Historical Events on December 15

Events 1 - 200 of 215

• 530 Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian appoints a commission to codify the works of classical jurists (the Digest published 533)
• 533 Byzantine General Belisarius defeats the Vandals, under King Gelimer, at the Battle of Ticameron
• 687 St Sergius I begins his reign as Catholic Pope succeeding Conon

• 1124 Chancellor Haimeric selects pope (Lamberto becomes Honorius II)
• 1167 Sicilian chancellor Stephen du Perche moves the royal court to Messina to prevent a rebellion.
• 1256 Hulagu Khan captures and destroys Hashshashin stronghold at Alamut, in present-day Iran, part of the Mongol offensive on Islamic southwest Asia
• 1467 Stephen III of Moldavia defeats Matthias Corvinus of Hungary, with the latter being injured thrice, at the Battle of Baia

• 1582 Leidse university names Rembert Dodoens professor of botany and medicine

• 1586 Laevinus Torrentius, becomes bishop of Antwerp
• 1593 State of Holland grants patent on windmill with a crankshaft
• 1612 German Astronomer Simon Marius is 1st to observe Andromeda galaxy through a telescope
• 1640 Duke of Braganca crowned King Johan IV of Portugal
• 1660 Philippines: Andres Malongs rebels plunders Bagnotan
• 1667 Brandenburg declares himself neutral in Devolutie War
• 1675 King Philip's War: After peace talk fail, Narraganset warriors attack the Jireh Bull Blockhouse, in South Kingston, Rhode Island, killing at least 15 colonists
• 1680 Tax revolt on Terschelling due to tax on cereal
• 1745 Battle at Kesseldorf: Prussian force beats Saksen & Austria near Dresden
• 1791 1st US law school established at University of Pennsylvania

• 1792 1st life insurance policy issued in US (Philadelphia)
• 1794 Revolutionary Tribunal abolished in France
• 1810 1st Irish magazine in US, "Shamrock" published

• 1820 1st General pharmacopoeia in US published, Boston
• 1836 Patent Office burns in Washington, D.C.

• 1854 1st street-cleaning machine in the US used in Philadelphia
• 1859 GR Kirchoff describes chemical composition of the Sun
• 1863 Romania's mountain railway, from Anina to Oravita, opens
• 1863 Skirmish at Bean's Station, Tennessee (Knoxville Campaign)
• 1864 Battle of Nashville, Tennessee: Union forces under General George Thomas shatters General John Bell Hood's Confederate Army of Tennessee
• 1864 Raid on Stoneman: Abingdon & Glade Springs, Virginia
• 1868 Shogunate rebels found Ezo Republic in Hokkaidō
• 1874 1st reigning king to visit US is the King of Hawaii, received by President Grant
• 1874 Henry Bergh, Eldgridge Gerry, and philanthropist John D. Wright found the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children in NYC, the world's first anti-child abuse agency. Later known as The New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NYSPCC).
• 1893 Preview performance of Antonín Dvořák's Symphony No. 9 - "New World Symphony" draws a crowd to Carnegie Hall, New York [1]
• 1894 Day 2 of first cricket test between Australia and England, Australia 586 runs (Gregory 201) England 3-130
• 1899 Battle at Colenso, South Africa: British army defeated by Boer force
• 1902 German agricultural tariffs are increased
• 1903 NY Wall Street vendor Italo Marchiony [Marcioni] granted patent for a mound for making ice cream cones
• 1905 The Pushkin House is established in St. Petersburg to preserve the cultural heritage of Alexander Pushkin
• 1907 In Persia, the Shah leads a coup de'etat against the liberal Prime Minister Nasir ul-Mulk and imprisons him, but a popular uprising forces the Shah to restore Nasir ul-Mulk soon after
• 1909 Thomas J. Lynch becomes president of baseball's National League
• 1913 Nicaragua becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty
• 1914 Battle of Lodz ends; Russians retreat toward Moscow
• 1914 British fleet forfeits chance to destroy German fleet in North Sea
• 1914 Serbian troops retake Belgrade in Austria-Hungary

• 1916 Battle of Verdun: French launch major offensive against German lines after a six-day artillery bombardment
• 1917 Moldavian Republic declares independence from Russia
• 1917 World War I: An armistice is reached between the new Russian Bolshevik government and the Central Powers
• 1918 American Jewish Congress holds its 1st meeting
• 1919 Edna St Vincent Millay's play "Aria da Capo" premieres in NYC
• 1919 Fiume (Rijeka, modern Croatia) declares its Independence
• 1922 IVVV (association) peace congress on war forms in Hague
• 1925 1st hockey game at Madison Square Garden, NYC: Montreal Canadiens 3, NY Americans 1
• 1925 1st road with a depressed trough (Texas) opens to traffic
• 1926 Fascist national symbol elevated in Italy
• 1927 William Edward Hickman kidnaps 12 year-old Marion Parker in Los Angeles, whom he later kills

