Local History

50 years ago: A $25 check was presented to the Day Activity Center from the New Ulm Lads and Lassies 4-H Club.

10 years ago: New Ulm Mayor Joel Albrecht and New Ulm Park & Recreation Director Tom Schmitz accepted a $2,000 donation to the Hermann Monument Society from Ruth Berndt at her 101st birthday party at Divine Providence Home in Sleepy Eye.

5 years ago: The Park and Rec Commission members awarded the North Park Playground Replacement Project Proposal to Flagship Recreation.

One year ago: The Brown County Fair received a $3,000 grant from Compeer Financial to update and install lighting near the fairgrounds livestock buildings.

And elsewhere…

Today is Monday, July 15, the 196th day of 2019. There are 169 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight:

On July 15, 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.)

On this date:

In 1799, French soldiers in Egypt discovered the Rosetta Stone, which proved instrumental in deciphering ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs.

In 1834, the Spanish Inquisition was abolished more than 3 1/2 centuries after its creation.

In 1870, Georgia became the last Confederate state to be readmitted to the Union.

In 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.

In 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.

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 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 that began the previous March.)

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.

In 2010, after 85 days, BP stopped the flow of oil from a blown-out well in the Gulf of Mexico using a 75-ton cap lowered onto the wellhead earlier in the week.

Ten years ago: A Russian-made Iranian jetliner carrying 168 people crashed after taking off from Tehran, killing everyone aboard.

Five years ago: Israel resumed heavy bombing of Gaza after the Islamic militant group Hamas rejected an Egyptian truce plan and instead unleashed more rocket barrages at the Jewish state.

One year ago: President Donald Trump arrived in Finland for a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Today’s Birthdays: Actor Patrick Wayne is 80. Rhythm-and-blues singer Millie Jackson is 75. Singer Linda Ronstadt is 73. Arianna Huffington, co-founder of The Huffington Post, is 69. Actress Celia Imrie is 67. Actor Terry O’Quinn is 67. Rock musician Marky Ramone is 67. Actor-director Forest Whitaker is 58. Actress Shari Headley is 56. Actress Brigitte Nielsen is 56. Actor-comedian Eddie Griffin is 51. Actor Reggie Hayes is 50. Actor-screenwriter Jim Rash is 48. Rock musician John Dolmayan is 47. Actor Scott Foley is 47. Actor Brian Austin Green is 46. Rapper Jim Jones is 43. Actress Diane Kruger is 43. Actress Laura Benanti is 40. Actor Travis Fimmel is 40. Actor Taylor Kinney is 38. Rhythm-and-blues singer Kia Thornton (Divine) is 38. Actor-singer Tristan “Mack” Wilds is 30. Actress Medalion Rahimi is 27. Actor Iain Armitage (TV: “Big Little Lies” ”Young Sheldon”) is 11.

Thought for Today: “A sure way to lose happiness, I found, is to want it at the expense of everything else.” — Bette Davis, American actress (1908-1989).