By: HISTORY.com Editors

1964

Senator Barry Goldwater nominated for president

Bettmann / Contributor/Getty Images

Published: November 16, 2009Last Updated: July 10, 2025

Senator Barry Goldwater (R-Arizona) is nominated by the Republican Party to run for president. During the subsequent campaign, Goldwater said that he thought the United States should do whatever was necessary to win in Vietnam. At one point, he talked about the possibility of using low-yield atomic weapons to defoliate enemy infiltration routes, but he never actually advocated the use of nuclear weapons in Southeast Asia. Although Goldwater later clarified his position, the Democrats very effectively portrayed him as a trigger-happy warmonger. This reputation, whether deserved or not, was a key factor in his crushing defeat at the hands of Lyndon B. Johnson, who won 61 percent of the vote to Goldwater’s 39 percent.

How Barry Goldwater Brought the Far Right to Center Stage in the 1964 Presidential Race

Despite a landslide loss, the Arizona Republican ignited his party's ultra-conservative wing for decades to come.

By: Suzanne McGee

Timeline

Also on This Day in History

Discover more of the major events, famous births, notable deaths and everything else history-making that happened on July 15th

1099

Jerusalem captured in First Crusade

During the First Crusade, Christian knights from Europe capture Jerusalem after seven weeks of siege and begin massacring the city’s Muslim and Jewish population. Beginning in the 11th century, Christians in Jerusalem were increasingly persecuted by the city’s Islamic rulers, especially when control of the holy city passed from the relatively tolerant Egyptians to the […]

1789

Lafayette selected colonel-general of the National Guard of Paris

On July 15, 1789, only one day after the fall of the Bastille marked the beginning of a new revolutionary regime in France, the French aristocrat and hero of the American War for Independence, Marie-Joseph Paul Roch Yves Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, becomes the colonel-general of the National Guard of Paris by acclamation. […]

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1799

Rosetta Stone found

During Napoleon Bonaparte’s Egyptian campaign, a French soldier discovers a black basalt slab inscribed with ancient writing, which becomes known as the Rosetta Stone.

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1806

Pike expedition sets out across the American Southwest

Zebulon Pike, the U.S. Army officer who in 1805 led an exploring party in search of the source of the Mississippi River, sets off with a new expedition to explore the American Southwest. Pike was instructed to seek out headwaters of the Arkansas and Red rivers and to investigate Spanish settlements in New Mexico. Pike […]

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1903

Ford Motor Company takes its first order

On July 15, 1903, the newly formed Ford Motor Company takes its first order from Chicago dentist Ernst Pfenning: an $850 two-cylinder Model A automobile with a tonneau (or backseat). The car, produced at Ford’s plant on Mack Street (now Mack Avenue) in Detroit, was delivered to Dr. Pfenning just over a week later. Henry […]

1918

Second Battle of the Marne begins with final German offensive

On July 15, 1918, near the Marne River in the Champagne region of France, the Germans begin what would be their final offensive push of World War I. Dubbed the Second Battle of the Marne, the conflict ended several days later in a major victory for the Allies. The German general Erich Ludendorff, convinced that […]

1953

A notorious English killer is executed

John Christie, one of England’s most notorious killers, is executed. Four months earlier, on March 25, the police and a tenant at 10 Rillington Place in West London made an awful discovery: the bodies of four women in an empty apartment, three in a hidden cupboard and one more beneath the floorboards. Christie, who used […]

1:10m read

1965

Mariner 4 studies Martian surface

The unmanned spacecraft Mariner 4 passes over Mars at an altitude of 6,000 feet and sends back to Earth the first close-up images of the red planet. Launched in November 1964, Mariner 4 carried a television camera and six other science instruments to study Mars and interplanetary space within the solar system. Reaching Mars on […]

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1966

North Vietnam urged to treat U.S. POWs better

On July 15, 1966, 18 U.S. senators sign a statement calling on North Vietnam to “refrain from any act of vengeance against American airmen.” The number of captured American pilots was on the increase due to the intensification of Operation Rolling Thunder, the U.S. bombing campaign against North Vietnam that served as a core element of […]

1971

Nixon announces visit to communist China

During a live television and radio broadcast, President Richard Nixon stuns the nation by announcing that he will visit communist China the following year. The statement marked a dramatic turning point in U.S.-China relations, as well as a major shift in American foreign policy. Nixon was not always so eager to reach out to China. […]

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1978

2,800 mile-long walk for Native American justice concludes in Washington, D.C.

On July 15, 1978, the “Longest Walk”—a 2,800-mile trek for Native American justice that had started with several hundred marchers in California in California—ends in Washington, D.C., accompanied by thousands of supporters. The intent of the event was to call attention to issues affecting Native Americans, such as a lack of jobs and housing, and […]

1:50m read

1979

Jimmy Carter speaks about a national “crisis of confidence”

On July 15, 1979, President Jimmy Carter addresses the nation via live television to discuss the nation’s energy crisis and accompanying recession. Carter prefaced his talk about energy policy with an explanation of why he believed the American economy remained in crisis. He recounted a meeting he had hosted at the presidential retreat in Camp […]

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1986

Columbia Records parts ways with country legend Johnny Cash after 28 years

Columbia Records dropped Cash after more than a quarter-century.

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1997

Fashion designer Gianni Versace murdered by Andrew Cunanan in killing spree

Spree killer Andrew Cunanan murders world-renowned Italian fashion designer Gianni Versace on the steps outside his Miami mansion. Versace is shot twice in the head, and Cunanan flees the scene. Cunanan had no criminal record before the spring of 1997, when he began a killing spree in Minneapolis. On April 27, 1997, after traveling from […]

2006

Twitter launches

The San Francisco-based podcasting company Odeo officially releases Twttr—later changed to Twitter—to the public. Over the next few years, Twitter exploded in popularity, becoming one of the world’s leading social networking platforms.

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