• 1933 Baseball owners agree to ban Sunday doubleheaders until after June 15

• 1935 In major upset, Dutch grand master Max Euwe becomes World Chess Champion beating Russian Alexander Alekhine (9 wins, 13 draws, 8 losses) in Zandvoort, Netherlands
• 1936 KVL-AM in Seattle Washington changes call letters to KEEN (now KING)
• 1938 Groundbreaking begins for Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C.

• 1939 1st commercial manufacture of nylon yarn in Seaford, Delaware
• 1941 Gas/electrical use restricted in Holland
• 1941 German submarine U-127 sinks
• 1941 North Africa: allied assault up Italians Gazala-posing
• 1941 The American Federation of Labor adopts a no-strike policy in war industries.
• 1941 USS Swordfish becomes 1st US sub to sink a Japanese ship
• 1942 Massachusetts issues 1st US vehicular license plate tabs

• 1944 Hizbu'allah (Arm forces for Allah) forms

• 1944 US troops land on Mindoro (Philippines)
• 1945 John J "Cardinal" O'Connor, ordained as a priest
• 1946 Giants Filchock & Hapes suspended by NFL, didn't report bribe attempt
• 1948 Former state department official Alger Hiss indicted in NYC for perjury

• 1950 NYC's Port Authority opens
• 1952 Christine Jorgenson is the first known American to undergo a sex-change operation
• 1952 KHON TV channel 2 in Honolulu, HI (NBC) begins broadcasting

• 1953 WJHG TV channel 7 in Panama City, FL (NBC/ABC) begins broadcasting
• 1954 Fordham University scraps football team for financial reasons
• 1954 Netherlands Antilles becomes co-equal part of Kingdom of Netherlands
• 1954 US Scientists involved in secret Project Superpressure at GE Research Labs realized they have synthesized diamonds for the first time [1]

• 1956 Emergency crisis in North Ireland proclaimed after IRA strikes
• 1956 KGW TV channel 8 in Portland, OR (NBC) begins broadcasting
• 1956 WRAL TV channel 5 in Raleigh-Durham, NC (CBS) begins broadcasting

• 1961 Equal access rule, US political parties get TV broadcasting time
• 1961 L. J. Suenens appointed archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels, Belgium

• 1964 Canada's House of Commons votes 163 to 78 to approve the red Maple Leaf Flag
• 1965 3rd cyclone of year kills 15,000 at the mouths of the Ganges River in Bangladesh

• 1965 Gemini 6 launched; makes 1st rendezvous in space (with Gemini 7)
• 1965 William Eckert replaces Ford Frick as 4th Commissioner of Baseball
• 1966 Audouin Dollfus discovers 10th satellite of Saturn, Janus
• 1966 John W. Mecom Jr becomes 1st owner of New Orlean Saints
• 1967 Retired baseball player Joe Garagiola joins "Today" show panel
• 1967 The Beatles release fan-club single "Christmas Time is Here Again"
• 1967 The Silver Bridge collapses over the Ohio River in the US, killing 46 people

• 1969 San Francisco Fire Department replaces leather helmets with plastic ones
• 1970 Illinois State Constitution is adopted at a special election
• 1970 Robert Wilson and Alan Lloyd's musical theatre work "Deafman Glance" first performance at Center for New Performing Arts in Iowa City, Iowa
• 1970 South Korean ferry Namyong-Ho sinks in Strait of Korea, 308 killed
• 1970 Soviet Venera 7 is 1st spacecraft to land on another planet (Venus)

• 1970 Striking shipyard workers in Gdańsk, Poland set ablaze the ruling Provincial Committee's building; responding soldiers kill 8
• 1971 USSR performs nuclear test at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in northeast Kazakhstan
• 1973 American kidnap victim John Paul Getty III freed after ransom paid by oil tycoon grandfather John Paul Getty
• 1973 American Psychiatric Association declares homosexuality is not a mental illness
• 1973 Pirates of Caribbean ride opens at Disneyland
• 1973 Sandy Hawley becomes 1st jockey to win 500 races in 1 year
• 1973 Tennessee beats Temple 11-6 in low scoring NCAA basketball game

