Timeline July 2015

Events in July 2015 16

• 1909 – 2015 Nicholas Winton (1909-2015) Died 1 July 2015, aged 106 Nicholas Winton was a British humanitarian who organized the rescue of 669 mostly Jewish children from Czechoslovakia on the eve of the Second World War, in an operation later dubbed the 'British Schindler' effort. His actions remained largely unknown for nearly 50 years until they were revealed on a British television program in 1988. He was knighted in 2003 for his services to humanity.
• 1931 – 2015 E.L. Doctorow (1931-2015) Died 21 July 2015, aged 84 E.L. Doctorow was an American novelist best known for Ragtime and Billy Bathgate, which blended historical fact with fiction. His work won multiple National Book Critics Circle Awards and influenced a generation of American historical fiction writers. Ragtime was adapted into both a film and a Tony Award-winning musical.
• 1932 – 2015 Omar Sharif (1932-2015) Died 10 July 2015, aged 83 Omar Sharif was an Egyptian actor who achieved international stardom with roles in Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago. He received Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations and was one of the most successful Arab actors in Hollywood history. Sharif was also an internationally ranked bridge player.
• 2015 AMD near-bankruptcy — stock at $1.61 AMD's stock hits $1.61 per share in July 2015 — down 95% from its peak of $43 in 2006. The company has posted losses for several consecutive years; its CPU market share is below 15% in desktops and falling in laptops. AMD sells its Austin, Texas campus to raise cash, leasing it back. Analysts openly debate whether AMD will survive. Lisa Su is spending the company's last reserves on Zen — a completely new processor architecture designed by Jim Keller. If Zen fails, AMD almost certainly goes bankrupt.
• 2015 Wimbledon 2015 Men: Novak Djokovic · Women: Serena Williams Serena's 6th Wimbledon title.
• 2015 Cecil the Lion Killed by Trophy Hunter Killing of Zimbabwe's famous lion sparks global outcry An American dentist killed Cecil, a well-known and studied lion, with a bow and arrow near Zimbabwe's Hwange National Park. The killing generated an intense global backlash against trophy hunting once the hunter was publicly identified. It became one of the most viral animal welfare stories of the decade.
• 2015 Grateful Dead's Fare Thee Well concerts 50th anniversary Farewell shows by the surviving members in Chicago.
• 2015 Greek Bailout Referendum Voters reject creditors' austerity terms Greeks voted by a wide margin to reject the bailout conditions proposed by the country's international creditors amid a deepening debt crisis. The 'No' vote briefly raised fears of a Greek exit from the eurozone. Weeks later Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras nonetheless accepted a harsher bailout deal to keep Greece in the euro.
• 2015 Confederate Flag Removed From South Carolina Capitol Symbol taken down after Charleston shooting South Carolina removed the Confederate battle flag from its statehouse grounds, weeks after the Charleston church massacre reignited debate over the symbol's meaning. Governor Nikki Haley signed the removal into law after a bipartisan legislative vote. The move spurred a broader wave of Confederate monument removals across the American South.
• 2015 El Chapo Escapes Mexican Prison Drug lord flees through mile-long tunnel Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman, leader of the Sinaloa drug cartel, escaped from the Altiplano maximum-security prison through a mile-long tunnel built directly beneath his cell shower. It was his second prison escape and a major embarrassment for the Mexican government. He was recaptured in January 2016 following a shootout in Sinaloa.
• 2015 Death of Arthur Cave Cave's fifteen-year-old son dies Cave's fifteen-year-old son Arthur, one of his twins with Susie Bick, dies on 14 July 2015 after falling from a cliff near Ovingdean, Brighton, having taken LSD. The tragedy devastates Cave and his family and profoundly reshapes the tone of his subsequent work, introducing an unguarded, grief-centered honesty into his songwriting that had not been present before. The loss becomes the central, if often oblique, subject of the albums that follow.
• 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal Signed Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action reached in Vienna Iran and six world powers signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, agreeing to curb Iran's nuclear program in exchange for relief from international sanctions. The deal was the product of over a decade of on-and-off negotiations. It became one of the defining diplomatic achievements of the Obama administration.
• 2015 New Horizons Spacecraft Flies Past Pluto First close-up images of the dwarf planet NASA's New Horizons probe conducted the first close flyby of Pluto, returning detailed images of its surface including the heart-shaped Tombaugh Regio. The nine-year journey completed the initial reconnaissance of all the classical planets and Pluto. Data from the flyby reshaped scientific understanding of the dwarf planet's geology.
• 2015 New Horizons flies past Pluto First close-up images of dwarf planet NASA's New Horizons spacecraft made its closest approach to Pluto on July 14, 2015, sending back the first detailed images of the dwarf planet, revealing a heart-shaped nitrogen ice plain.
• 2015 United States and Cuba Reopen Embassies Diplomatic relations restored after 54 years Cuba's embassy in Washington reopened on 20 July 2015, followed weeks later by the reopening of the US embassy in Havana. The move formalized the diplomatic thaw announced by presidents Obama and Castro in December 2014. It ended more than five decades without formal diplomatic ties between the two countries.
• 2015 F-35 declared operational US Marine Corps F-35B The Marine Corps declares initial operational capability for its F-35Bs, the first service to do so. The Air Force follows in 2016 and the Navy in 2019.