The Senate approved a plan to pay tobacco farmers $12 billion to give up federal quotas propping up their prices.
(AP, 7/15/05)
2004 Jul 15, The new $650 million, 4.4-mile Las Vegas Monorail began operations with stops at 7 stations between Sahara and Tropicana avenues.
(SSFC, 7/25/04, p.D2)
2004 Jul 15, Scientists reported that excess carbon dioxide spilled into the air by humans over the past 2 centuries has been taken up by the oceans. They warned that a continuation of this process could damage the ability of ocean creatures to make their shells.
(SFC, 7/16/04, p.A4)
2004 Jul 15, The Gates Foundation announced a $44.7 million award at the AIDS Conference in Bangkok to a consortium of TB and AIDS researchers. The 2 diseases were often linked. A UN report cited 7 countries as the hardest hit by the AIDS pandemic: Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Lesotho, Zambia, Malawi, the Central African Republic and Mozambique.
(WSJ, 7/15/04, p.B1)(SFC, 7/16/04, p.A6)
2004 Jul 15, Retired Air Force Gen. Charles W. Sweeney, who piloted the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki in the final days of World War II, died in Boston at age 84.
(AP, 7/15/05)
2004 Jul 15, In Kumbakonam, southern India, a short circuit ignited a thatched roof and fire raged through the Lord Krishna Middle School, killing 94 children and injuring more than 100. The children were trapped inside a locked building. In 2006 an inquiry commission found that a mixture of avarice, dishonesty and a blatant disregard of safety standards caused the devastating fire. In 2014 the owner of the primary school was sentenced to life in prison on charges including culpable homicide and endangerment, while his wife, the headmistress, the cook and the meal planner were each imprisoned for five years.
(AP, 7/17/04)(SFC, 7/17/04, p.A3)(Reuters, 9/4/06)(AP, 7/30/14)
2004 Jul 15, In Iraq attackers detonated a car bomb near police and government buildings in the western city of Haditha, killing 10 people. PM Alawi announced the formation of a new national security agency to fight the insurgency.
(AP, 7/15/04)(SFC, 7/16/04, p.A12)
2004 Jul 15, Israel said it will spend $11.1 million to change completed portions of its West Bank barrier, building new roads, underpasses and tunnels to try to ease Palestinian conditions.
(AP, 7/15/04)
2004 Jul 15, In western Nepal 11 suspected Maoist rebels including two local leaders were killed in armed clashes with security forces.
(AFP, 7/15/04)
2004 Jul 15, In Tanzania the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) sentenced former finance minister Emmanuel Ndindabahizi to life imprisonment for his role in the east African country's 1994 genocide.
(AP, 7/15/04)
2004 Jul 15, Thailand officials said avian flu had been detected in 10 of its 76 provinces.
(SFC, 7/16/04, p.A3)
2005 Jul 15, A US federal appeals court ruled that a Guantanamo detainee who once was Osama bin Laden's driver could be tried by military tribunal. However, the Supreme Court in June 2006 struck down the tribunals, saying they violated U.S. and international law.
(AP, 7/15/06)
2005 Jul 15, In SF District Court federal prosecutors in the BALCO case dropped 40 of 42 indictments against 3 men accused of providing performance-enhancing drugs to elite athletes.
(SFC, 7/16/05, p.A1)
2005 Jul 15, Bankrupt Enron Corp. agreed to pay up to 1.52 billion dollars to settle charges of market manipulation during the energy crisis that hit California and other western US states in 2000 and 2001.
(AFP, 7/16/05)
2005 Jul 15, California Gov. Schwarzenegger said he would quit his 2nd job as editor of two bodybuilding magazines following criticism of the lucrative moonlighting. Following this he soon severed ties with the Arnold Classic, a premier bodybuilding event.
(SFC, 7/15/05, p.A1)(SFC, 7/23/05, p.A1)
2005 Jul 15, Suspected Taliban gunmen kidnapped and hanged a pro-government tribal leader in southern Afghanistan. Agha Jan was kidnapped the previous day with his two sons, brother and two nephews from his home in southern Zabul province. The relatives were released unharmed. Suspected Taliban fighters raided a police post in southern Afghanistan, killing 7 policemen and losing 5 of their own men.
(AP, 7/15/05)(AP, 7/16/05)
2005 Jul 15, Officials said heavy rains and flash floods have killed 20 people and inundated tens of thousands of homes in Bulgaria and Romania.
(AP, 7/15/05)
2005 Jul 15, An official said police in Egypt said they had arrested Magdy el-Nashar (33), an Egyptian biochemist, sought in the probe of the London bombings. He was taken into custody upon his arrival in Cairo from abroad.
(AP, 7/15/05)
2005 Jul 15, Hurricane Emily blew over Grenada and gathered force in the eastern Caribbean with winds of 135 mph. At least one person was killed.
(AP, 7/15/05)
2005 Jul 15, In India hardline Hindu activists broke the windows of a cinema, burned posters and shouted "traitor" in protests against leading actor Salman Khan who Indian media said had boasted of links with the underworld.
(Reuters, 7/15/05)
2005 Jul 15, Indonesian authorities said 3 people had died of suspected bird flu in the last 10 days. They had no contact with poultry and raised concern over human-to-human transmission. A small farm nearby was hit by the virus a few months earlier. This raised the regionwide deaths from bird flu to 57, mostly in Thailand and Vietnam
(WSJ, 7/18/05, p.A10)(WSJ, 7/22/05, p.A10)
2005 Jul 15, In Iraq a frenzy of attacks killed at least 30 people in 12 suicide bombings. 2 US Marines were killed in a roadside bombing near the Jordanian border. A suicide car bomb exploded on a bridge overlooking the home of President Jalal Talabani, killing three of his guards. In Nasiriyah, judge Nurredin Ahmed, a Kurd from the northern oil centre of Kirkuk, was shot dead at his home. Akram Ahmed Rasul al-Bayati, a major general in the old regime's disbanded military, and his son Ali, a policeman, were killed after being arrested by police commandos on July 10.
(AP, 7/16/05)(AFP, 7/16/05)(SFC, 7/16/05, p.A3)
2005 Jul 15, The Israeli military launched an airstrike at a van carrying a group of Hamas militants and a cache of homemade rockets in a Gaza City street, killing 4 people.
(AP, 7/15/05)
2005 Jul 15, Two Japanese tankers collided in the Pacific Ocean off the central Japan coast, sparking a blaze that killed one sailor and left five others missing.
(AP, 7/15/05)
2005 Jul 15, Nepal's king appointed a dozen loyalists to ministerial jobs.
(AP, 7/15/05)
2005 Jul 15, In Serbia a court convicted 4 former members of the Avengers, a Serbian paramilitary force, of abducting 16 Muslims from a bus in October, 1992, and taking them to Bosnia to be tortured and executed. The men in custody, Djordje Sevic and Dragutin Dragicevic, got 15 and 20 years respectively. Two others, Milan Lukic and Oliver Krsmanovic, were on the run and were tried in absentia, and received 20-year jail terms
(AP, 7/16/05)
2005 Jul 15, In South Africa a passenger bus plunged down a ravine near the southcentral coast, killing at least 24 people.
(AP, 7/15/05)
2005 Jul 15, Thailand's government, reeling from bold attacks by suspected separatists in the Muslim-dominated south, granted PM Thaksin Shinawatra sweeping powers to tap phones, directly command security forces and order curfews.
(AP, 7/15/05)
2006 Jul 15, In a chilly prelude to a Group of Eight (G8) summit in St. Petersburg, President Bush blocked Russia's entry into the World Trade Organization. Russia and the US failed to strike a bilateral deal allowing Russia to join the WTO but agreed to set a deadline to wrap up talks within three months.
(AP, 7/15/07)(Reuters, 7/15/06)
2006 Jul 15, US authorities extradited Jean Succar Kuri, a Mexican businessman with alleged ties to associates of a powerful state governor, to face charges in Mexico of child pornography, statutory rape and corruption of minors.
(AP, 7/16/06)
2006 Jul 15, Robert Wilson (64), theater and opera director, opened his $12 million Watermill Center on Long Island, NY. The arts center was setup to host conferences, student workshops and serve as an intercultural exchange.
(Econ, 7/22/06, p.82)
2006 Jul 15, Phoenix, Ariz., residents were reported to be in fear of 2 serial killers, who have struck in recent months. Six killings were being attributed to the "Baseline Killer," whose name refers to the street where he is believed to have committed his first crimes. The 2nd suspected predator, dubbed the "Serial Shooter," has been definitively linked to the Dec. 29 wounding of one man and authorities believe he could be responsible for a total of five shooting deaths.
(AP, 7/15/06)
2006 Jul 15, The space shuttle Discovery undocked from the international space station.
(AP, 7/15/07)
2006 Jul 15, More than 40 insurgents were killed as hundreds of coalition troops, many dropped by helicopter, wrested a desert town from the Taliban and U.S. forces battled militants across southern Afghanistan.
(AP, 7/16/06)
2006 Jul 15, Arab foreign ministers held an emergency summit in Cairo over Israel's expanding assault on Lebanon, the worst Israeli attack on its neighbor in 24 years.
(AP, 7/15/06)
2006 Jul 15, A gas explosion in a coal mine in Shanxi province killed at least 50 miners in the Linjiazhuang Coal Mine in Jinzhong. In Hunan province 14 coal miners were killed after rains burst a dam, flooding the pit and collapsing buildings above ground at the Shenjiawan Colliery.
(AP, 7/17/06)
2006 Jul 15, Thousands of Ecuadorian villagers fled their homes on the slopes of the Tungurahua volcano since it began erupting lava and toxic gases.
(AP, 7/16/06)
2006 Jul 15, GDP for the Falkland Islands was estimated at $25,000 per head. Fishing licenses around the Falkland Islands generated some $40 million a year. Seismic studies indicated a possible 500,000 barrels of oil in the surrounding waters. Britain insisted that it would not discuss sovereignty of the islands unless its 3,000 citizens there requested it.
(Econ, 7/15/06, p.38)
2006 Jul 15, In Haiti thousands of demonstrators demanding the return of ousted president Jean-Bertrand Aristide marched to the National Palace, pushing past riot police in a dramatic show of support for the exiled former leader.
(AP, 7/16/06)
2006 Jul 15, A Honduras newspaper quoted a senior military official that the United States is helping Honduras establish a new military base to combat international drug trafficking in the northeastern province of Gracias a Dios.
(AP, 7/15/06)
2006 Jul 15, Police investigating Bombay's deadly train bombings swept through several neighborhoods, rounding up more than 300 people for questioning.
(AP, 7/15/06)
2006 Jul 15, Heavy clashes between Iraqi soldiers and gunmen in downtown Baghdad left 11 people wounded. Provincial police in Ramadi confirmed that gunmen had killed a member of the Iraqi Islamic Party. Gunmen kidnapped Ahmed al-Sammarai, the head of Iraq's Olympic committee, and more than a dozen employees storming a sports conference in Baghdad. The kidnappers wore camouflage Iraqi police uniforms and security guards outside the meeting said they did not interfere because they thought the gunmen were legitimate law enforcement.
(AP, 7/15/06)(AP, 8/22/08)
2006 Jul 15, Israeli warplanes pounded Hezbollah's south Beirut stronghold and roads around the country killing at least 33 people. At least 12 Lebanese villagers, including women and children, were killed in what appeared to be an Israeli airstrike on a convoy of vehicles fleeing a village near the border with Israel in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah expanded its rocket fire, hitting another of Israel's main cities, and Israel warned that the guerrillas could strike Tel Aviv. At least 88 people have died in Lebanon, most of them civilians, in the four-day Israeli offensive, sparked by Hezbollah's capture of two Israeli soldiers. On the Israeli side, at least 15 have been killed, four civilians and 11 soldiers.
(AP, 7/15/06)(SSFC, 7/16/06, p.A1)
2006 Jul 15, Israeli aircraft fired at least one missile at a house in Gaza City. Palestinian rescue workers said two Palestinians were killed and many others wounded. Since the offensive began in Gaza, 86 Palestinians have been killed, many of them gunmen.
(AP, 7/15/06)
2006 Jul 15, US Middle East envoy David Welch flew into Tripoli for talks with Libyan officials on strengthening economic and financial ties between the two countries.
(AFP, 7/16/06)
2006 Jul 15, A landslide triggered by monsoon rains swept through a village in northwest Nepal before dawn, killing at least 17 people as they slept.
(AP, 7/15/06)
2006 Jul 15, In Karachi, Pakistan, hundreds of youths set fire to a Pizza Hut, two gas stations and a dozen vehicles after a funeral for an Islamic Shiite cleric killed in a suicide attack.
(AP, 7/15/06)
2006 Jul 15, In St. Petersburg, Russia, world leaders tore up a carefully prepared G8 summit agenda and turned their attention to a growing crisis in the Middle East, hoping to reach common ground on ways to stop the fighting. About 150 protesters faced off with police as they tried to exercise their right of assembly.
