May 15

Events

Pre-1600

• 221 - Liu Bei, Chinese warlord, proclaims himself emperor of Shu Han, the successor of the Han dynasty.
• 392 - Emperor Valentinian II is assassinated while advancing into Gaul against the Frankish usurper Arbogast. He is found hanging in his residence at Vienne.
• 589 - King Authari marries Theodelinda, daughter of the Bavarian duke Garibald I. A Catholic, she has great influence among the Lombard nobility.
• 756 - Abd al-Rahman I, the founder of the Arab dynasty that ruled the greater part of Iberia for nearly three centuries, becomes emir of Cordova, Spain.
• 1194 - Michael the Syrian reconsecrates the Mor Bar Sauma Monastery, which he reconstructed after its destruction by a fire. The monastery stays a center of the Syriac Orthodox Church until the end of the thirteenth century.
• 1252 - Pope Innocent IV issues the papal bull ad extirpanda, which authorizes, but also limits, the torture of heretics in the Medieval Inquisition.
• 1525 - Insurgent peasants led by Anabaptist pastor Thomas Müntzer were defeated at the Battle of Frankenhausen, ending the German Peasants' War in the Holy Roman Empire.
• 1536 - Anne Boleyn, Queen of England, stands trial in London on charges of treason, adultery and incest; she is condemned to death by a specially-selected jury.

  1601–1900

• 1602 - Cape Cod is sighted by English navigator Bartholomew Gosnold.
• 1618 - Johannes Kepler confirms his previously rejected discovery of the third law of planetary motion.
• 1648 - The Peace of Münster is ratified, by which Spain acknowledges Dutch sovereignty.
• 1725 - Bach leads the first performance of his cantata Ich bin ein guter Hirt, BWV 85, about Jesus as the Good Shepherd.
• 1791 - French Revolution: Maximilien Robespierre proposes the Self-denying Ordinance.
• 1817 - Opening of the first private mental health hospital in the United States, the Asylum for the Relief of Persons Deprived of the Use of Their Reason.
• 1836 - Francis Baily observes "Baily's beads" during an annular eclipse.
• 1849 - The Sicilian revolution of 1848 is finally extinguished.
• 1850 - The Arana–Southern Treaty is ratified, ending "the existing differences" between Great Britain and Argentina.
• 1851 - The first Australian gold rush is proclaimed, although the discovery had been made three months earlier.
• 1864 - American Civil War: Battle of New Market, Virginia: Students from the Virginia Military Institute fight alongside the Confederate army to force Union General Franz Sigel out of the Shenandoah Valley.
• 1891 - Pope Leo XIII defends workers' rights and property rights in the encyclical Rerum novarum, the beginning of modern Catholic social teaching.

