Today is July 15. On this date in:
1799
French soldiers in Egypt discovered the Rosetta Stone, which proved instrumental in deciphering ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs.
1870
Georgia became the last Confederate state to be readmitted to the Union.
1910
The term “Alzheimer’s disease” was used to describe a progressive form of presenile dementia in the book “Clinical Psychiatry” by German psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin, who credited the work of his colleague, Alois Alzheimer, in identifying the condition.
1971
President Richard Nixon delivered a televised address in which he announced that he had accepted an invitation to visit the People’s Republic of China.
1976
A 36-hour kidnap ordeal began for 26 schoolchildren and their bus driver as they were abducted near Chowchilla, Calif., 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.
1988
The movie “Die Hard” starring Bruce Willis and Alan Rickman was released.
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 spree.)
2006
Twitter launched to the public.
2008
In an All-Star game that began at dusk and ended at 1:37 a.m. the next morning, the American League defeated the National League 4-3 in 15 innings at Yankee Stadium.
2009
A Russian-made Iranian jetliner carrying 168 people crashed after taking off from Tehran, killing everyone aboard.
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