(AP, 7/15/06)
2006 Jul 15, The UN Security Council unanimously passed resolution 1718 condemning North Korea's multiple missile launches on July 5 and imposed limited sanctions; a defiant North said it would launch more missiles.
(AP, 7/16/07)(Econ, 2/28/09, p.63)
2007 Jul 15, The Los Angeles Times reported that about 45 percent of all foreign militants targeting US troops and Iraqi security forces were from Saudi Arabia, 15 percent from Syria and Lebanon, and 10 percent from North Africa.
(AFP, 7/15/07)
2007 Jul 15, In SF 2 coyotes, a male and female, were shot and killed in Golden Gate Park following recent attacks on leashed dogs.
(SFC, 7/17/07, p.D1)
2007 Jul 15, In Cheyenne, Wyoming, Robin Munis was shot in the head just after midnight Saturday as she sang with the classic rock and country group Ty and the Twisters. Police searched for David Munis (36), a National Guardsman with sniper training who they suspect shot his wife. Police located David Munis’ pickup truck the next in rural Albany County. As they closed in on the suspect and called for him to surrender, Munis shot himself in the chest. He was flown to Laramie, Wyoming, where he was pronounced dead on July 18th.
(AP, 7/15/07)(http://tinyurl.com/6669k3)
2007 Jul 15, A roadside bomb killed six Afghans working for a Western security company in the east of the country.
(Reuters, 7/15/07)
2007 Jul 15, Antun Gudelj (59), a Croatian man charged with killing three police officials in the early days of the 1991 Serb-Croat war, was extradited from Australia to Croatia to face a new trial after an earlier pardon.
(AP, 7/15/07)
2007 Jul 15, Botswana's President Festus Mogae (67) announced that he is to stand down next year after a decade at the helm of the diamond-rich southern African nation.
(AFP, 7/15/07)
2007 Jul 15, Britain released without charge 2 suspects in the failed car bomb attacks in London and Glasgow last month.
(AFP, 7/15/07)
2007 Jul 15, JCDecaux launched a bike rental system in Paris.
(Econ, 9/22/07, p.76)
2007 Jul 15, A minister said India's southern coastal Kerala state was reeling from an outbreak of mosquito-borne Chikungunya viral fever infections that have claimed 193 lives. Chikungunya, transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, was first detected in 1955 in Africa and last year caused the deaths of some 200 people on the French Indian ocean island of Reunion. Federal health minister Anbumani Ramadoss told parliament last year that some 1.1 million Indians were infected with Chikungunya.
(AFP, 7/16/07)
2007 Jul 15, A car bomb packed with explosives detonated in a central Baghdad square, killing 10 people and wounding 25. At least 18 other people were killed including 7 border guards in the northern Kani Khal area and 8 in shootings in the northern cities of Mosul and Kirkuk and several areas south of Baghdad. 22 bullet-riddled bodies were found dumped in various locations of Baghdad, apparently the latest victims of sectarian violence.
(AP, 7/15/07)(AP, 7/16/07)
2007 Jul 15, Mahmoud Darwish, the world's most recognized Palestinian poet, delivered a stinging tirade against Palestinian infighting in his first public appearance in decades in the Israeli city of Haifa.
(AP, 7/16/07)
2007 Jul 15, Typhoon Man-yi, one of the most powerful storms to hit Japan in decades, headed away from Tokyo after leaving four people dead or missing.
(AFP, 7/15/07)
2007 Jul 15, A Libyan foundation confirmed that families of Libyan children infected with AIDS have accepted compensation topping 460 million dollars, which could lead to a death sentence on six foreign medics being lifted.
(AFP, 7/15/07)
2007 Jul 15, Militants holed up in a Palestinian refugee camp in north Lebanon fired more rockets that landed in farm fields outside the camp as the army bombarded suspected hideouts inside the besieged settlement. Politicians from Lebanon's divided factions held a second day of talks in France to try to ease 8 months of deadlock.
(AP, 7/15/07)(AFP, 7/15/07)
2007 Jul 15, North Korea confirmed it has shut its nuclear reactor that provides the secretive state with material to make weapons-grade plutonium.
(Reuters, 7/15/07)
2007 Jul 15, Militants in northwest Pakistan disavowed a peace pact with the government. Suicide attacks and a roadside bomb together killed 44 people and wounded more than 100.
(AP, 7/15/07)
2007 Jul 15, Marina Pisareva (47), the deputy head of a small Russian division of German media company Bertelsmann AG, was found dead at her summer house near Moscow, possibly stabbed with her own dagger.
(AP, 7/16/07)
2007 Jul 15, Spanish officials said police investigating a child pornography ring have arrested 66 people and seized computer hard drives containing 48 million photographs and video images. The nationwide sweep came after a 10-month investigation.
(AP, 7/15/07)
2007 Jul 15, UN and African Union representatives gathered in Tripoli to evaluate Darfur.
(AP, 7/15/07)
2008 Jul 15, US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress the fragile economy is facing "numerous difficulties" including persistent strains in financial markets, rising joblessness and housing problems — despite the Fed's aggressive interest rate reductions and other fortifying steps.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, The SEC said it would immediately move to curb improper short selling in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as well as those of 17 financial firms. The move would be effective July 21 and expire after 30 days. The SEC also planned to consider extending the requirements to all stocks traded in the US.
(WSJ, 7/16/08, p.A1)
2008 Jul 15, Mei Ling Chen (46) of Taiwan was arrested in Sunnyvale, Ca., after customs inspectors at SF Int’l. Airport found $380,000 in counterfeit $100 bills in a package of dried seafood.
(SFC, 7/18/08, p.B11)
2008 Jul 15, Robin Long (25), a US Army deserter who had fled to Canada in 2005, was deported from British Columbia back to the US.
(SFC, 7/16/08, p.A9)
2008 Jul 15, General Motors Corp. said it will lay off salaried workers, cut truck production, suspend its dividend and borrow $2 billion to $3 billion to weather a severe downturn in the US market.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, Volkswagen announced that it would build a $1 billion car plant in Chattanooga, Tenn., and expected to open it as soon as 2011.
(WSJ, 7/30/08, p.C10)(www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiFdSOp19gU)
2008 Jul 15, It was reported that Hawaii’s Oahu island planned to export some 100,000 tons of trash a year to the mainland. At current rates its 200-acre municipal landfill would reach capacity in 15 years. Expanded recycling and a new boiler were also in the works.
(WSJ, 7/15/08, p.A2)
2008 Jul 15, In California 2 vehicles collided on a bridge and fell into the Delta-Mendota Canal near Westley. 6 farm workers and a septic truck driver died.
(SFC, 7/16/08, p.B3)(SFC, 7/17/08, p.B2)
2008 Jul 15, Gee Gee Engesser (b.19126), animal trainer and “Blond Bombshell" of the circus, died in Florida.
(WSJ, 8/23/08, p.A7)
2008 Jul 15, In Pennsylvania Betty Schirmer (56) was killed in an apparent car accident. In 2010 her husband, Pastor Arthur Burton Schirmer, was charged with killing her and staging the car accident. The charge also prompted an investigation into the suspicious death of his 1st wife, Jewel Schirmer, in 1999.
(SFC, 9/14/10, p.A4)(www.delmarvanow.com/article/20100914/NEWS01/100914005)
2008 Jul 15, In southwestern Afghanistan air strikes against extremist rebels killed 4 women and 5 children as well as several insurgents. NATO pulled soldiers out of the outpost in Wanat village in northeastern Kunar province, which militants had breached killing 9 US soldiers.
(AP, 7/16/08)
2008 Jul 15, Tens of thousands of Argentine farmers and government supporters staged dueling protests ahead of a Senate vote on a package of grain-export taxes that generated months of bitter farm strikes.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, In Australia the world's biggest Christian festival opened with a spectacular harbor-side mass for up to 150,000 pilgrims taking part in World Youth Day celebrations in Sydney headed by Pope Benedict XVI.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, Belgium PM Yves Leterme offered King Albert the resignation of his government after he acknowledged he would not make a deadline for a constitutional reform deal despite months of talks. He offered to resign after realizing it would be impossible to resolve deep divisions over increased autonomy for French- and Dutch-speaking Belgians.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, Tropical Storm Bertha headed back out over open ocean and away from the US mainland after it battered Bermuda, knocking out electricity to thousands on the Atlantic tourist island. Bertha entered its 13th day becoming the longest-lived July tropical storm in history.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, China voiced concern over an International Criminal Court prosecutor's decision to seek an arrest warrant for Sudan's president on charges of genocide in the African country's war-torn Darfur region.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, Croatia adopted a law that allows Sunday shopping only over the summer and Christmas holidays. It goes into effect January 1. The law also allows stores in gas, bus and train stations to open on Sundays year-round, along with those in hospitals. Bakeries, newsstands and flower shops are also exempt from the ban.
(AP, 7/16/08)
2008 Jul 15, The EU agreed to an emergency aid package for its fishing industry to cope with fuel prices.
(WSJ, 7/17/08, p.A8)
2008 Jul 15, In eastern India at least 20 members of a wedding party were killed when the jeep carrying them plunged into a roadside canal outside Patna, the capital of Bihar state.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, Indonesia's president acknowledged that his country carried out gross human rights abuses during East Timor's 1999 break for independence, but stopped short of offering a full apology and said no one would be prosecuted.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, In Iraq 2 suicide bombers blew themselves up in a crowd of army recruits at the Saad military camp in Baqouba, where devastating attacks persist despite security improvements elsewhere. At least 28 people died. In western Mosul, a bomb near an Iraqi police station killed four Iraqi civilians. Half an hour later, one Iraqi police officer and seven civilians died in a suicide car bombing in the east of the city. Three other bombs in Mosul wounded 15 people. The US military said it had captured the Iranian-trained leader of an explosives cell in Baghdad.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, Israel's Cabinet overwhelmingly approved an emotionally charged deal to trade a Lebanese militant convicted of killing three people for two Israeli soldiers captured by Hezbollah guerrillas and believed to be dead. Israeli troops arrested three Hamas council members in a dawn raid on the West Bank city of Nablus. Witnesses and residents said a total of 12 Hamas members were arrested.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, In Italy a judge in Venice indicted Saber Fadhil Hussein for plotting a terrorist attack on US bases in Iraq using ultra-light aircraft.
(SFC, 7/16/08, p.A9)
2008 Jul 15, Fishermen across Japan went on a massive one-day strike to protest skyrocketing fuel prices, the latest blow to the country's foundering fishing industry.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, Malaysian police issued an arrest warrant for opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim in connection with a sodomy accusation by a male former aide.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, In South Korea Won Jeong-hwa (34) was arrested and later confessed that she was a spy trained and commissioned by North Korea's intelligence agency. On Oct 15 she was sentenced to five years in prison for spying.
(AP, 8/27/08)(AP, 10/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, A plan for a referendum on self-determination in Spain's northern Basque Country became law in the region, setting the stage for a confrontation with the government in Madrid which has termed the poll illegal.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, In Sri Lanka fighting reportedly killed a total of 51 rebels and a soldier.
(AP, 7/16/08)
2008 Jul 15, In Switzerland Hannibal Kadhafi (32), the son of Libya’s leader, was arrested along with his wife Aline at a luxury hotel in Geneva after the servants, a Moroccan and a Tunisian, alleged they had been abused by the couple. The 2-day detention led to reprisals by Libya. Days after Hannibal Kadhafi’s arrest, Swiss businessmen Max Goeldi and Rachid Hamdani were detained in Libya on alleged visa violations. The servants later dropped their legal complaints after receiving some compensation. In November, 2009, Goeldi and Hamdani were handed over to the Swiss embassy in Tripoli. Libya then announced that they would go on trial on accusations of tax evasion and violating residency laws.
(AP, 9/2/08)(AP, 11/9/09)(AP, 11/12/09)
2008 Jul 15, Taiwan indicted 5 former ministers, who had served under former Pres. Chen Shui-bian, on corruption charges relating to misuse of special expense accounts.
(SFC, 7/16/08, p.A15)
2008 Jul 15, Turkey’s military said aircraft and artillery units had shelled rebel positions in Sirnak province, killing 22 rebels.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2009 Jul 15, Space shuttle Endeavour rocketed toward the international space station as engineers on Earth pored over launch pictures that showed debris breaking off the fuel tank and striking the craft.
(AP, 7/16/09)
2009 Jul 15, In Alaska Anthony Rollins, a 13-year decorated Anchorage police officer, was arrested after being indicted for assaulting multiple women while on duty.
(SFC, 7/16/09, p.A6)
2009 Jul 15, California tax officials said a bill to tax and regulate marijuana in California like alcohol would generate nearly $1.4 billion in revenue for the cash-strapped state.
