Steps to reproduce the issue

Create a new article, but before you save it, set Status to Unpublished.
Then, in the Articles page, where you see all the articles in a list, click the "Publish Item" icon (the white X in a red circle) in the Status column to publish the article.

Expected result

The article is now published and has a "Start Publishing" date.

Actual result

The article is now published, but does NOT have a "Start Publishing" date.

System information (as much as possible)

Joomla 3.4.8
Windows 7
PHP 5.4.45
MySQL 5.5.46

Additional comments

Without a "Start Publishing" date, modules like "Articles Latest" do not show this article. I have to manually go and set a "Start Publishing" date for the module to show it.