On this day: Bobby Jones wins the Open Championship

EVENTS, birthdays and anniversaries on July 15.
American golfer Bobby Jones scored at total of 285 at St Andrews to win the Open Championship on this day in 1927. Picture: GettyAmerican golfer Bobby Jones scored at total of 285 at St Andrews to win the Open Championship on this day in 1927. Picture: Getty
American golfer Bobby Jones scored at total of 285 at St Andrews to win the Open Championship on this day in 1927. Picture: Getty

St Swithin’s Day.

AD862: When St Swithin, Saxon Bishop of Winchester, died, he asked to be buried outside where rain could fall on his grave. Some 108 years later on the same day, when devoted monks decided to move the body from the “vile and unworthy grave”, a sudden deluge drenched the funeral party and it rained for nearly seven weeks.

1099: Jerusalem was captured by the Crusaders.

1207: King John of England expelled Canterbury monks for supporting the Archbishop of Canterbury.

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1381: John Ball, a leader of the Peasants’ Revolt, was hung, drawn and quartered in the presence of Richard II.

1799: The Rosetta Stone was found in the Egyptian village of Rosetta by French Captain Pierre-François Bouchard.

1815: Napoleon surrendered to Captain Frederick Maitland of HMS Bellerophon following his earlier defeat at Waterloo.

1864: A troop train loaded with Confederate soldiers collided with a coal train near Shohola, Pennsylvania during the American Civil War, killing 65 and injuring 109 of 955 aboard.

1869: Margarine was patented in France by Hippolyte Mège-Mouriés of Paris.

1889: National Portrait Gallery for Scotland opened in Edinburgh by the Marquess of Lothian.

1912: National Insurance or social payment, devised by Lloyd George, began.

1916: William Boeing founded his aircraft company, Pacific Aero Products, in Seattle, Washington.

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1927: Bobby Jones scored 285 at St Andrews to win the Open Championship.

1933: Wiley Post took off from New York for first solo round-the-world-flight - the journey of more than 15,000 miles took seven days, 18 hours, 49 minutes.

1937: The concentration camp at Buchenwald was opened.

1939: Clara Adams became the first woman to complete a round-the-world flight.

1958: South Africa resumed full membership in United Nations.

1963: Paul McCartney was fined £17 for speeding.

1965: US Mariner-4 sent back the first close-up pictures of Mars.

1978: Jack Nicklaus scored 281 at St Andrews to win the Open Championship.

1983: Linda Ronstadt made her Broadway debut as Mabel in The Pirates of Penzance.

1989: Police searched for £1 million cash that disappeared from Heathrow Airport.

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1994: Hundreds of thousands of Hutu fled to Zaire – now the Democratic Republic of the Congo – to escape genocide in Rwanda.

2002: Anti-Terrorism Court of Pakistan handed down the death sentence to British-born Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and life terms to three others suspected of murdering Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.

2007: In the largest compensation deal of its kind, the Roman Catholic Church in Los Angeles said it would pay a total of $660 million to the 500 alleged victims of sexual abuse by 221 priests and other church staff dating back to the 1940s.

2009: Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, the sixth film in the Harry Potter series, was released.

2014: Israel announced it had voted to accept a ceasefire proposal by Egypt. Hamas rejected it, saying they had not been consulted.

BIRTHDAYS

Celia Imrie, actress, 63; Carmen Callil, founder of Virago Press, 77; Derek Griffiths, actor, 69; Trevor Horn CBE, songwriter, 66; Irène Jacob, French film actress, 49; Ann Jellicoe, playwright and theatre director, 88; David Miliband, former Labour minister, 50; Brigitte Nielsen, actress, 52; Linda Ronstadt, rock singer, 69; Arianna Huffington, founder of news website The Huffington Post, 65; Forest Whitaker, actor, 54; Diane Kruger, actress, 39; Jill Halfpenny, actress, 40; Peter Odemwingie, footballer, 34; Clive Cussler, novelist and marine archaeologist, 84; Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, president of United Arab Emirates and racehorse owner, 66.

ANNIVERSARIES

Births: 1573 Inigo Jones, architect; 1606 Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, artist; 1858 Emmeline Pankhurst, suffragette; 1865 Lord Northcliffe, newspaper proprietor and pioneer of mass circulation journalism; 1911 Baron Shackleton, geographer and politician; 1914 Gavin Maxwell, author of Ring of Bright Water; 1919 Iris Murdoch, author; 1929 Larry Lamb, newspaper editor.

Deaths: 1767 Michael Bruce, Scottish poet; 1883 Charles Sherwood Stratton, known as General Tom Thumb, 40in tall; 1976 Paul Gallico, novelist (The Snow Goose and The Poseidon Adventure); 1989 Laurie Cunningham, footballer; 1990 Margaret Lockwood, actress; 1997 Gianni Versace, fashion designer (murdered); 1999 Earl of Dalhousie, governor-general of Rhodesia and Nyasaland; 2011 Googie Withers, actress; 2012 Celeste Holm, actress.