Today in History

Today’s highlight:

On July 15, 1799, French soldiers in Egypt discovered the Rosetta Stone, which proved instrumental in deciphering ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs.

On this date:

1834: The Spanish Inquisition was abolished more than 31 2 centuries after its creation.

1870: Georgia became the last Confederate state to be readmitted to the Union.

1913: Augustus Bacon, D-GA., became the first person elected to the U.S. Senate under the terms of the recently ratified 17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, providing for popular election of senators.

1918: The Second Battle of the Marne, resulting in an Allied victory, began during World War I.

1975: 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.

1976: A 36-hour kidnap ordeal began for 26 schoolchildren and their bus driver as they were abducted near Chowchilla, California, by three gunmen and imprisoned in an underground cell. The captives escaped unharmed; the kidnappers were caught.

1983: Eight people were killed when a suitcase bomb planted by Armenian extremists exploded at the Turkish Airlines counter at Orly Airport in Paris.

1985: A visibly gaunt Rock Hudson appeared at a news conference with actress Doris Day. It was later revealed

Hudson was suffering from AIDS.

1996: MSNBC, a 24-hour all-news network, made its debut on cable and the Internet.

1997: Fashion designer Gianni Versace, 50, was shot dead outside his Miami Beach home; suspected gunman Andrew

Phillip Cunanan, 27, was found dead eight days later, a suicide. Investigators believed Cunanan killed four other people before Versace in a cross-country rampage that began the previous March.

2002: John Walker Lindh, an American who’d fought alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan, pleaded guilty in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, to two felonies in a deal sparing him life in prison.

2016: Donald Trump chose Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, an experienced politician with deep Washington connections, as his running mate.

Ten years ago: After 85 days, BP stopped the flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico using a 75-ton cap lowered onto the well earlier in the week. The Securities and Exchange Commission announced that Goldman Sachs & Co. would pay a record $550 million penalty to settle charges that the Wall Street giant had misled buyers of mortgage investments. Argentina became the first Latin American country to legalize same-sex marriage.

Five years ago: Vigorously challenging his critics, President Barack Obama launched an aggressive and detailed defense of a landmark Iranian nuclear accord during a

White House press conference, rejecting the idea that the agreement left Tehran on the brink of a bomb and arguing the only alternative to the diplomatic deal was war.

One year ago: Avowed white supremacist James Alex Fields Jr. was sentenced to life in prison plus 419 years for killing one and injuring dozens of others when he deliberately drove his car into a crowd of anti-racism protesters during a rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.