(AP, 7/16/09)
2009 Jul 15, In Afghanistan at least 4 civilians were killed and 13 were wounded in a late night airstrike on the southern village of Shawalikot. 3 police were killed by a suicide car bomber in Nimroz province, and two Afghan army soldiers died in two other attacks in the south. NATO forces killed two insurgents in an attack in the east.
(AP, 7/16/09)(http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20090717/wl_mcclatchy/3274354)
2009 Jul 15, Luxury carmaker Jaguar, owned by India's Tata Motors, announced it would end Liverpool production of its X-Type car by the end of the year with the loss of up to 300 jobs.
(AFP, 7/15/09)
2009 Jul 15, In China the former head of oil giant Sinopec was sentenced to death after being found guilty of corrupt practices over many years, but state press reported that he will likely not be executed. The Beijing court had found Chen Tonghai guilty of graft amounting to 195.7 million yuan (28.8 million dollars) when he served in top Sinopec ranks from 1999 to 2007.
(AFP, 7/15/09)
2009 Jul 15, In Egypt the two-day Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) opened in Sharm-El-Sheik. 50 leaders from the 118-nation grouping of mostly of African, Asian and Latin American nations gathered for their 15th meeting to address the world's biggest problems, such as terrorism and financial instability. Cuba's Pres. Raul Castro called for an international financial system that better takes into account developing countries interests.
(AP, 7/15/09)
2009 Jul 15, The EU urged Canada to restore visa-free travel for Czech visitors, removed by Ottawa after hundreds of Roma from the central European country sought asylum.
(Reuters, 7/15/09)
2009 Jul 15, Honduras' interim government suggested that backers of ousted President Manuel Zelaya were taking up arms to return him to power and it reinstated an overnight curfew it had lifted only days earlier.
(AP, 7/16/09)
2009 Jul 15, In Ingushetia police officials said that the body of Natalya Estemirova (b.1959), a prominent rights activist, was found not far from the main city of Nazran, hours after she was kidnapped in Chechnya.
(AP, 7/15/09)(Econ, 7/25/09, p.23)
2009 Jul 15, In Iran a Russian-made Caspian Airlines TU-154 jet plane carrying nearly 170 people crashed shortly after takeoff from Tehran's Imam Khomeini International Airport. It was headed to the Armenian capital Yerevan. All on board were killed.
(AP, 7/15/09)
2009 Jul 15, In Iraq a suicide bomber killed six people, including an Iraqi policeman, in an attack on security forces in Ramadi, a former insurgent stronghold in western Anbar province. A bombing in Sadr City killed 5 people.
(AP, 7/15/09)(SFC, 7/16/09, p.A2)
2009 Jul 15, A court in Indian-run Kashmir ordered the arrest of four police officers for allegedly destroying evidence in the rape and murder of two women that triggered violent protests last month.
(AP, 7/15/09)
2009 Jul 15, In northwest Pakistan a roadside bomb exploded at a police checkpoint, killing a paramilitary soldier and a police officer and wounding six policemen in the Bannu area.
(AP, 7/15/09)
2009 Jul 15, In the Philippines five employees of a logging company, including a woman, were seized by eight guerrillas belonging to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in Kapai township in Lanao del Sur province. Army troops and police rescued the victims on July 18 near Kapai without a fire fight. Basit Kauyag was identified as the leader of the kidnappers.
(AP, 7/19/09)
2009 Jul 15, Mazen Abdul-Jawad (32), a Saudi man, appeared on the Lebanese-based LBC satellite TV station’s "Bold Red Line" program and shocked Saudis by publicly confessing to sexual exploits. More than 200 people soon filed legal complaints against Abdul-Jawad, dubbed a "sex braggart" by the media, and many Saudis said he should be severely punished. On July 31 Abdul-Jawad was detained for questioning. The Jiddah offices of the LBC station were closed soon thereafter.
(AP, 8/6/09)(AP, 8/9/09)
2009 Jul 15, In Turkmenistan President Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov led a ceremony for channeling water across hundreds of miles to create Golden Age Lake in the heart of the barren Karakum Desert, in a Soviet-style engineering feat that some experts fear could unleash an environmental catastrophe.
(AP, 7/16/09)
2009 Jul 15, In Venezuela National Guard troops seized a police station controlled by a leading opponent of President Hugo Chavez, sparking clashes between soldiers and protesters that authorities said injured eight people.
(AP, 7/15/09)
2010 Jul 15, The US Senate approved a 2,300 page bill for financial overhaul. The House passed the bill last month and Pres. Obama was expected to sign it into law.
(SFC, 7/16/10, p.A7)
2010 Jul 15, Hassan Nemazee (60), a wealthy Manhattan investment banker and former top Democratic fundraiser, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for defrauding banks of $292 million, some of which he donated to politicians including Barack Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Al Gore.
(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 15, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. agreed to pay $550 million and change its business practices to settle US regulatory claims it misled investors in collateralized debt obligations linked to subprime mortgages.
(SFC, 7/16/10, p.D1)
2010 Jul 15, Joe Jacob (54), venture capitalist, and Peter Gruber (68), chairman of Mandalay Entertainment, led a record $450 million investor group purchase of the Golden Gate Warriors basketball team based in Oakland, Ca.
(SFC, 7/16/10, p.A13)
2010 Jul 15, BP finally stopped oil from spewing into the sea, for the first time since an April 20 explosion on the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon oil rig killed 11 workers and unleashed the spill 5,000 feet beneath the water's surface.
(AP, 7/16/10)
2010 Jul 15, In Afghanistan police said they have killed a local Taliban commander, identified as Mullah Dawood, in a gunbattle. A NATO airstrike killed a Taliban commander, alias Qari Latif, responsible for a suicide attack on a US aid program. 12 other insurgents were also killed in the attack in Kunduz. A raid killed insurgent, Mullah Akhtar, who smuggled in foreign fighters through Iran, along with several other insurgents in Farah province.
(AP, 7/15/10)(AP, 7/16/10)
2010 Jul 15, Argentina legalized same-sex marriage, becoming the first country in Latin America to grant gays and lesbians all the legal rights, responsibilities and protections that marriage brings to heterosexual couples.
(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 15, Australian scientists reported their discovery of bizarre prehistoric sea life hundreds of kilometers below the Great Barrier Reef, in an unprecedented mission to document species under threat from ocean warming.
(AFP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 15, In Makhachkala, Dagestan, Artur Suleimanov, a bishop for the Russian evangelical denomination Osanna. was killed in a shooting. 2 militants were killed by police in a clash in the town of Khasavyurt the previous day.
(AP, 7/16/10)
2010 Jul 15, French oil firm Total SA said it has signed a deal to acquire Chevron Corp.'s stake in an offshore oil block near Nigeria's coastline.
(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 15, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev met for talks and are expected to oversee the signing of an array of deals between German and Russian companies worth billions of dollars.
(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 15, India unveiled a symbol for its rupee currency that it hopes will become as globally recognized as signs for the dollar, the yen, the pound and the euro. The symbol was designed by research student D Udaya Kumar, who earned $5,300 for his pains.
(AP, 7/15/10)(Econ, 7/24/10, p.43)
2010 Jul 15, In Iraq the US handed over the last detention facility under its control to Iraqi authorities, a milestone in Iraq's push for complete sovereignty. A car bomb in Tikrit and two other attacks killed 8 people, including 4 police officers, and wounded 14 others. A double suicide bombing against a Shiite mosque in southeast Iran killed 27 people, including members of the elite Revolutionary Guard in the provincial capital Zahedan. The insurgent group, Jundallah, claimed responsibility.
(AP, 7/15/10)(AP, 7/16/10)
2010 Jul 15, In northern Iraq a fire in a five-story hotel killed 28 people, half of them foreigners, in a harrowing blaze that forced several victims to jump to their deaths to escape a building without fire escapes in the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah.
{Iraq, Fire}
(AP, 7/16/10)
2010 Jul 15, An Israeli lieutenant colonel and one of his soldiers were convicted in a 2008 shooting of a bound and blindfolded Palestinian demonstrator. Video taken by a local resident showed the soldier firing a rubber-coated bullet from close range at the feet of the Palestinian man, whose hands were tied behind his back.
(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 15, Lebanon arrested a third person in a widening probe into a suspected network of Israeli spies employed in the country's telecom sector.
(AFP, 7/16/10)
2010 Jul 15, In Mexico members of a northern drug gang rammed a car that may have been packed with explosives or inflammable material into two police patrol trucks in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, killing two officers and a medical technician, and wounding nine people. The attack was said to be in retaliation for the arrest of a top leader of the La Linea drug gang, Jesus Acosta Guerrero, earlier in the day. It was the first time a drug cartel has used a car bomb to attack Mexican security forces. On Oct 20 Fernando Contreras was arrested in Chihuahua along with 14 others, several weapons and drugs. Police said Contreras had detonated the car bomb.
(AP, 7/16/10)(AP, 7/17/10)(AP, 10/21/10)
2010 Jul 15, In Myanmar Win Htein, a former aide to Myanmar's detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, was released from prison after 14 years behind bars.
(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 15, In Pakistan an apparent suicide bombing near a bus terminal in the Swat Valley killed five people and wounded at least 58.
(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 15, North Korea's military renewed its call for its own investigation into the March deadly sinking of a South Korean warship as it met with the US-led UN Command for the first time since the incident raised tensions on the Korean peninsula.
(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 15, Pakistan and India sought to improve their strained relationship with high-level talks aimed at rebuilding trust that was fractured by the terrorist attacks that killed 166 people in the Indian city of Mumbai nearly two years ago.
(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 15, A last-minute deal at a meeting of the Kimberley Process certification scheme in Russia authorized Zimbabwe to sell two batches of diamonds under strict monitoring and regulation through Sept. 1.
(AP, 7/16/10)
2010 Jul 15, In Sudan aid officials said the government has issued expulsion orders against two top relief officials in Darfur after the International Criminal Court charged President Omar al-Beshir with genocide over the seven-year conflict there. When the ICC issued a warrant for Beshir's arrest for the other charges in March last year, the Sudanese government expelled 13 relief organizations from Darfur. Three journalists working for the opposition Rai al-Shaab newspaper were handed jail terms ranging from two to five years for publishing "false reports."
(AFP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 15, Sudanese police said at least 33 people have been killed and several others were missing following powerful floods in eastern Sudan.
(AFP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 15, The Vatican issued a new set of norms to respond to the worldwide clerical abuse scandal. The norms extend from 10 to 20 years the statute of limitations on priestly abuse and also codify for the first time that possessing or distributing child pornography is a canonical crime.
(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 15, Vietnam’s state media reported that Vietnam has published the first issue of a human rights magazine to help counter what it calls "erroneous and hostile allegations."
(AP, 7/15/10)
2011 Jul 15, Thomas Drake (54), a former senior official for the national Security Agency (NSA), was sentenced to a year’s probation for leaking information about the NSA to the Baltimore Sun in 2006.
(SFC, 7/16/11, p.A6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Andrews_Drake)
2011 Jul 15, In Atlanta, Georgia, security guard Nkosi Thandiwe (22) opened fire on 3 women in a parking garage killing one and wounding two. He was arrested and charged with murder.
(SFC, 7/16/11, p.A5)
2011 Jul 15, In western Afghanistan insurgents killed at least six Afghan soldiers in an ambush on an army patrol.
(AP, 7/16/11)
2011 Jul 15, In Argentina French tourists Cassandre Bouvier (29) and Houria Moumni (20) were raped and killed by a group of men who followed the academics from Sorbonne University up a popular hiking trail, the Quebrada de San Lorenzo, outside the provincial capital of Salta.
(AP, 8/16/11)
2011 Jul 15, In Bahrain Zainab Hasan Ahmed al-Jumaa (47) suffocated after inhaling tear gas fired by riot police during a demonstration near her home in Sitra, the hub of Bahrain's oil industry.
(AP, 7/16/11)
2011 Jul 15, BBC journalists began a 24-hour strike in a row over job losses, disrupting some of the British broadcaster's flagship programs.
(AFP, 7/15/11)
2011 Jul 15, Rebekah Brooks (43), the embattled chief executive of Rupert Murdoch's British News International, quit as the phone hacking scandal forced the once-mighty media baron to sacrifice his cherished aide. Les Hinton, chide executive of the Murdoch owned Dow Jones & Co., published of the Wall Street Journal, also announced his resignation.
(AP, 7/15/11)(SFC, 7/16/11, p.A4)(Econ, 7/23/11, p.23)
2011 Jul 15, Christian Emde (28) and Robert Baum (24) were arrested in the English port town of Dover. In 2012 the 2 German men pleaded guilty to possessing information useful for terrorist acts. Emde was sentenced to 16 months in jail, Baum to 12 months.
