Historical Events on May 15

Events 1 - 200 of 264

• 756 Abd-al-Rahman I becomes emir of Cordova, Spain
• 884 Marinus I ends his reign as Catholic Pope
• 1004 Henry II the Saint crowned King of Italy

• 1248 Archbishop Konrad von Hochstaden lays cornerstone for Cologne Cathedral

• 1492 Cheese & Bread rebellion: German mercenaries kill 232 residents of Alkmaar, Netherlands
• 1514 Jodocus Badius Ascensius publishes Christiern Pedersen's Latin version of Saxo's "Gesta Danorum" (Deeds of the Danes), in Paris
• 1525 The battle of Frankenhausen: German peasant army surrounded, 5,000 slaughtered ; ends the peasants' uprising

• 1572 Louis van Nassau & huguenots occupy Valenciennes
• 1602 Cape Cod discovered by English navigator Bartholomew Gosnold

• 1625 16 rebellious farmers hanged in Vocklamarkt, Upper-Austria
• 1648 Treaty of Munster ratified by Spain & Netherlands

• 1672 1st copyright law enacted by Massachusetts
• 1701 The War of the Spanish Succession begins

• 1718 James Puckle, a London lawyer, patents world's 1st machine gun

• 1793 Diego Marín Aguilera flies a glider for "about 360 metres", at a height of 5-6 metres, one of the first attempted flights

• 1796 France & Sardinia sign Peace treaty of Paris

• 1817 Ambonese uprising against Dutch authority (modern Indonesia), under Thomas Matulesia (aka Kapitan Pattimura)
• 1817 First private mental health hospital opens in the US, Asylum for the Relief of Persons Deprived of the Use of Their Reason (now Friends Hospital) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

• 1836 Francis Baily observes "Baily's Beads" during annular solar eclipse

• 1849 Philadelphia Turngemeinde founded

• 1856 2nd San Francisco Vigilance Committee organized
• 1858 Royal Italian Opera opens in Covent Garden, London
• 1862 -May 17] Battle of Princeton, West Virginia
• 1862 Battle of Drewry's Bluff (Fort Darling), Virginia
• 1862 Confederate ship Alabama launched as the Enrica at Birkenhead, England, where she had been built in secret
• 1862 First baseball enclosure opens at Union Grounds, Brooklyn

• 1862 US Department of Agriculture created

• 1864 Battle of New Market, Virginia
• 1864 Skirmish at Marksville (Avoyelles) (Red River Campaign)
• 1868 Dutch government of Zuylen van Nijevelt falls

• 1883 Italy signs military treaty with Austria-Hungary & Germany

• 1891 British Central African Protectorate (now Malawi) forms

• 1891 Operations begin at Philips & Co in Holland

• 1896 Tornado kills 78 in Texas
• 1897 The Greek army retreats with heavy losses in the Greco-Turkish War.

• 1902 "Bailundo Revolt" begins after Ovimbundu kingdom & allies revolt against Portuguese Empire in Benguela Highlands, central Portuguese Angola
• 1902 Lyman Gilmore is 1st person to fly a powered craft
• 1905 Las Vegas founded in Nevada

• 1906 MLB New York Giants pitcher George "Hooks" Wiltse strikes out 4 Reds batters in 1 inning, as catcher dropped a third strike (Palace of the Fans, in Cincinnati, Ohio)
• 1908 Reich Association Law comes into force
• 1910 The last time a major earthquake happened on the Elsinore Fault Zone
• 1911 British House of Commons accept Parliament Bill
• 1911 Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Indiana University, incorporates
• 1911 Supreme Court dissolves Standard Oil (Sherman Antitrust Act)
• 1911 The Georgios Averof cruiser is bought by Greece

