Today is Saturday, July 15, the 196th day of 2017. There are 169 days left in the year.
Today's Highlight in History:
On July 15, 1997, fashion designer Gianni Versace (ver-SAH'-chay), 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 victims before Versace in a cross-country spree that began the previous March.)
On this date:
In 1799, French soldiers in Egypt discovered the Rosetta Stone, which proved instrumental in deciphering ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs.
In 1870, Georgia became the last Confederate state to be readmitted to the Union. Manitoba entered confederation as the fifth Canadian province.
In 1916, Boeing Co., originally known as Pacific Aero Products Co., was founded in Seattle.
In 1932, President Herbert Hoover announced he was slashing his own salary by 20 percent, from $75,000 to $60,000 a year; he also cut Cabinet members' salaries by 15 percent, from $15,000 to $12,750 a year.
In 1942, "The Pride of the Yankees," Samuel Goldwyn's biopic starring Gary Cooper as baseball star Lou Gehrig, premiered in New York.
In 1948, President Harry S. Truman was nominated for another term of office by the Democratic national convention in Philadelphia.
In 1964, Sen. Barry M. Goldwater of Arizona was nominated for president by the Republican national convention in San Francisco.
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 1979, President Jimmy Carter delivered his "malaise" speech in which he lamented what he called a "crisis of confidence" in America.
In 1985, a visibly gaunt Rock Hudson appeared at a news conference with actress Doris Day (it was later revealed Hudson was suffering from AIDS).
In 1992, Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton was nominated for president at the Democratic national convention in New York.
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. Five-year-old Samantha Runnion was kidnapped outside an apartment complex in Stanton, California. (Samantha's body was found the next day; factory worker Alejandro Avila (ah-lay-HAHN'-droh AH'-vee-lah) was later convicted of murder, kidnapping and sexual assault and sent to death row, where he remains.)