(AP, 2/6/12)
2011 Jul 15, In Burundi lawyer Suzanne Bukuru was arrested and imprisoned for helping French journalists get an interview with victims she is representing in a rape trial involving a Frenchman Patrice Faye (58). On July 25 lawyers in Burundi announced a week-long strike in protest at the arrest of Bukuru for "complicity in espionage."
(AFP, 7/25/11)
2011 Jul 15, Cuban authorities shut down Canadian firm Tri-Star Caribbean and arrested company president Sarkis Yacoubian. The company, considered a competitor of Tokmakjian Group, did around $30 million in business with Cuba. Ontario-based Tokmakjian Group, one of the top Canadian companies doing business on the communist-run island, was shut down in September.
(Reuters, 9/16/11)
2011 Jul 15, In Egypt thousands of protesters rallied across the country, capping a week of nationwide sit-ins to demand political change as anger grows with the military rulers over the slow pace of reform.
(AFP, 7/15/11)
2011 Jul 15, UNICEF said at least 17,584 measles cases, including 114 deaths, have been reported by Ethiopian health officials in the first half of the year. The WHO said says at least 462 cases of measles, including 11 deaths, have been confirmed in recent months among Somali refugee children in the Kenyan refugee complex known as Dadaab.
(AP, 7/15/11)
2011 Jul 15, In Haiti four pilgrims died when a boulder fell on them on the peak day of a three-day Voodoo festival at the sacred site of Saut d'Eau.
(AP, 7/15/11)
2011 Jul 15, Indonesian police arrested Abrori Ali, the headmaster of an Islamic boarding school in the Sumba island town of Bima, after a man there died earlier this week, reportedly while trying to teach students how to make homemade bombs.
(AP, 7/15/11)
2011 Jul 15, In southern Iraq a US soldier was killed while conducting military operations.
(AP, 7/16/11)
2011 Jul 15, In Jordan government supporters attacked pro-reform protesters to stop them from gathering in a main square in the capital. At least 17 people, including journalists and policemen, were injured when police tried to stop clashes between pro-reform demonstrators and government supporters in central Amman.
(AP, 7/15/11)(AFP, 7/16/11)
2011 Jul 15, Some 1,000 Israelis and Palestinians gathered in east Jerusalem for a protest march to support the Palestinian bid for United Nations recognition.
(AFP, 7/15/11)
2011 Jul 15, Italy passed a $99 billion austerity package. The nation’s debt was the highest in the Eurozone at nearly 120% of GDP. The euro70 billion package did not entail any significant reduction in the wages, perks and privileges of the notoriously bloated, handsomely paid political elite, despite repeated promises such cuts would be carried out.
(SFC, 7/16/11, p.A2)(AP, 7/21/11)
2011 Jul 15, In Kashmir a handful of fighters, allegedly from Lashkar-e-Taiba, died in a shootout with Indian soldiers.
(Econ, 7/23/11, p.38)
2011 Jul 15, In a statement following a meeting in Istanbul of the so-called Contact Group on Libya, more than 30 nations, including the United States, declared that Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's regime is no longer legitimate and formally recognized Libya's main opposition group as the legitimate government until a new interim authority is created.
(AP, 7/15/11)
2011 Jul 15, In Mexico at least 12 state police officers and a bystander were killed in an ambush on a highway in the western state of Sinaloa. Fighting among inmates in a Nuevo Laredo prison near the US border killed 7 prisoners and allowed at least 59 others to escape.
(AP, 7/15/11)
2011 Jul 15, In Nigeria assailants from the Boko Haram sect threw a bomb at a police patrol car in Maiduguri wounding seven civilians. Colonel Victor Ebhaleme said a bomb was planted and a police van drove over it, exploding and injuring eight policemen.
(AP, 7/15/11)(AFP, 7/15/11)
2011 Jul 15, In Nigeria a second building collapsed since the start of the month in Lagos killing two people. 6 others were rescued.
(AFP, 7/16/11)
2011 Jul 15, A former military doctor was extradited from Paraguay to Argentina to face charges that include stealing babies from political prisoners during Argentina's dictatorship. Dr. Norberto Atilo Bianco allegedly helped run a clandestine maternity ward inside the epidemiology section of the Argentine army's Campo de Mayo military hospital in 1977 and 1978.
(AP, 7/16/11)
2011 Jul 15, Saudi authorities beheaded a man convicted of attacking a woman and snapping nude photos of her in order to blackmail her for sex.
(AP, 7/16/11)
2011 Jul 15, Somali pirates holding South Korean hostages demanded that the South Korean government release pirate prisoners and pay compensation for a commando raid that killed several pirates earlier this year.
(AP, 7/15/11)
2011 Jul 15, Syrian security forces killed at least 28 protesters as hundreds of thousands flooded the streets nationwide in the largest anti-government demonstrations since the uprising began more than four months ago. Casualties included 14 people in a suburb of Damascus, three in the northwestern city of Idlib, three in the central city of Homs and one in Daraa.
(AP, 7/15/11)(AP, 7/16/11)(SFC, 7/16/11, p.A3)
2011 Jul 15, Tunisian police fired tear gas to break up an anti-government protest in the capital, with demonstrators accusing the authorities of using violence to end their peaceful action.
(AFP, 7/15/11)
2011 Jul 15, Turkish prosecutors launched an investigation into a Kurdish proclamation of autonomy in the country's southeast as the military deployed elite forces to the region where tensions are running high following the deadliest clash between troops and rebels in about three years.
(AP, 7/15/11)
2011 Jul 15, A Turkish court charged 14 suspected al-Qaida militants for allegedly planning to attack the US Embassy in the Turkish capital.
(AP, 7/16/11)
2011 Jul 15, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced that he will return to Cuba to begin a new phase of cancer treatment that will include chemotherapy.
(AP, 7/15/11)
2011 Jul 15, In Yemen tribesmen killed a colonel and two of his aides in an ambush on their convoy in the Sharab al-Rona area of Taez. Tens of thousands of anti-regime protesters prayed at University Square. Tens of thousands of regime supporters also turned out. A security official said 7 civilians were killed and 30 wounded in Republican Guards shelling in Taez.
(AFP, 7/15/11)(AP, 7/15/11)(SFC, 7/16/11, p.A2)(AFP, 7/21/11)
2012 Jul 15, The Chinese province of Hunan urged parents to seek immediate treatment for children showing symptoms of hand, foot and mouth disease after official figures showed 112 people died from the illness last month.
(AFP, 7/15/12)
2012 Jul 15, In Ethiopia the leaders of Congo and Rwanda agreed in principle to back a neutral international armed force to combat Congo's newest rebellion and other fighters terrorizing civilians in the country's mineral-rich east. The African Union said it could help by sending soldiers.
(AP, 7/16/12)
2012 Jul 15, The Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Center confirmed that Laszlo Csatary (97), accused of complicity in the killings of 15,700 Jews, had been tracked down to the Hungarian capital. He served during World War II as a senior Hungarian police officer in the Slovakian city of Kosice, then under Hungarian rule. Csatary was taken into custody on July 18 and charged with war crimes.
(AFP, 7/16/12)(AP, 7/18/12)
2012 Jul 15, Iraq signed a gas exploration deal with Pakistan Petroleum.
(AFP, 7/15/12)
2012 Jul 15, Jordanian anti-riot police fired tear gas to break up a crowd of some 200 angry Libyans who attacked Tripoli's embassy with stones, over unpaid medical bills.
(AFP, 7/15/12)
2012 Jul 15, In northern Mali some 400 combatants of the government-backed Gandakoy militia were reported to have broken ranks and joined the Islamists, bolstering the radicals' edge over ethnic Tuareg rebels in the area.
(AP, 7/15/12)
2012 Jul 15, Namibia's annual seal hunt, which will see some 86,000 Cape fur seals slaughtered by end November, began amid outcry from conservation groups that brand it a massacre for trade purposes. The animals are harvested for their pelts, fat, which is used in beauty products and male sexual organs, believed to have aphrodisiac properties in Asia.
(AFP, 7/14/12)
2012 Jul 15, In Nepal at least 38 pilgrims were killed when an overcrowded bus carrying them from India to a Hindu festival swerved off a highway and plunged into the Gandak river.
(AFP, 7/15/12)
2012 Jul 15, Sewing needles were found in 5 sandwiches on flights originating in Amsterdam. One passenger on a flight to Minneapolis was injured. The other needles were on two flights to Atlanta and one to Seattle. The sandwiches were made in the Amsterdam kitchen of catering company Gate Gourmet.
(AP, 7/17/12)
2012 Jul 15, In northwestern Pakistan a mortar round hit a house belonging to a paramilitary soldier, killing his wife and three of his children near the Khyber tribal area.
(AP, 7/15/12)
2012 Jul 15, A senior Palestinian official, Osama Mansour, suspected of embezzling public funds fell to his death from the third-floor kitchen window of a West Bank security compound where he was being interrogated.
(AP, 7/16/12)
2012 Jul 15, The Republic of Congo held elections for a new parliament. The Congolese Labour Party of President Denis Sassou Nguesso retained its dominance in the first round of legislative elections in results announced on July 20. The PCT took 57 of the 69 seats that were won outright in the first-round vote. The other places in the 135-seat parliament will be decided in a second round scheduled for August 5.
(AP, 7/15/12)(AFP, 7/20/12)
2012 Jul 15, A Russian Soyuz rocket blasted off from Kazakhstan with an international crew of three toward the International Space Station in a mission testing the reliability of Russia's crisis-prone space program. On board were NASA's Sunita Williams, Japan's Akihiko Hoshide and Yury Malenchenko of Russia.
(AFP, 7/15/12)
2012 Jul 15, South Africa's Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, a former wife of Pres. Zuma, won a tightly fought vote to become the first woman to head the African Union Commission.
(AFP, 7/16/12)(Econ, 7/21/12, p.43)
2012 Jul 15, Syrian troops bombarded rebel areas in several parts of the country as violence across the country reportedly killed 105 people. The International Committee of the Red Cross said Sunday it now considers the conflict in Syria to be a full-blown civil war, meaning international humanitarian law applies throughout the country.
(AFP, 7/15/12)(AP, 7/15/12)(AFP, 7/16/12)
2012 Jul 15, Officials in the United Arab Emirates inaugurated a key overland oil pipeline bypassing the Strait of Hormuz, giving the OPEC member insurance against Iranian threats to block the strategic waterway.
(AP, 7/15/12)
2013 Jul 15, In New Hampshire Beatrice Munyenyezi (43), a Rwanda woman who became a citizen in 2003, was sentenced to 10 years in prison. She was convicted of lying to obtain US citizenship by denying her role as a roadblock commander in the 1994 Rwanda genocide.
(SFC, 7/16/13, p.A4)
2013 Jul 15, In Philadelphia Michael Scripps (36), a descendent of the founder of the Detroit News, was sentenced to 9 years in priuson for stealing $3.6 million from his mother and disabled uncle.
(SFC, 7/16/13, p.A4)
2013 Jul 15, In Bangladesh Ghulam Azam (91), a former chief of an Islamic party, was sentenced to 90 years in jail for crimes against humanity during the country's 1971 independence war, angering both supporters who said the trial was politically motivated and opponents who said he should be executed.
(AP, 7/15/13)
2013 Jul 15, Bangladesh approved a labor law to boost worker rights, including the freedom to form trade unions, after a factory building collapse in April killed 1,132 garment workers and sparked debate over labor safety and rights.
(Reuters, 7/15/13)
2013 Jul 15, In Cameroon the body of Eric Ohena Lembembe, a prominent gay rights activist, was discovered at his home in the capital, Yaounde, after he was unreachable for two days.
(AP, 7/16/13)
2013 Jul 15, A Chilean appeals court ruled against the world's largest gold mining company, favoring Chilean Indians who accuse Barrick Gold Corp. of contaminating their water downstream and creating more doubts about the future of the world's highest gold mine.
(AP, 7/15/13)
2013 Jul 15, In China the Hunan Provincial People's High Court ruled in favor of Tang Hui, who last year was sentenced to 18 months in a labor camp for petitioning for harsher penalties for the men who abducted, raped and prostituted her 11-year-old daughter.
(AP, 7/15/13)
2013 Jul 15, The Congolese army claimed that it killed 120 rebels in eastern Congo.
(AP, 7/15/13)
2013 Jul 15, In Egypt at least 3 people were killed and 17 wounded when suspected militants fired rocket-propelled grenades at a bus carrying workers in the North Sinai province early today. Clashes in central Cairo between police and supporters of deposed Pres. Morsi left at least 7 people dead. Authorities arrested 401 people over clashes.
(Reuters, 7/15/13)(Econ, 7/20/13, p.45)
2013 Jul 15, In France Greenpeace activists occupied a nuclear power plant site before dawn, a media stunt deeply embarrassing to the government, which is intent on demonstrating that France's reliance on nuclear power is safe.