• 1914 Bolivia becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty.
• 1914 Henri Rabaud's opera "Marouf, savetier de Caire" premieres in Paris
• 1914 US Colonel Edward House sails for Europe to persuade major powers to reduce armies and navies; from Germany, House reports: 'Everybody's nerves are tense; it only needs a spark to set the whole thing off'
• 1916 Asiago, Italy, falls when Austrian troops attack the Italian front
• 1916 Claiming that the USA must act to quell dangerous disorder, the government orders US Marines to land in Santo Domingo; the American occupation will continue until 1924
• 1917 The first officer's training camp is opened in the US, as the country prepares for war
• 1918 1st regular US airmail postal service between NY, Philadelphia & Washington, D.C.
• 1918 Finnish Civil War ends
• 1918 Greeks troops land at Smyrna
• 1918 Washington Senator Walter Johnson pitches 1-0, 18 inning game
• 1919 Beginning of the Winnipeg General Strike as more than 30,000 workers walk off the job in the largest strike in Canadian history (ends 25 June) [1]
• 1919 Brooklyn Dodgers score 10 runs in 13th to beat Reds 10-0
• 1920 Soccer team ADO '20 forms in Heemskerk
• 1921 British Legion formed to care for ex-servicemen

• 1922 Germany turns over the Upper Silesia region to Poland under Allied pressure and despite a plebiscite in favor of merging with Germany
• 1923 Cooperation of Dutch Molen forms
• 1928 Mickey Mouse makes his 1st ever appearance in silent film "Plane Crazy"
• 1929 Fire in X-ray film stock kills 125 at Crile Clinic (Cleveland, Ohio)
• 1930 Ellen Church becomes 1st female airline stewardess aboard a United flight from San Francisco to Cheyenne

• 1932 The 15th May Incident: in an attempted coup d'état, the Prime Minister of Japan Inukai Tsuyoshi is shot and killed by Navy officers in his home
• 1933 1st voice amplification system to be used in US Senate
• 1934 Karlis Ulmanis names himself fascist dictator of Latvia
• 1934 US Department of Justice offers $25,000 reward for Dillinger, dead or alive
• 1935 MLB Pittsburgh Pirates squeak past Phillies 20-5 at Philadelphia's Baker Bowl
• 1935 Moscow Metro opens to public; initial phase was 11 km (6.8 mi) long and included 13 stations

• 1938 Paul-Henri Spak forms red coalition of Belgium
• 1940 German armoured division moves into Northern France
• 1940 German troops occupy Amsterdam, General Winkelman surrenders
• 1940 Nazis capture General Dutch Persbureau (ANP)
• 1940 Richard and Maurice McDonald open the 1st McDonald's restaurant in San Bernardino, California
• 1940 USS Sailfish (SS-192) recommissioned, originally the Squalus
• 1941 1st British turbojet flies
• 1941 English engineer Frank Whittle successfully tests his design for the first turbojet engine aboard a Gloster E.28/39 flying from RAF Cranwell [1]

• 1941 WWII: British attack Halfaya-pass & Fort Capuzzo in Egypt and Libya
• 1941 WWII: Nazi occupiers in Netherlands forbid Jewish music
• 1942 Gasoline 1st rationed in US (17 Eastern States)
• 1942 WWII: Nazi occupiers in Netherlands arrest 2,000 Dutch officers
• 1943 Halifax bombers sinks U-463

• 1944 Cincinnati Red Clyde Shoun no-hits Boston Braves, 1-0

• 1944 Sergei Aleksi becomes guardian of the Patriarch Throne of the Russian Orthodox Church
• 1945 World War II: The final skirmish in Europe is fought near Prevalje, Slovenia
• 1948 Australia scores 721 runs in one day v Essex, world record
• 1948 End of the British Mandate over Palestine after 28 years
• 1948 Troops from Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia attack Israel
• 1950 Adnan Menderes elected Prime Minister of Turkey in the country's first democratic elections [1]
• 1951 AT&T becomes the first US corporation to have a million stockholders after young car salesman Brady Denton purchases 7 shares worth $1,078

• 1951 Polish cultural attache in Paris, Czesław Miłosz, asks the French government for political asylum
• 1952 Detroit Tiger Virgil Trucks no-hits Washington Senators, 1-0

• 1953 Osip Zadkine's monument to "The destroyed city" unveiled in Rotterdam
• 1953 The Urey-Miller experiment using primordial soup to show how life of earth might have originated, written by Stanley Miller, is published in the journal "Science" [1]
• 1954 KGLO (now KIMT) TV channel 3 in Mason City, IA (CBS) 1st broadcast
• 1955 Building of space travel center at Baikonur Kazakhstan begins
• 1955 KPUA (now KGMD) TV channel 9 in Hilo, HI (CBS) begins broadcasting
• 1955 The first ascent of Makalu, the world's fifth highest mountain
• 1955 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
• 1955 Vienna Treaty: Britain, France, US & USSR restore Austria's independence

