1850
Jul 15, Mother Francis Xavier Cabrini, the first American canonized saint, was born.

1857
Jul 15, British women and children were murdered in the second Cawnpore Massacre during the Indian Mutiny.

1919
Jul 15, Iris Murdoch (d.1999), philosopher-novelist, was born in Dublin. She wrote 28 novels and in 1998 published "Existentialists and Mystics," a collection of writings from 1950 to the 1980s. Herein she tried to "recover the moral dimension of art."

1997
Jul 15, In Liberia pres. candidate Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf (58), a banker and UN official, led a women’s solidarity march. She had recently emerged as the leading rival of warlord Charles Taylor.

2002
Jul 15, In Stanton, Ca., Samantha Runnion (5) was kidnapped. Her body was found the next day in Riverside county. An autopsy revealed that she had been sexually abused and died from a crushed abdomen. A sample of DNA was also found under her fingernail. On July 19 police arrested Alejandro Avila (27), previously acquitted for child molestation. In 2005 Avila was convicted of kidnapping, murder and sexual assault. On May 16 a jury called for the death penalty. He was sentenced to death on July 22.

2002
Jul 15, In Nigeria women occupying a ChevronTexaco oil terminal agreed to end their eight-day siege after the company offered to hire at least 25 villagers and to build schools, electrical and water systems.

2003
Jul 15, Elisabeth Welch (99), American-born singer, died in London.

2008
Jul 15, In South Korea Won Jeong-hwa (34) was arrested and later confessed that she was a spy trained and commissioned by North Korea's intelligence agency. On Oct 15 she was sentenced to five years in prison for spying.

2011
Jul 15, In Bahrain Zainab Hasan Ahmed al-Jumaa (47) suffocated after inhaling tear gas fired by riot police during a demonstration near her home in Sitra, the hub of Bahrain's oil industry.

2011
Jul 15, Saudi authorities beheaded a man convicted of attacking a woman and snapping nude photos of her in order to blackmail her for sex.

2012
Jul 15, South Africa's Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, a former wife of Pres. Zuma, won a tightly fought vote to become the first woman to head the African Union Commission.

2013
Jul 15, In New Hampshire Beatrice Munyenyezi (43), a Rwanda woman who became a citizen in 2003, was sentenced to 10 years in prison. She was convicted of lying to obtain US citizenship by denying her role as a roadblock commander in the 1994 Rwanda genocide.