(AP, 7/15/13)
2013 Jul 15, Pirates seized the Maltese-flagged Cotton tanker on July 15 near Gabon's Port Gentil in the first reported attack in that area in the past five years. On July 22 the vessel’s operator said the oil products tanker and its 24 Indian crew have been released.
(Reuters, 7/22/13)
2013 Jul 15, In in southeastern Guinea at least two people were killed and six others injured in clashes. Mobs from rival ethnic groups took to the streets and gunfire rang out across Nzerekore, Guinea's second largest town, after a man accused of being a thief was killed.
(Reuters, 7/15/13)
2013 Jul 15, India officially declared that nearly 6,000 people were missing a month after flash floods ravaged large parts of its northern state of Uttarakhand, but stopped short of saying they were presumed dead.
(Reuters, 7/15/13)
2013 Jul 15, Nissan launched a new Datsun in India, three decades after shelving the brand that helped win Western acceptance of Japanese autos. The reimagined Datsun, a five-seat hatchback, will go on sale in India next year for under 400,000 rupees (about $6,670).
(AP, 7/15/13)
2013 Jul 15, In Iraq attacks across the country killed 9 people, including a 10-year-old boy.
(AP, 7/15/13)
2013 Jul 15, In Libya assailants shot air force Colonel Fathi al-Omami as he opened a shop he owned in Derna.
(Reuters, 7/16/13)
2013 Jul 15, The Mexican government announced plans to invest about $100 billion in rail, road, telecom and port projects over the next five years, including Mexico's first high-speed rail links.
(AP, 7/15/13)
2013 Jul 15, Mexican marines captured Zetas leader Miguel Angel Trevino Morales (40) before dawn as they intercepted a pickup truck with $2 million in cash in the countryside outside the border city of Nuevo Laredo. Morales was taken into custody along with a bodyguard and an accountant and 8 guns.
(AP, 7/16/13)
2013 Jul 15, Northern Ireland rioters threw petrol bombs, bricks, bottles and fireworks at police in a third night of violence around traditional Protestant marches, wounding one officer early today.
(Reuters, 7/15/13)
2013 Jul 15, Panama's president said the country has seized a North Korean-flagged freighter carrying what appeared to be ballistic missiles and other arms that had set sail from Cuba. North Korea and Cuba said the weapons were antiquated and were being sent for repair. North Korea called for the release of the ship and its and 35 crew members.
(AP, 7/16/13)(SFC, 7/18/13, p.A4)(SFC, 7/19/13, p.A2)
2013 Jul 15, Spain’s former treasurer Luis Barcenas began talking about about two decades of illicit Popular party (PP) financing.
(Econ, 7/20/13, p.48)0
2013 Jul 15, Syrian troops overnight pounded rebel-held villages around the city of Idlib with rockets, artillery and airstrikes, killing at least 29 people including six children. A car bomb exploded overnight outside the police headquarters in Deir Atiyeh, killing at least 13 people including 10 policemen. Government troops backed by tanks and artillery moved into Qaboun, a rebel-held district of Damascus, stepping up efforts to drive opposition fighters from the capital and build on battlefield gains elsewhere in the country. The Qaboun Coordination Committee, an activist group, said at least 60 people had been killed in Qaboun over the last few days by the shelling and subsequent clashes. Pro-government gunmen killed 7 members of a local Syrian reconciliation group near Homs, as troops shot dead 9 people including a child at a checkpoint in a suburb of the capital.
(AP, 7/15/13)(Reuters, 7/15/13)(AP, 7/16/13)
2014 Jul 15, Comic book hero Archie Andrews died in today’s installment of Life with Archie No. 36 as he took an assassin’s bullet aimed at his gay best friend. Archie first appeared in comics in 1941.
(SFC, 7/16/14, p.F6)
2014 Jul 15, California’s Water Resources Control Board approved emergency regulations that allow local law enforcement and water agencies to impose a maximum $500-a-day fine on water wasters.
(SFC, 7/16/14, p.A1)
2014 Jul 15, In Utah John Swallow (51) and Mark Shurtleff (56), both former state attorneys general, were arrested on a battery of bribery charges.
(SFC, 7/16/14, p.A6)
2014 Jul 15, Reynolds American agreed to by Lorillard for $27.4 billion uniting two of the country’s largest tobacco producers.
(SFC, 7/16/14, p.C6)
2014 Jul 15, In Afghanistan a car packed with explosives exploded as it sped through a crowded market in the eastern province of Paktika, killing 43 people with 74 wounded. In Kabul a remote control bomb concealed by a roadside killed 2 employees of President Karzai's media office and wounded five.
(Reuters, 7/15/14)(Reuters, 7/17/14)
2014 Jul 15, In Australia a class-action settlement against electricity provider SP AusNet awarded survivors of a 2009 wildfire nearly 500 million Australian dollars, the largest such compensation in the nation's history. The wildfire killed 119 people and was the biggest in a series of blazes that tore through the southern Australian state of Victoria.
(AP, 7/15/14)
2014 Jul 15, In Brazil leaders of the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) met for their 6th annual summit. They created two financial institutions: The New Development Bank (NDB) to finance infrastructure with $50 billion to start and the $100 billion Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA) to tide over members in financial difficulties.
(AP, 7/15/14)(Econ, 7/19/14,p.62)
2014 Jul 15, British PM David Cameron pushed through his biggest government shake-up since coming to power in 2010, promoting women and Eurosceptics to senior roles ahead of a national election in May, 2015.
(Reuters, 7/15/14)
2014 Jul 15, Britain's financial regulator announced new limitations on what payday lenders can charge their customers. From January payday loan rates must not exceed a daily rate of 0.8 percent of the amount borrowed. Customers must never have to pay back more in fees and interest than the amount borrowed.
(AP, 7/15/14)
2014 Jul 15, In Cambodia about 200 protesters marched to a park in Phnom Penh and attached an orange banner that read "Free the Freedom Park" to the surrounding razor wire barricade. As armed police watched from inside the public park, several dozen security guards attempted to disperse the rally. Three leaders of the opposition CNRP were arrested and denied bail.
(AP, 7/16/14)(Econ, 7/19/14, p.37)
2014 Jul 15, China’s top anti-corruption watchdog said Zhang Youren, a former senior executive at a state-owned military giant, has been expelled from the ruling Communist Party for taking bribes and other "massive" corruption.
(Reuters, 7/15/14)
2014 Jul 15, In southern China an explosion went off on a bus that then caught fire in Guangzhou, killing 2 people and injuring at least six.
(AP, 7/15/14)
2014 Jul 15, Croatia published a "name and shame" list of more than 5,000 organizations which have withheld more than one monthly salary from their employees this year, in an effort to stamp out widespread cheating of staff.
(Reuters, 7/16/14)
2014 Jul 15, An Egyptian truce proposal for the conflict in Gaza quickly unraveled, after the Islamic militant Hamas rejected the plan. Gaza militants fired scores of rockets at Israel and Israel responded with more than a dozen air strikes. Aid agencies warned that hundreds of thousands of Gazans were without water after air strikes wrecked the water and sewage system. The whole strip was threatened with a water crisis. Local officials in Gaza said the death toll had risen to 192.
(AP, 7/15/14)(Reuters, 7/15/14)
2014 Jul 15, Israeli warplanes struck three administrative and military targets in Syria's Golan at dawn, killing 2 security guards and 2 women. The air raids came after the Israeli army said a rocket fired from Syria hit the Israeli-occupied sector of the Golan Heights.
(AFP, 7/15/14)
2014 Jul 15, Jean-Claude Juncker, former Luxembourg PM, won broad endorsement from the European Parliament to be the next head of the executive European Commission.
(Reuters, 7/15/14)
2014 Jul 15, In Georgia Erosi Kitsmarishvili, the founder of the Rustavi 2 TV channel, was found dead in his car with a bullet in his head.
(AP, 7/16/14)
2014 Jul 15, Germany's Federal Cartel Office said it has imposed fines totaling 338 million euros ($460 million) on 21 sausage manufacturers for colluding on prices.
(AP, 7/15/14)
2014 Jul 15, Hong Kong's Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying formally asked Beijing for legal changes that would ultimately let residents of the southern Chinese city elect his successor, but he downplayed calls for the public to nominate candidates free of China's vetting.
(AP, 7/15/14)
2014 Jul 15, An Iranian F-4 fighter jet crashed shortly after taking off from a military air base in Shiraz killing two pilots on board.
(AP, 7/15/14)
2014 Jul 15, Iraqi lawmakers broke their deadlock and elected a new speaker of parliament, taking the first formal step toward forming a new government that is widely seen as crucial to confronting militants who have overrun much of the country. Sunni lawmaker Salim al-Jubouri won with 194 votes in the 328-seat parliament. Iraqi forces withdrew from the militant-held city of Tikrit after their new offensive met heavy resistance.
(AP, 7/15/14)(Reuters, 7/16/14)
2014 Jul 15, An Israeli civilian was killed by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip, the first Israeli fatality in more than a week of fighting with Palestinian militants.
(Reuters, 7/16/14)
2014 Jul 15, In Libya a Filipino construction worker was kidnapped by militia men. He was later beheaded by his captors, becoming the first Filipino casualty in the renewed violence. His decomposed body was found July 20 in a hospital in Benghazi. In response the Filipino foreign ministry soon announced a "mandatory" evacuation of all 13,000 of its nationals living in Libya.
(AP, 7/22/14)(AFP, 8/1/14)
2014 Jul 15, Pakistani as authorities rushed aid to over 800,000 people who have fled the northwestern tribal region for safety. The military said it has cleared Miran Shah of militants, killing 447 of them while losing 26 soldiers there since the start of the June 15 operation.
(AP, 7/15/14)
2014 Jul 15, A Pakistani court sentenced a man to death on blasphemy charges. Mohammad Zulfiqar (50), alleged to be mentally ill, was charged with blasphemy after writing what were considered to be blasphemous comments on the walls of a Lahore neighborhood in 2008.
(AP, 7/15/14)
2014 Jul 15, In the Philippines tens of thousands of people hunkered down in evacuation centers while three people were reported missing as Typhoon Rammasun pounded its eastern coast amid warnings of giant storm surges and heavy floods.
(AFP, 7/15/14)
2014 Jul 15, The World Bank said that it and its private sector arm have committed concessional loans of up to $4.2 billion to the Philippines to help the country reduce poverty, create jobs and sustain growth as it recovers from the impact of a devastating typhoon and separatist rebellion.
(AP, 7/15/14)
2014 Jul 15, In Russia a rush-hour subway train derailed in Moscow, killing 22 people and sending 150 others to the hospital. Investigators soon detained two metro workers for alleged safety breaches.
(AP, 7/15/14)(AFP, 7/16/14)
2014 Jul 15, In Somalia more than 200 suspects were arrested in a security sweep aimed at stemming a wave of militant attacks in Mogadishu.
(AP, 7/15/14)
2014 Jul 15, In eastern Ukraine an airstrike demolished an apartment block, killing at least 11 civilians. The government denied blame.
(AP, 7/15/14)(SFC, 7/16/14, p.A2)
2015 Jul 15, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts said "Star Wars" creator George Lucas, groundbreaking actresses Rita Moreno and Cicely Tyson, singer Carole King, rock band the Eagles and acclaimed music director Seiji Ozawa will receive this year's Kennedy Center Honors.
(AP, 7/15/15)
2015 Jul 15, California regulators ordered Uber to pay a $7.3 million fine and hand over required information about safety and accessibility or shut down in the company’s home state.
(SFC, 7/16/15, p.C6)
2015 Jul 15, The Colorado Bard of health voted 6-2 against adding PTSD to the list of ailments eligible for treatment with marijuana.
(SFC, 7/17/15, p.A6)
2015 Jul 15, The Solar Impulse team said it is suspending its journey in Hawaii to at least next April after the plane suffered battery damage during its flight from Japan.
(SFC, 7/16/15, p.A5)
2015 Jul 15, In Austria the Vienna regional court found Oliver N. (17) guilty of participating in a terror organization and incitement to terrorism and sentenced him to 2 ½ years in prison for joining the Islamic State group.
(AP, 7/15/15)
2015 Jul 15, In Bahrain a man accidentally blew himself up as he tried to plant a bomb targeting police in a Shi'ite Muslim village.
(Reuters, 7/15/15)
2015 Jul 15, Bulgaria’s interior ministry said a man (21), suspected of belonging to a network of Islamist hackers responsible for attacks on more than 3,500 websites worldwide, has been arrested. The man was said to be part of a group using the acronym MECA (Middle East Cyber Army).
(AFP, 7/15/15)
2015 Jul 15, A Cameroon governor said the country's north has banned women from wearing burkas and face-covering veils in response to the July 12 attacks that left 14 dead. The Far North Region also banned Muslims from meeting in large groups without permission.
(AP, 7/15/15)
2015 Jul 15, In China Wan Li (99), a politician known for his reform policies, died in Beijing. Wan was best known for the reform policies that he began implementing in the late 1970s, especially in rural China.