• 1958 USSR launches Sputnik III
• 1959 100th anniversary of 1st college baseball game, between Amherst & Williams Teams reenact the original contest
• 1959 12th Cannes Film Festival: "Black Orpheus" directed by Marcel Camus wins the Palme d'Or
• 1960 "L'Avventura", Italian film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, starring Gabriele Ferzetti, Monica Vitti. premieres at Cannes
• 1960 Chic Cub Don Cardwell no-hits St Louis Cards, 4-0

• 1960 KHVO TV channel 13 in Hilo, HI (ABC) begins broadcasting
• 1960 Sputnik 4 launched into Earth orbit; later recovery failed
• 1960 Taxes took 25% of earnings in US
• 1961 "Bonanza" by Al Caiola Orchestra hits #19
• 1961 36 Unification church couples wed in Korea

• 1962 US marines arrive in Laos

• 1963 Last Project Mercury flight launched, Gordon Cooper in Faith 7
• 1964 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
• 1965 Canadian Football Players Association organizes
• 1965 Igor Vodic beats Mad Dog Vachon in Omaha, to become NWA champ
• 1966 South Vietnamese army battle Buddhists, about 80 die
• 1967 "In re Gault", US Supreme Court rules juveniles accused of crimes should be given same legal rights as adults

• 1968 1st AL game played in Milwaukee, is a 4-2 California win against Chicago
• 1968 Paul McCartney & John Lennon appear on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson", to promote Apple Records, Joe Garagiola is substitute host
• 1968 Tornado strikes Jonesboro, Arkansas at 10 PM, killing 36
• 1969 Associate Justice Abe Fortas resigns from Supreme Court
• 1970 Elizabeth Hoisington and Anna Mae Mays named 1st female US generals
• 1970 France performs nuclear test at Mururoa atoll
• 1970 International Olympic Committee votes to expel South Africa
• 1970 Mississippi Highway Patrol kill 2 students during racial disturbance at Jackson State University in Mississippi
• 1971 Irish Republican Army member William 'Billy' Reid is shot dead by British soldiers in Belfast
• 1971 Radio Nordsee International's ship bombed

• 1972 Bus plunges into Nile River killing 50 pilgrims in Minia, Egypt
• 1972 Ryukyu Is & Daito Is returned to Japan after 27 yrs of US control
• 1972 The island of Okinawa, under U.S. military governance since its conquest in 1945, reverts to Japanese control.

• 1974 Beginning of the Ulster Workers' Council strike called by Ulster loyalists and unionists who were against the Sunningdale Agreement, which proposed the sharing of political power with Irish nationalists
• 1974 Ma'alot massacre: Palestinian terrorist take school hostage, 25 mostly children killed and 68 injured
• 1974 Walter Scheel succeeds Gustav Heinemann as West German President
• 1976 "Fonz Song" by Heyettes hits #91
• 1976 Kentucky Moonrunner by Cledus Maggard hits #85
• 1976 The Provisional Irish Republican Army kill 3 Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) officers in County Fermanagh and 1 in County Down
• 1976 The Ulster Volunteer Force launch gun and bomb attacks on 2 pubs in County Armagh, killing 4 Catholic civilians and wounding many more; a British Army soldier is later convicted for taking part in the attacks
• 1980 Flyers score 8 goals against Islanders in playoffs
• 1981 George Harrison releases single "All Those Years Ago" in UK: the song was a tribute to John Lennon, and featured Ringo Starr on drums, and Paul and Linda McCartney on backing vocals [1]
• 1981 Len Barker of Cleveland pitches perfect game vs Toronto
• 1981 SCTV Network 90, sequel to Second City Television, debuts on NBC
• 1981 Soyuz 40 carries 2 cosmonauts (1 Romanian) to Salyut 6

• 1983 Madison Hotel (Boston) destroyed by implosion

• 1987 1st Energiya Launch (USSR)

• 1987 Record archery score for a pair over 24 hrs, is set
• 1988 The Soviet Union begins withdrawing its 115,000 troops from Afghanistan
• 1989 Maxwell House coffee runs ads during "Roe vs Wade" movie despite threat of boycott by right-to-lifers
• 1989 MLB Toronto Blue Jays fire manager Jimy Williams, and replace him with Cito Gaston

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