• 1976 Jamaica premier Manley wins elections
• 1976 Oil tanker Argo Merchant runs aground on the Nantucket Shoals, spilling 7.6 m million gallons of fuel oil - one of the largest oil spills at sea
• 1976 Samoa becomes a member of the UN

• 1978 Saint Maarten Patriotic Movement (SPM) forms under W. James
• 1978 Test Cricket debut of Malcolm Marshall, v India at Bangalore

• 1979 World Court in Hague rules Iran should release all US hostages

• 1980 Premier Queddei troops conquers Chad capital N'djamena
• 1980 ZBZ Sangha registered after 5 yrs of administrative hassles in Warsaw
• 1981 NASA launches Intelsat V satellite, no. 503

• 1982 Sao Tome & Principe constitution approved
• 1982 Spain reopens border with Gibraltar
• 1982 Teamsters president Roy Williams and 4 others convicted of bribery
• 1983 Last 80 US combat soldiers in Grenada withdrawn
• 1983 MLB suspends 3 Kansas City Royals players - Willie Wilson, Willie Aikens, and Jerry Martin - due to cocaine usage
• 1983 Space shuttle Columbia flies to Kennedy Space Center via El Paso, Kelly AFB

• 1984 USSR launches Vega 1 for rendezvous with Halley's Comet
• 1986 150 killed during race riot in Karachi
• 1986 Carnegie Hall reopens after a $50 million facelift

• 1987 First National US tour of musical "Les Misérables" opens at Shubert Theatre, Boston, Massachusetts

• 1992 WNew AM (1130) NYC resigns air, replaced by WBBR

• 1993 C-130 flies into a Philippines hill & explodes, 16 killed
• 1993 Haitian premier Robert Malval resigns
• 1993 John Williams makes his final appearance as conductor of Boston Pops
• 1993 Lee Aspen resigns as secretary of defense
• 1993 Y-12 crashes at Phonesavanh, Laos: 18 killed
• 1994 John Bruton becomes Ireland's premier
• 1994 Liberia militia kills 48 inhabitants of Monrovia
• 1994 Palau becomes a member of the UN
• 1995 Playboy goes back on sale after 36 year ban in Ireland
• 1995 The European Communities Court of Justice hands down the "Bosman ruling", giving EU footballers the right to a free transfer at the end of their contracts, with the provision that they are transferring from one UEFA Federation to another.

• 2001 The Leaning Tower of Pisa reopens after 11 years and $27,000,000 to fortify it, without fixing its famous lean
• 2002 68th Heisman Trophy Award: Carson Palmer, USC (QB)

• 2005 Argentina's president Néstor Kirchner announces the early repayment of its external debt to the IMF.
• 2005 Introduction of the F-22 Raptor into USAF active service.
• 2005 Latvia amends its constitution to eliminate possibility of same-sex couples being entitled to marry.
• 2005 The 2005 Atlantic Power Outage began.

• 2006 First flight of the F-35 Lightning II.
• 2008 74th Heisman Trophy Award: Sam Bradford, Oklahoma (QB)
• 2009 Boeing's new 787 Dreamliner makes its maiden flight from Seattle, Washington.

• 2011 ESPN and the NCAA extend their TV rights deal through 2023-24, giving the network worldwide multi-media rights to 24 NCAA championships for various sports; deal worth $500m

• 2012 18 Asylum seekers drown in the Aegean Sea on the way to Greece from Turkey
• 2013 China successfully lands its moon rover on the moon

• 2015 1,000 schools closed in Los Angeles after a email threat, supposedly from jihadists
• 2015 Fifth Republican presidential candidates debate in Las Vegas, Nevada
• 2015 Mayor of Flint, Michigan declares state of emergency over contaminated water supplies amid calls for a criminal investigation
• 2016 Ceasefire declared in Aleppo to allow hundreds to be evacutated from last rebel held area
• 2016 White supremacist Dylann Roof is found guilty of the Charleston Church Massacre which killed 9

• 2017 Pakistani teenager Ahed Tamimi filmed slapping Israeli officers during protest, arrested 4 days later
• 2018 Affordable Care Act ('Obamacare') ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge in Fort Worth, Texas; later reversed by US Supreme Court
• 2018 Diplomats from 200 countries agree to a set of rules to implement the UN Paris Climate Agreement in Katowice, Poland
• 2018 Egyptian Archaeologists announce discovery of 4,400 year old tomb of Fifth Dynasty priest in Saqqara pyramid complex near Cairo

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