(AP, 7/15/15)
2015 Jul 15, Egypt’s military foiled an attempted attack on a military post on a highway linking Cairo with the Red Sea coast. The driver of a car that was carrying 500 kg (1,100 pounds) of dynamite refused to stop at a checkpoint, drawing fire from the troops. The car then swerved off the road and the driver was killed.
(AP, 7/16/15)
2015 Jul 15, The European Commission published its assessment of Greece's bailout request, taking a different view of Athens' debt sustainability than the IMF, but also signaling a possibility of debt relief.
(Reuters, 7/15/15)
2015 Jul 15, In Germany Oskar Groening (94), known as the "bookkeeper of Auschwitz," was sentenced to four years in prison for his role in the murder of 300,000 people at the Nazi death camp. Groening, who had been sent to work at the camp in 1942, inspected people's luggage, removing and counting any bank notes and sending them on to SS offices in Berlin, where they helped to fund the Nazi war effort.
(Reuters, 7/15/15)
2015 Jul 15, In Greece municipal workers, pharmacists and others went on strike to protests the impact that new reforms will have on their livelihoods.
(Econ, 7/18/15, p.41)
2015 Jul 15, In eastern India police recovered the remains of a man who was beaten to death and burnt by a mob last week over allegations of sorcery in Odisha's Rayagada district. Ten people have been arrested.
(Reuters, 7/15/15)
2015 Jul 15, Iraqi journalist Jala al-Abadi (b.1988), who was taken from his home with his phone and laptop on June 4, was executed in Mosul by firing squad after being sentenced by an IS court.
(AFP, 7/18/15)
2015 Jul 15, Ireland’s transgender people won legal recognition of their status through the passage of the Gender Recognition Bill, allowing them to change their legal gender with no medical or state intervention.
(Reuters, 7/16/15)
2015 Jul 15, In Italy a Milan court convicted 11 former Pirelli managers, including two former CEOs, on charges of manslaughter and gave them prison sentences for the deaths of about 20 workers who developed tumors or lung disease after being exposed to asbestos.
(AP, 7/15/15)
2015 Jul 15, Japan-based Toyota said it is recalling 625,000 Prius hybrid vehicles worldwide because they can stall without warning.
(AP, 7/15/15)
2015 Jul 15, The Lebanese army said troops have confiscated a drone in the eastern Bekaa Valley as it was being taken to insurgents on the Syrian side of the border.
(AP, 7/15/15)
2015 Jul 15, Macedonia's main political leaders reached a final agreement early today to resolve a protracted and severe political crisis that has roiled the small Balkan country for months.
(AP, 7/15/15)
2015 Jul 15, Mexico opened its energy sector with an auction of oil exploration rights ending the 77-year monopoly of Pemex. In the first round only two of fourteen blocks on offer were sold, to a Mexican-British-American consortium.
(Econ, 7/18/15, p.8)
2015 Jul 15, In southeastern Niger Boko Haram jihadists killed 16 civilians in an attack on a village near Bosso. Another person succumbed later to their wounds.
(AFP, 7/18/15)
2015 Jul 15, The Pakistani military shot down a small Indian spy drone in Kashmir. Indian and Pakistani troops exchanged fire in Kashmir, killing a woman and wounding at least 4 other people on the Indian-controlled side.
(Reuters, 7/15/15)(AP, 7/15/15)
2015 Jul 15, In the Philippines nearly 500 policemen launched simultaneous raids on drug dens and other criminal hideouts in the southern city of Davao, killing 7 suspects and arresting 39 others in one of the largest single-day anti-crime operations this year. Army troops and police in Sulu province shot Mahmur Jupuri, a suspected Abu Sayyaf militant, who they said was linked to the kidnappings of seven people. Jupuri was killed and his companion was wounded.
(AP, 7/15/15)
2015 Jul 15, Some 335 migrants arrived in port in Augusta, Sicily, after a week at sea. Parents of a 10-year-old Syrian girl with diabetes said she died after the smugglers threw her insulin overboard. Police in Sicily soon arrested three Egyptians who allegedly were in charge of the smuggling boat.
(AP, 7/18/15)
2015 Jul 15, In south-central Somalia a US drone strike destroyed a vehicle belonging to al Shabaab militants. The attack targeted al-Shabab commander Ismael Jabhad and three other fighters near Bardhere. Kenya said at least 30 Shebab militants were killed.
(Reuters, 7/16/15)(AFP, 7/16/15)(SFC, 7/17/15, p.A2)
2015 Jul 15, In Syria 13 civilians, among them 7 children, were killed in aerial attacks by the government on the northern province of Aleppo. 22 IS fighters were killed when regime warplanes struck a convoy traveling between the provinces of Deir Ezzor in the east and Hasakeh in the northeast. Al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate and its Islamist allies launched an attack on the last two Shiite Muslim villages under regime control in northwest Idlib province.
(AFP, 7/15/15)
2015 Jul 15, Ukraine said 8 government troops were killed and 16 wounded in the war-torn east over the last 24-hours.
(AP, 7/15/15)
2015 Jul 15, In Yemen loyalists of exiled President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi, buoyed by their recapture of the airport, seized more ground in second city Aden as they pressed their biggest fightback yet against Iran-backed rebels. Saudi-led warplanes carried out six raids on rebel positions before dawn.
(AFP, 7/15/15)
2016 Jul 15, The US released once top secret pages from a 2003 congressional report into the 9/11 attacks that questioned whether Saudis, who were in contact with hijackers, knew what they were planning.
(SFC, 7/16/16, p.A5)
2016 Jul 15, The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that Herbalife has agreed to a $200 million settlement for consumer relief along with requirements to restructure it business practices.
(SFC, 7/16/16, p.D1)
2016 Jul 15, The Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that US officials have wrongly allowed the Navy to use sonar at levels that could harm whales and other marine animals.
(SSFC, 7/17/16, p.C1)
2016 Jul 15, San Diego police arrested Jon David Guerrero (39) following an attack on a homeless man. Police believed Guerrero was responsible for the five attacks since July 3 that killed three homeless men.
(SSFC, 7/17/16, p.A13)
2016 Jul 15, Florida murder suspect Dayonte Resiles (21) disappeared after bolting from a courtroom in Broward County. On July 17 officials said he received help from his girlfriend and three others as part of a plot that had been planned during jailhouse calls and visits. Two more accomplices were soon arrested. Resiles was arrested on July 20 in West Palm Beach.
(AP, 7/17/16)(SFC, 7/21/16, p.A7)
2016 Jul 15, GOP front runner Donald Trump named Indiana Gov. Mike Pence as his running mate.
(SFC, 7/16/16, p.A6)
2016 Jul 15, Albania's ruling Socialists said they will accept any changes the opposition Democratic Party make to a judicial reform package, provided they are amenable to the European Union and the United States.
(AP, 7/15/16)
2016 Jul 15, Brazil said it has deported the Franco-Algerian nuclear physicist Adlene Hicheur after rejecting a request for an extension to his work visa. He was convicted in 2012 for his involvement in a French terror plot. Local press reports said Hicheur had been deported to France.
(Reuters, 7/16/16)
2016 Jul 15, British PM Theresa May visited Scotland and met with First Minister Nicola Sturgeon in Edinburgh seeking to dampen speculation about another Scottish vote for independence, while insisting she is willing to listen to proposals about Scotland's future relationship with the European Union.
(AP, 7/15/16)
2016 Jul 15, Britain listed the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), aka Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP), as a terrorist organization. This pleased China, which had demanded Western support for its fight against a group it says seeks to split off its western region of Xinjiang.
(Reuters, 7/20/16)
2016 Jul 15, State media said China aims to launch a series of offshore nuclear power platforms to promote development in the South China Sea, days after an international court ruled Beijing had no historic claims to most of the waters.
(Reuters, 7/15/16)
2016 Jul 15, Chinese prosecutors said a human rights lawyer and three activists have been indicted on subversion charges.
(AP, 7/15/16)
2016 Jul 15, In eastern China 8 people in Longkou city, Shandong province, were killed when the construction elevator they were in plummeted from an apartment building.
(AP, 7/17/16)
2016 Jul 15, Egypt launched a program of having Muslim clerics read a standardized government-written sermon at Friday prayers, a move by the state to tighten control over religious discourse.
(AP, 7/15/16)
2016 Jul 15, The Supreme Court in Guinea-Bissau upheld the nomination of PM Baciro Dja, bolstering President Jose Mario Vaz in a power struggle with rival and former PM Carlos Correia.
(Reuters, 7/16/16)
2016 Jul 15, Thousands of Iraqis defied warnings from authorities and rallied in the heart of Baghdad, renewing pressure on the government to carry out reforms targeting corruption and sectarianism.
(AFP, 7/15/16)
2016 Jul 15, Rescuers saved 366 migrants from rickety boats trying to cross the Mediterranean to Italy but at least 20 people were reported to have drowned. The survivors were mainly from Nigeria, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Bangladesh.
(Reuters, 7/16/16)
2016 Jul 15, Japanese messaging app Line rocketed in its Tokyo trading debut after an eye-popping jump in NY a day earlier, as investors cheered the year's biggest technology share sale.
(AP, 7/15/16)
2016 Jul 15, In Kashmir widespread anti-India protests and clashes erupted in dozens of places, even as authorities prevented tens of thousands of people from offering prayers in big mosques with a lockdown in place for a seventh straight day.
(AP, 7/15/16)
2016 Jul 15, North Korea presented to media a man it alleges is a South Korean spy who tried to enter the North to kidnap children. Detainee Ko Hyon Chol (53) said he apologized for a crime he called "unforgivable." He was arrested May 27 on an island in the Amnok River which runs along the border between North Korea and China.
(AP, 7/15/16)
2016 Jul 15, Pakistani fashion model and social media star Qandeel Baloch, real name Fauzia Azeem, was strangled by her brother Waseem in what appeared to be an honor killing in Multan, Punjab province. Her social media photos had challenged social norms. Waseem was arrested on July 17 and confessed to killing his sister. In 2019 Waseem was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison.
(AP, 7/16/16)(Reuters, 7/16/16)(AP, 7/17/16)(Econ, 7/23/16, p.32)(SFC, 9/28/19, p.A2)
2016 Jul 15, South Koreans protesting against a plan to deploy a US missile defense system in their district blocked a minibus carrying PM Hwang Kyo-ahn for several hours. A day earlier the government announced that the southeastern county of Seongju had been chosen as the site for a Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) battery aimed at countering what it sees as the threat from North Korea's missile and nuclear program.
(Reuters, 7/15/16)
2016 Jul 15, Turkey foiled a coup attempt by a faction of the army against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's rule. 161 people, not including the putschists, were reported killed in the coup attempt, with 2,839 soldiers detained on suspicion of involvement. More than 230 people were killed among them 145 civilians who had taken to the streets to confront the rebellious soldiers.
(AFP, 7/16/16)(Econ, 7/23/16, p.14)
2016 Jul 15, In Turkey Gen. Zekai Aksakalli ordered Sgt. Omer Halisdemir to kill Brigadier General Semih Terzi, one of the suspected coup ringleaders. By shooting Terzi dead outside special forces headquarters in Ankara, Halisdemir broke the putschists' chain of command although he was subsequently killed by the plotters.
(Reuters, 8/21/17)
2016 Jul 15, The UN said at least 300 people were killed and 42,000 fled their homes this month during the July 8-11 intense gun battles in Juba, South Sudan. The dead included two Chinese peacekeepers.
(AFP, 7/15/16)(Reuters, 7/29/16)
2016 Jul 15, UNESCO put four new sites on its World Heritage List. The new sites, announced in Istanbul, include China's Zuojiang Huashan rock art cultural landscape, Iran's ancient aqueducts known as Qanat, and India's archaeological site of Nalanda Mahavihara. The World Heritage Committee also selected Micronesia's artificial islets of Nan Madol and simultaneously placed it on the List of World Heritage in Danger.
(AP, 7/15/16)
2016 Jul 15, Zimbabwe delayed paying its soldiers for a second successive month, underlining the worsening economic crisis that has triggered recent protests.
(AFP, 7/18/16)
2017 Jul 15, American actor Martin Landau (b.1928) died at UCLA Medical Center. He starred in the Mission Impossible TV series for three seasons from its debut in 1966. He won an Oscar for his portrayal of aging horror movie star Bela Lugosi in “Ed Wood" (1994).
(SFC, 7/17/17, p.A6)
2017 Jul 15, In Chicago community activist William Cooper (58) was fatally shot on the South Side by someone in a passing car.
(SFC, 7/17/17, p.A5)
2017 Jul 15, In Minnesota Justine Ruszczyk Damond, an Australian woman who called 911 to report what she believed to be an active sexual assault, was shot and killed by a Minneapolis police Officer Mohamed Noor. The case was later handed to prosecutors for possible charges. On March 20, 2018, Officer Noor was charged with murder and manslaughter.
