Today in history
Today is Friday, July 15, the 196th day of 2022. There are 169 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History
On July 15, 1916, Boeing Co., originally known as Pacific Aero Products Co., was founded in Seattle.
On this date
In 1834, the Spanish Inquisition was abolished more than 3 ½ centuries after its creation.
In 1870, Georgia became the last Confederate state to be readmitted to the Union.
In 1913, Democrat Augustus Bacon of Georgia 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.
In 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.
In 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.)
In 1996, MSNBC, a 24-hour all-news network, made its debut on cable and the internet.
In 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.)
In 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.
In 2016, Donald Trump chose Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, an experienced politician with deep Washington connections, as his running mate.
In 2018, President Donald Trump arrived in Finland for a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Earlier, in an interview with CBS News, Trump named the European Union as a top adversary of the United States.