July 15 in Pop Culture History

July 15 Facts, Fun Trivia and History

July 15 History Highlights

  • 70 – Siege of Jerusalem: Titus and his armies breached the walls of Jerusalem.
  • 1799 – The Rosetta Stone was found in the Egyptian village of Rosetta by French Captain Pierre-François Bouchard.
  • July 15, 1825 – Birthday (fictional) Rooster Cogburn, True Grit
  • 1870 – Georgia became the final former Confederate state to be readmitted to the Union.
  • 1979 – American President Jimmy Carter gave his “malaise speech”.
  • July 15, 19** The Murder of John & Mary Grayson, Dick’s Parents, Batman, DC Comics
  • If you were born on July 15th,
    You were likely conceived the week of… October 22nd (prior year)

Gummi (Gummy) Worm Day

Hans Riegel Sr., a candy maker from Bonn, Germany, who was the founder of Haribo, another German confectionery company created Gummi Bears in 1922. Today, in the United States, Haribo’s Gummy Bears are sold in five flavors: raspberry (red), orange (orange), strawberry (green), pineapple (colorless), and lemon (yellow). The standard ingredients are sugar, glucose syrup, starch, flavoring, food coloring, citric acid, and gelatin.

Trolli, a German confectionery company that is famously known for their Gummi Worms, created them in 1981. Most sources claim that the worms slithered onto the scene on July 15th – which we now mark as Gummi Worm Day! Trolli had been looking to create candy with only two colors and flavors (which meet at one point) when they discovered this design during an effort to have something disgusting enough to put parents off of it. The 5cm long treats were made up of 2 different flavors: strawberry and grapefruit.

July 15 is…

Bon Festival (Japan’s Feast of Lanterns)
Gummi Worm Day
I Love Horses Day
National Be a Dork Day
National Give Something Away Day
National Pet Fire Safety Day
National Respect Canada Day
National Tapioca Pudding Day
Orange Chicken Day
Saint Swithin’s Day (died on July 15, 862)

July 15 Birthday Quotes

“Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, start all over again.”
– Dorothy Fields

“Failure is not the opposite of success; it’s part of success.”
– Arianna Huffington

“I like to play complex characters and the duality, and trying to reach for the light, it’s more interesting really. I’ve gotten to play so many types of guys and I just try to find the humanity in each one of them the best I can.”
– Forest Whitaker

“In the spirit of science, there really is no such thing as a ‘failed experiment.’ Any test that yields valid data is a valid test.”
– Adam Savage

“Toughness is in the soul and spirit, not in muscles.”
– Alex Karras

“Don’t just climb the ladder of success – a ladder that leads, after all, to higher and higher levels of stress and burnout – but chart a new path to success, remaking it in a way that includes not just the conventional metrics of money and power, but a third metric that includes well-being, wisdom, wonder and giving, so that the goal is not just to succeed but to thrive.”
– Arianna Huffington

“I hate having to read the manual.”
– Trevor Horn

July 15 Birthdays

1864 – Marie Tempest, English actress and singer (died in 1942)
1905 – Dorothy Fields, American songwriter (died in 1974)
1917 – Joan Roberts, American actress and singer (died in 2012)
1935 – Alex Karras, American football player, wrestler, and actor (died in 2012)
1938 – Ernie Barnes, American football player, actor, and painter (died in 2009)
1944 – Millie Jackson, American singer-songwriter
1945 – Jan-Michael Vincent, American actor (died in 2019)
1949 – Trevor Horn, English singer-songwriter, keyboard player (The Buggles)
1950 – Arianna Huffington, Greek-American journalist and publisher
1951 – Jesse Ventura, American wrestler, actor, and politician, 38th Governor of Minnesota
1953 – Alicia Bridges, American singer-songwriter
1956 – Joe Satriani, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1960 – Kim Alexis, American fashion model
1961 – Lolita Davidovich, Canadian actress
1961 – Forest Whitaker, American actor
1963 – Brigitte Nielsen, Danish-Italian actress
1966 – Jason Bonham, English singer-songwriter and drummer
1967 – Adam Savage, American special effects designer
1968 – Eddie Griffin, American comedian and actor
1972 – Scott Foley, American actor
1973 – Brian Austin Green, American actor
1976 – Diane Kruger, German actress
1976 – Gabriel Iglesias, Mexican-American comedian

July 15 History

850 (Earthquake) Iran

1149 – The reconstructed Church of the Holy Sepulchre was consecrated in Jerusalem.

1799 – The Rosetta Stone was found in the Egyptian village of Rosetta by French Captain Pierre-François Bouchard during Napoleon’s Egyptian Campaign.

1823 – A fire destroyed the ancient Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls in Rome, Italy.

July 15, 1825 – Birthday (fictional) Rooster Cogburn, True Grit, Film

1834 – The Spanish Inquisition was officially disbanded after nearly 356 years. Several thousand people were actually executed over this time, averaging about a dozen per year.

1838 – Ralph Waldo Emerson delivered the Divinity School Address at Harvard Divinity School, discounting Biblical miracles and declaring Jesus a great man, but not God. The Christian Community was not pleased.

1916 – In Seattle, Washington, William Boeing, and George Conrad Westervelt incorporated Pacific Aero Products (later renamed Boeing).

1950 – #1 Hit July 15, 1950 – August 18, 1950: Nat King Cole – Mona Lisa

1954 – First flight of the Boeing 367-80, the prototype for both the Boeing 707 and C-135 series.

1955 – Eighteen Nobel laureates signed the Mainau Declaration against nuclear weapons, later co-signed by thirty-four others.

1968 – One Life To Live (OLTL) premiered on ABC.

1979 – US President Jimmy Carter gives his Malaise Speech, where he characterizes the greatest threat to the country as “this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation.”

1989 – #1 Hit July 15, 1989 – July 21, 1989: Simply Red – If You Don’t Know Me By Now

2000 – #1 Hit July 15, 2000 – July 21, 2000: Vertical Horizon – Everything You Want

2003 – The Mozilla Foundation was established.

2006 – Twitter was launched. 140 characters could say a lot.

2007Rock of Love with Bret Michaels premiered on VH1

Today’s Random Trivia and Shower Thoughts

Michael Keaton – Real Name: Michael Douglas

Julianne Moore – Real Name: Julie Smith

“Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the Earth.” – Lou Gehrig (Gary Cooper)

American voice actor Thurl Ravenscroft was both the singer behind You’re A Mean One, Mr. Grinch as well as the original voice for Tony the Tiger.

Jurassic Park was filmed on the Hawaiian island Kauai.

I want to say something clever here, but I’m pretty sure someone has already said it.

A group of Giraffes is called a Tower.

The beautiful part of America is that we get to choose the liars we blindly follow, no matter our political orientation.

“Book ’em Danno” – Steve McGarrett (Hawaii Five-O)

People that don’t use straws at restaurants are weird. People that use straws at home are weird.

Green Smarties are Strawberry Flavored.

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