(AP, 7/18/17)(SFC, 9/13/17 p.A6)(AP, 3/21/18)
2017 Jul 15, China named rising political star Chen Miner as Communist Party boss in southwestern Chongqing, cementing his reputation as a favorite of President Xi Jinping ahead of a leadership reshuffle at a key party congress in the autumn.
(Reuters, 7/15/17)
2017 Jul 15, Chinese legal activist Xu Zhiyong was released from prison at the end of a four-year sentence. He had helped found the New Citizens Movement, which at the time organized monthly dinners to discuss China's constitution and other legal issues.
(AP, 7/15/17)
2017 Jul 15, In France the Energy Observer, a boat that fuels itself, set off around the world from Paris on a six-year journey that its designers hope will serve as a model for emissions-free energy networks of the future. The boat was originally designed in 1983 and enjoyed a successful career in open-sea sailing races before skippers Frederic Dahirel and Victorien Erussard and a French research institute converted it into the Energy Observer project.
(AP, 7/15/17)
2017 Jul 15, Indonesia’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology said that it was preparing for the total closure of the Telegram app in Indonesia, where it has several million users, if it didn't develop procedures to block unlawful content.
(AP, 7/16/17)
2017 Jul 15, In Iran police shot dead a man who attacked a clergyman and other people with a knife at a metro station in Tehran.
(Reuters, 7/15/17)
2017 Jul 15, Israeli security forces locked down parts of Jerusalem's Old City and an ultra-sensitive holy site remained closed after an attack that killed two police officers and heightened Israeli-Palestinian tensions.
(AFP, 7/15/17)
2017 Jul 15, In Ivory Coast gunmen attacked military bases in Abidjan and the northern city of Korhogo early today, but were repulsed. Three assailants and three soldiers were reported killed. A police station in Abobo was also attacked. The attackers were said to be demobilized fighters from former rebels who controlled the north during the 2002 to 2011 crisis.
(Reuters, 7/15/17)(AFP, 7/15/17)
2017 Jul 15, Libya’s Benina international airport officially reopened for commercial flights amid a heavy security presence after a three-year closure due to fighting in Benghazi.
(Reuters, 7/15/17)
2017 Jul 15, Thousands of Malians took to the streets to protest against a planned referendum on constitutional changes that would give extra powers to President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, create new regions and recognize the Tuareg's ethnic homeland.
(Reuters, 7/15/17)
2017 Jul 15, In Myanmar Rohingya Muslim women lined up to tell reporters of missing husbands, mothers and sons as international media were escorted for the first time to a village in northern Rakhine state affected by violence since October.
(Reuters, 7/15/17)
2017 Jul 15, A Pakistan official said that laboratory testing shows that water from Lake Rawal is "fit for human consumption" after tons of dead fish were found in the water body on Islamabad's outskirts. The Lake Rawal reservoir is used as the main source of water for the garrison city of Rawalpindi.
(AP, 7/15/17)
2017 Jul 15, Hamas described the closure of the site in a statement as a "religious war" and spokesman Fawzi Barhoum called on the Palestinian "uprising" to target the Israeli army and West Bank settlers.
(AP, 7/15/17)
2017 Jul 15, In Senegal a wall collapsed in a Dakar stadium during extra time at the League Cup final between Stade de Mbour and US Ouakam killing eight people. The match was marred by clashes between rival fans. In August ten football fans were arrested in connection with the stampede.
(AFP, 7/16/17)(AFP, 8/8/17)
2017 Jul 15, In Singapore around 400 protesters gathered at Speakers' Corner on calling for an independent inquiry into whether PM Lee Hsien Loong abused his power in a battle with his siblings over what to do with their late father's house.
(Reuters, 7/15/17)
2017 Jul 15, In South Korea thousands of people celebrated gay rights with song, dance and a march in Seoul, amid rain and boisterous protests by conservative Christians.
(AFP, 7/15/17)
2017 Jul 15, In Turkey thousands of people marched from several Istanbul neighborhoods to converge at the iconic July 15 Martyrs' Bridge in a "national unity march" to commemorate the one year anniversary of Turkey's failed coup attempt.
(AP, 7/15/17)
2018 Jul 15, In Massachusetts a bystander and police Officer Michael Chesna (42) died from wounds sustained when a suspect took the officer's gun and fired following a vehicle crash and foot chase. Suspect Emanuel Lopes (20) was taken into custody.
(SFC, 7/16/18, p.A4)
2018 Jul 15, In Kansas City, Mo., police fatally shot a man suspected of shooting and wounding three police officers.
(SFC, 7/16/18, p.A4)
2018 Jul 15, In New Mexico a collision involving a passenger bus and three other vehicles on I-25 killed three people. Authorities later reported that one of the injured passengers was carrying a backpack filled with almost $100,000.
(SFC, 7/16/18, p.A4)(SFC, 7/23/18, p.A4)
2018 Jul 15, In Afghanistan a suicide bomber on foot struck outside the building of the Rural Rehabilitation and Development Ministry in Kabul, killing seven people and wounding 15 as staff were leaving the office in the evening rush hour. The Taliban stormed a police checkpoint late today in eastern Nangarhar province and killed seven policemen. Five Taliban fighters were killed in the attack. A government airstrike left 20 Taliban fighters dead in the Khogyani district of Nangarhar province.
(Reuters, 7/15/18)(AP, 7/16/18)
2018 Jul 15, Cameroon arrested four soldiers suspected of shooting dead two women and two children in the country's far north where its army is battling jihadist group Boko Haram. A video of the incident emerged last week and provoked international outcry.
(AP, 7/19/18)
2018 Jul 15, Congo DRC state television reported that Pres. Kabila has appointed General John Numbi to the role of inspector general of the Congolese Armed Forces. Numbi has been placed under sanctions by the US, EU and Switzerland for alleged killings of scores of civilians by forces controlled by him over several years.
(Reuters, 7/15/18)
2018 Jul 15, Egypt's parliament backed a draft bill that grants foreigners citizenship if they deposit the sum of at least 7 million Egyptian pounds, or about $391,000, in a local bank, save it there for five years and reside in the country during that period. The bill still faced another parliament session and final approval by the president, Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, before it can become a law.
(AP, 7/16/18)
2018 Jul 15, Human Rights Watch accused Egyptian authorities of using state-of-emergency and counterterrorism laws and to unjustly prosecute journalists, activists and critics for their peaceful criticism.
(SFC, 7/16/18, p.A2)
2018 Jul 15, In Finland about 2,500 protesters demonstrated in support of human rights, democracy and the environment in Helsinki, a day before US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin hold a summit in the Finnish capital.
(Reuters, 7/15/18)
2018 Jul 15, Germany said it had agreed with Italy to take in 50 of the 450 migrants aboard two EU border agency vessels, matching similar pledges by France and Malta.
(AFP, 7/15/18)
2018 Jul 15, Hungarian PM Viktor Orban denounced EU sanctions imposed on Russia, during a visit to Pres. Vladimir Putin in Moscow ahead of the Moscow World Cup final.
(AFP, 7/15/18)
2018 Jul 15, In eastern India Maoist rebels ambushed a unit of government forces, leaving two soldiers dead and another wounded in Chhattisgarh state.
(AP, 7/15/18)
2018 Jul 15, Iraqis demanding better public services and jobs took to the streets for the sixth day in the southern oil-rich province of Basra, as authorities put security forces on high alert and blocked the internet in the country's Shiite heartland. Dozens of demonstrators were wounded. The internet was off service across the country for a second consecutive day and foreign airlines announced the suspension of flights.
(AP, 7/15/18)(AFP, 7/15/18)
2018 Jul 15, In Indian-controlled Kashmir at least seven people were killed and 22 others injured when a boulder rolled down from a mountain and fell on local tourists bathing at a waterfall in the Jammu region.
(AP, 7/15/18)
2018 Jul 15, Israel deported Ebru Ozkan, a week after indicting her for smuggling money and goods to the Palestinian Islamist militant group while visiting as a tourist. On July 26 The Washington Post reported that Trump had asked Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu during a July 14 phone call to let Ozkan go in what the White House envisaged as an indirect trade for Pastor Andrew Brunson. Ankara said it had not agreed to any Ozkan-Brunson swap.
(Reuters, 7/27/18)
2018 Jul 15, In Malaysia Manny Pacquiao (39) of the Philippines won a seventh-round knockout of Lucas Matthysse of Argentina to claim the World Boxing Association welterweight title.
(AP, 7/15/18)
2018 Jul 15, In northeastern Mali gunmen shot dead 14 civilians in an attack on a village near the border with Niger.
(Reuters, 7/16/18)
2018 Jul 15, In north-central Mexico gunmen burst into a funeral home in Zacatecas state killing five people with 17 left wounded.
(AP, 7/26/18)
2018 Jul 15, In Nicaragua at least ten people were shot dead as police and paramilitary groups attacked roadblocks set up by anti-government demonstrators demanding the resignation of Pres. Daniel Ortega.
(SFC, 7/16/18, p.A2)
2018 Jul 15, Two Palestinians, a man (35) and his son (13), were killed in a blast in a house west of Gaza City.
(Reuters, 7/15/18)
2018 Jul 15, In Russia Croatia lost France 4-2 to in the World cup final.
(AP, 7/16/18)
2018 Jul 15, Syrian government forces unleashed hundreds of missiles on a rebel-held area near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Jets, believed to be Russian, bombed an opposition held town in Quenitra province in the first such aerial strike in a year. Rebel fighters began to leave the Deraa al-Balad neighborhood which had been under rebel control for years.
(AP, 7/15/18)(Reuters, 7/15/18)
2018 Jul 15, In Syria suspected Israeli missiles hit a military position late today in northern Aleppo province where elite Iranian forces were stationed. Nine pro-regime fighters were reported killed in the strikes, at least six of them Syrian. State media denied any casualties.
(AFP, 7/16/18)
2018 Jul 15, Turkey issued presidential decrees reshaping key political, military and bureaucratic institutions as part of the transformation to a powerful executive presidency triggered by last month's election.
(Reuters, 7/15/18)
2018 Jul 15, A United Arab Emirates court dismissed a criminal case against the head of embattled Abraaj private equity group over bounced cheques for millions of dollars.
(AFP, 7/15/18)
2019 Jul 15, The Trump administration said it would take steps to make it more difficult for immigrants arriving on the southern border to seek asylum in the United States, putting the onus on them to ask for shelter in other countries. The Trump administration said it will end asylum protections for most migrants who arrive at the US-Mexican border.
(Reuters, 7/15/19)(SFC, 7/16/19, p.A5)
2019 Jul 15, In California a $12 million deal was announced whereby Delaware North, the former concessionaire of Yosemite, agreed to relinquish its claimed ownership of park names and other intellectual property.
(SFC, 7/16/19, p.A1)
2019 Jul 15, In Maryland a Baltimore police officer was shot as well as a suspect at a drug treatment center.
(AP, 7/15/19)
2019 Jul 15, L. Bruce Laingen (96), the top American diplomat at the US Embassy in Tehran when it was overrun by Iranian protesters in 1979, died in Maryland. He was one of 52 Americans held hostage there for more than a year.
(AP, 7/18/19)
2019 Jul 15, Jerry Bausby (43) of Kansas City, Mo., was found guilty in the March 2016 death of his daughter, Daizsa Bausby (18). He was convicted of second-degree murder, sodomy, incest and sexual abuse.
(AP, 7/16/19)
2019 Jul 15, In Virginia James Fields Jr. (22), the white supremacist who killed Heather Heyer with his car in 2017 in Charlottesville, was sentenced to life in prison plus 419 years.
(SFC, 7/16/19, p.A5)
2019 Jul 15, It was reported that a new contraceptive vaginal ring prevents pregnancy for a year and allows women to have complete control over conception, according to a report that details the results of two clinical trials testing the safety and efficacy of the device.
(Reuters, 7/15/19)
2019 Jul 15, The Bank of England said mathematician Alan Turing, whose cracking of a Nazi code helped the Allies to win World War Two but who committed suicide after being convicted for homosexuality, will appear on the Bank of England's new 50-pound banknote.
(Reuters, 7/15/19)
2019 Jul 15, Civil disobedience group Extinction Rebellion staged protests in five British cities, aiming to renew pressure on the government to take bolder action to tackle climate change and slow the worldwide loss of plant and animal species.
(Reuters, 7/15/19)
2019 Jul 15, Walmart Chile said it would resume talks with a union of 17,000 workers who walked off the job last week amid a major push by the global retail giant to automate jobs and slash costs.
(Reuters, 7/15/19)
2019 Jul 15, China's Huawei Technologies said it would invest $3.1 billion in Italy over the next three years, as the Chinese telecoms giant called on Rome to ensure the "transparent, efficient and fair" use of its 'golden power' on 5G network development.
