July 15 Fun Facts, Trivia and HistoryTable of Contents |
July 15 History Highlights |
|
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.” “Failure is not the opposite of success; it’s part of success.” “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.” “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.” “Toughness is in the soul and spirit, not in muscles.” “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.” “I hate having to read the manual.” |
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. 2007 – Rock 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. |
More Pop Culture History Resources |