(Reuters, 7/15/19)
2019 Jul 15, European Union nations threw their diplomatic weight behind the unraveling Iran nuclear deal, trying to rescue the pact from collapsing under US pressure.
(AP, 7/15/19)
2019 Jul 15, German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen (60) said she is resigning from Chancellor Angela Merkel's Cabinet to focus on becoming the next head of the European Commission, the top job in the European Union.
(AP, 7/15/19)
2019 Jul 15, Bayer AG said US regulators approved Gadavist, its contrast agent for use in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), to assess patients with known or suspected coronary artery disease.
(Reuters, 7/15/19)
2019 Jul 15, German authorities shut down a busy stretch of highway A14 after a truck carrying 17 tons of cocoa caught fire.
(AP, 7/15/19)
2019 Jul 15, An Italian court in Bolzano found Mullah Krekar (63) guilty of attempting to overthrow the Kurdish government in northern Iraq and create an Islamic caliphate. Krekar, a refugee from Iraqi Kurdistan, has lived in Norway since 1991.
(AP, 7/18/19)
2019 Jul 15, Human Rights Watch said Kuwait has deported eight arrested Egyptian members of the Muslim Brotherhood group, convicted at home on terrorism charges.
(AP, 7/16/19)
2019 Jul 15, A delegation of three former Lebanese premiers asked Saudi Arabia for financial assistance to help shore up their country’s deteriorating finances ahead of a probable shift toward austerity.
(Bloomberg, 7/17/19)
2019 Jul 15, Police in Nepal said that 67 people had died as a result of the monsoonal rains that began last week.
(SFC, 7/16/19, p.A2)
2019 Jul 15, Palestinians denounced President Donald Trump's attack on US Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a Michigan Democrat, accusing him of racism and saying it once again proves his bias against the Palestinian people.
(AP, 7/15/19)
2019 Jul 15, The United Nations reported that more than 821 million people suffered from hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition worldwide last year. The number has risen now for the third year in a row.
(AFP, 7/15/19)
2019 Jul 15, The World Health Organization (WHO) warned that Ebola's arrival in eastern Congo's main city of Goma severely raises the risk of the virus spreading if it takes root in this metropolis near the border with Rwanda. Goma's first confirmed Ebola case was confirmed a day earlier.
(Reuters, 7/15/19)(SFC, 7/16/19, p.A4)
2019 Jul 15, Yemen's warring sides concluded an overnight meeting that discussed the redeployment of forces from the flashpoint port city of Hodeida.
(AP, 7/15/19)
2019 Jul 15, Zimbabwe data showed that prices of cooking oil and other basics soared as inflation nearly doubled in June, piling pressure on a population struggling with shortages and stirring memories of economic chaos a decade ago.
(Reuters, 7/15/19)
2020 Jul 15, The Trump administration imposed sanctions on companies connected to a Russian businessman who is close to Russian President Vladimir Putin and suspected of helping finance the covert social media campaign aimed at American voters ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
(AP, 7/15/20)
2020 Jul 15, It was reported that US Mail deliveries could be delayed by a day or more under cost-cutting efforts being imposed by the new postmaster general. The plan eliminates overtime for hundreds of thousands of postal workers and says employees must adopt a "different mindset" to ensure the Postal Service’s survival during the coronavirus pandemic.
(AP, 7/15/20)
2020 Jul 15, US Customs placed a detention order on imports of products made by subsidiaries of the world's largest medical glove maker, Malaysia's Top Glove Corp Bhd, an action taken against firms suspected of using forced labor.
(Reuters, 7/15/20)
2020 Jul 15, US authorities alleged in a lawsuit that former Gambian President Yahya Jammeh used bribery proceeds and stolen government funds to buy a mansion in a suburb of Washington, DC, as they sought to seize the property. Jammeh reportedly acquired at least 281 properties during his time in office and operated more than 100 private bank accounts directly or through companies or foundations in which he has shares or an interest.
(AP, 7/16/20)
2020 Jul 15, The US military accused Russian mercenaries fighting on the side of eastern Libya forces of planting land mines and improvised explosive devices in and around the Libyan capital, Tripoli.
(AP, 7/15/20)
2020 Jul 15, A US judge halted the execution of Wesley Ira Purkey (68), a man said to be suffering from dementia, who had been set to die by lethal injection in the federal government’s second execution after a 17-year hiatus. Purkey, convicted of a gruesome 1998 kidnapping and killing, was scheduled for execution this evening at the US Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana.
(AP, 7/15/20)
2020 Jul 15, A federal judge in California late today blocked a rollback by the Trump administration of a rule on slashing emissions of the powerful greenhouse gas methane from oil and gas operations on federal and tribal lands.
(Reuters, 7/16/20)
2020 Jul 15, California to date had 353,412 cases of coronavirus and 7,341 deaths. The SF Bay Area had 38,374 cases and 674 deaths. Total cases nationwide reached over 3,491,935 with the death toll at 137,277.
(sfist.com, 7/15/20)
2020 Jul 15, Fast-food staffers across Illinois and California filed complaints with city officials, walked from their jobs and staged strikes against quick service giants McDonald's and Burger King, demanding better treatment and proper workplace protections from the raging pandemic.
(Good Morning America, 7/16/20)
2020 Jul 15, Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp issued an executive order late today, which outright banned cities and counties in the state from issuing mask orders to help stop the spread of COVID-19.
(Good Morning America, 7/16/20)
2020 Jul 15, Atlanta teenager Julian Conley (19), suspected in the killing an 8-year-old girl near the Wendy's where Rayshard Brooks was killed by police last month, surrendered. Secoriea Turner, was shot to death while riding in a car with her mother and a friend on July 4. Conley's attorney said his client witnessed the shooting, but did not open fire himself.
(AP, 7/16/20)(SFC, 7/16/20, p.A4)
2020 Jul 15, A US judge sentenced former Honolulu police officer John Rabago (44), to four years in prison for forcing a homeless man to lick a public urinal, telling him to imagine someone doing that to his two young daughters.
(NBC News, 7/15/20)
2020 Jul 15, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt announced that he has tested positive for the coronavirus, weeks after attending a campaign rally for President Trump in Tulsa.
(Yahoo News, 7/15/20)
2020 Jul 15, It was reported that federal agents have seized more than 20 vehicles and the money from 10 bank accounts belonging to married US Army veterans in Texas, saying the pair used personal information stolen from soldiers to defraud the military out of as much as $11 million. Kevin Pelayo and Cristine Fredericks allegedly used a transportation reimbursement program for federal employees to swindle the Army out of $2.3 million to $11.3 million.
(AP, 7/16/20)
2020 Jul 15, Texas reported a record number of new COVID-19 cases and deaths with 10,791 new cases and 110 new fatalities. Texas has now 282,365 confirmed cases and 3,432 fatalities statewide.
(Good Morning America, 7/15/20)
2020 Jul 15, BD Corp. said the US government will buy Becton, Dickinson and Co's COVID-19 testing devices and kits, as it ramps up its testing for the virus that has been spreading at an alarming rate.
(Reuters, 7/15/20)
2020 Jul 15, Peacock, a US TV video streaming service, was launched by NBCUniversal, a part of the cable provider Comcast.
(Econ., 7/18/20, p.52)
2020 Jul 15, Tweets promising bitcoin rewards hit some of the platform's largest accounts this afternoon, rolling through some of the largest and most influential Twitter accounts. Big companies were hit as were major political and politics-adjacent figures. Twitter put out a statement promising to investigate and "fix it," and locked down the accounts of those impacted and restricted all verified accounts.
(Good Morning America, 7/16/20)
2020 Jul 15, The Financial Stability Board (FSB), an international body that coordinates regulation for the Group of 20 major economies, warned global financial system remains vulnerable to further liquidity stresses and a potential "sudden and sharp" market repricing as economies continue to reel from the COVID-19 pandemic. FSB chair Randal Quarles is also vice chair of the US Federal Reserve, which has taken a raft of measures to keep cheap money flowing and prop up ailing companies.
(Reuters, 7/15/20)
2020 Jul 15, A global review of published studies found that the death rate for COVID-19 intensive care patients has dropped by about one-third since the start of the pandemic, due at least in part to better hospital care.
(Reuters, 7/15/20)
2020 Jul 15, In Bulgaria thousands of mostly young people took to the streets for a seventh day to protest against the government, accusing it of corruption, authoritarian rule and dependence on criminal groups. PM Boyko Borissov's center-right government faced a vote of no-confidence brought by the left-wing opposition.
(SFC, 7/16/20, p.A2)
2020 Jul 15, China's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs said China is facing outbreaks of a debilitating virus in cattle that causes a condition called 'lumpy skin disease', following an incident on a farm in the eastern province of Zhejiang this week. Taiwan also reported its first case of the disease this month on Kinmen Island. The disease does not affect people and is thought to be spread by flies or mosquitoes.
(Reuters, 7/15/20)
2020 Jul 15, In Colombia Mario Paciolla (33), a UN volunteer from Naples, was found dead at his home in San Vicente de Caguán, a town in the southern jungle long used as a strategic rearguard for rebel groups and drug traffickers.
(The Guardian, 7/23/20)
2020 Jul 15, The European Union executive urged member states to launch earlier and broader vaccination campaigns against flu this year to reduce the risk of simultaneous influenza and COVID-19 outbreaks in the autumn.
(Reuters, 7/15/20)
2020 Jul 15, A European court overruled a 2016 decision that ordered Apple to pay $14.9 billion in unpaid taxes to Ireland.
(SFC, 7/16/20, p.C2)
2020 Jul 15, France's new PM Jean Castex laid out $110 billion in new spending to rescue the virus-battered economy from its worst crisis since World War II.
(SFC, 7/16/20, p.A6)
2020 Jul 15, It was reported that death threats in Guatemala have driven two anti-corruption prosecutors from the country in the past year, and their unit’s leader has a protective order from a regional human rights commission because he is constantly harassed and threatened.
(AP, 7/15/20)
2020 Jul 15, In Indonesia the death toll from a flash flood in South Sulawesi province rose to 21 with two people missing. The flooding began July 13 triggered by heavy rains that caused three rivers to overflow.
(SFC, 7/16/20, p.A2)
2020 Jul 15, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu announced a plan to distribute hundreds of dollars in grants to every Israeli in order to stimulate the country's sagging economy, days after thousands of people took to the streets to protest his handling of the coronavirus crisis.
(AP, 7/15/20)
2020 Jul 15, Mongolia's health ministry said a boy (15) has died of bubonic plague after eating an infected marmot in Gobi-Altai province.
(SFC, 7/16/20, p.A2)
2020 Jul 15, Peru's Pres. Martin Vizcarra reshuffled his cabinet, sacked the health minister and brought in Pedro Cateriano as prime minister as coronavirus cases passed 350,000 with at least 13,000 deaths.
(Econ., 7/25/20, p.24)
2020 Jul 15, An airstrike by a Saudi-led coalition killed at least 10 civilians, including six children and two women, in the mountainous northern Yemeni province of Jawf.
(AP, 7/15/20)
2020 Jul 15, International scientists released a study that found the greenhouse effect multiplied the chance of the Siberia region’s prolonged heat by at least 600 times, and maybe tens of thousands of times. They found that without climate change the type of prolonged heat that hit Siberia would happen once in 80,000 years, “effectively impossible without human influence".
(AP, 7/15/20)
2020 Jul 15, In Tunisia PM Elyes Fakhfakh (b.1972) resigned over allegations of conflict of interest.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elyes_Fakhfakh)(Econ., 8/15/20, p.41)
2020 Jul 15, The United Nations Security Council heard that up to 1.1 million barrels of oil could spill into the Red Sea causing a disaster four times worse than the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill. The Yemeni-government owned tanker, FSO Safer, started taking on water in May.
(NBC News, 7/16/20)
2020 Jul 15, It was reported that the United Nations has asked the Nicolas Maduro regime to dismantle criminal gangs running gold mines in Venezuela's Amazon region. Nearly 150 people are reported to have died in or around the gold mines from March 2016 to 2020. Venezuelan human rights and environmental groups have said that legal and illegal mining are rapidly decimating Venezuela's Amazon. A UN report on Venezuela cited documented cases of executions, torture and forced disappearances. Among the atrocities cited is the execution of 38 young men by Pres. Nicolas Maduro’s hit squads.
(The Independent, 7/15/20)(AP, 7/18/20)
2020 Jul 15, It was reported that coronavirus cases in Venezuela have jumped in recent weeks and two top lieutenants of President Nicolas Maduro have tested positive, triggering warnings from health workers that the pandemic may overwhelm the country's already battered healthcare system.
(AP, 7/15/20)
2020 Jul 15, Zimbabwe postponed the reopening of schools citing rising numbers of confirmed cases of COVID-19. New cases numbered 1,064 along with 20 deaths.
(SFC, 7/16/20, p.A6)
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