  1901–present

• 1905 - The city of Las Vegas is founded in Nevada, United States.
• 1911 - In Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey v. United States, the United States Supreme Court declares Standard Oil to be an "unreasonable" monopoly under the Sherman Antitrust Act and orders the company to be broken up.
• 1911 - More than 300 Chinese immigrants are killed in the Torreón massacre when the forces of the Mexican Revolution led by Emilio Madero take the city of Torreón from the Federales.
• 1916 - A seventeen-year-old farmworker, Jesse Washington, is infamously lynched in Waco, Texas, USA, after being convicted of rape and murder.
• 1918 - The Finnish Civil War ends when the Whites took over Fort Ino, a Russian coastal artillery base on the Karelian Isthmus, from Russian troops.
• 1919 - The Winnipeg general strike begins. By 11:00, almost the whole working population of Winnipeg had walked off the job.
• 1919 - Greek occupation of Smyrna. During the occupation, the Greek army kills or wounds 350 Turks; those responsible are punished by Greek commander Aristides Stergiades.
• 1929 - A fire at the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio kills 123.
• 1932 - In an attempted coup d'état, the Prime Minister of Japan Inukai Tsuyoshi is assassinated.
• 1933 - All military aviation organizations within or under the control of the RLM of Germany were officially merged in a covert manner to form its Wehrmacht military's air arm, the Luftwaffe.
• 1934 - A self coup by prime minister Kārlis Ulmanis succeeded in Latvia, suspending its constitution and dissolving its Saeima.
• 1940 - is recommissioned. It was originally the USS Squalus.
• 1940 - World War II: The Battle of the Netherlands: After fierce fighting, the poorly trained and equipped Dutch troops surrender to Germany, marking the beginning of five years of occupation.
• 1940 - Richard and Maurice McDonald open the first McDonald's restaurant.
• 1941 - First flight of the Gloster E.28/39 the first British and Allied jet aircraft.
• 1942 - World War II: In the United States, a bill creating the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps is signed into law.
• 1943 - Joseph Stalin dissolves the Comintern.
• 1945 - World War II: The Battle of Poljana, the final skirmish in Europe is fought near Prevalje, Slovenia.
• 1948 - Following the expiration of The British Mandate for Palestine, the Kingdom of Egypt, Transjordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia invade Israel thus starting the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.
• 1957 - At Malden Island in the Pacific Ocean, Britain tests its first hydrogen bomb in Operation Grapple.
• 1963 - Project Mercury: The launch of the final Mercury mission, Mercury-Atlas 9 with astronaut Gordon Cooper on board. He becomes the first American to spend more than a day in space, and the last American to go into space alone.
• 1970 - President Richard Nixon appoints Anna Mae Hays and Elizabeth P. Hoisington the first female United States Army generals.
• 1972 - The Ryukyu Islands, under U.S. military governance since its conquest in 1945, reverts to Japanese control.
• 1974 - Ma'alot massacre: Members of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine attack and take hostages at an Israeli school; a total of 31 people are killed, including 22 schoolchildren.
• 1976 - Aeroflot Flight 1802 crashes near Viktorivka, Chernihiv Raion, Chernihiv Oblast, killing 52.
• 1988 - Soviet–Afghan War: After more than eight years of fighting, the Soviet Army begins to withdraw 115,000 troops from Afghanistan.
• 1991 - Édith Cresson becomes France's first female Prime Minister.
• 1997 - The United States government acknowledges the existence of the "Secret War" in Laos and dedicates the Laos Memorial in honor of Hmong and other "Secret War" veterans.
• 1997 - The Space Shuttle Atlantis launches on STS-84 to dock with the Russian space station Mir.
• 2001 - A CSX EMD SD40-2 8888 rolls out of a train yard in Walbridge, Ohio, with 47 freight cars, including some tank cars with flammable chemical, after its engineer fails to reboard it after setting a yard switch. It travels south driverless for 66 miles until it was brought to a halt near Kenton. The incident became the inspiration for the 2010 film Unstoppable.
• 2004 - Arsenal F.C. go an entire league campaign unbeaten in the English Premier League, joining Preston North End F.C. with the right to claim the title "The Invincibles".
• 2008 - California becomes the second U.S. state after Massachusetts in 2004 to legalize same-sex marriage after the state's own Supreme Court rules a previous ban unconstitutional.
• 2010 - Jessica Watson becomes the youngest person to sail, non-stop and unassisted around the world solo.
• 2013 - An upsurge in violence in Iraq leaves more than 389 people dead over three days.
• 2023 - The UN commemorates the Palestinian Nakba Day for the first time.
• 2024 - Prime Minister of Slovakia Robert Fico is shot and critically injured while meeting with supporters at an event in Handlová.

  Births

Pre-1600

• 1397 - Sejong the Great, Korean king of Joseon
• 1531 - Maria of Austria, Duchess of Jülich-Cleves-Berg
• 1565 - Hendrick de Keyser, Dutch sculptor and architect
• 1567 - Claudio Monteverdi, Italian priest and composer

  1601–1900

• 1608 - René Goupil, French-American missionary and saint
• 1633 - Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban, French noble
• 1645 - George Jeffreys, 1st Baron Jeffreys, British judge
• 1689 - Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, English writer
• 1720 - Maximilian Hell, Hungarian priest and astronomer
• 1749 - Levi Lincoln Sr., American lawyer and politician, 4th United States Attorney General
• 1759 - Maria Theresia von Paradis, Austrian pianist and composer
• 1770 - Ezekiel Hart, Canadian businessman and politician
• 1773 - Klemens von Metternich, German-Austrian politician, 1st State Chancellor of the Austrian Empire
• 1786 - Dimitris Plapoutas, Greek general and politician
• 1803 - Juan Almonte, son of José María Morelos, was a Mexican soldier and diplomat who served as a regent in the Second Mexican Empire
• 1805 - Samuel Carter, English railway solicitor and Member of Parliament
• 1808 - Michael William Balfe, Irish composer and conductor
• 1817 - Debendranath Tagore, Indian philosopher and author
• 1841 - Clarence Dutton, American commander and geologist
• 1845 - Élie Metchnikoff, Russian zoologist
• 1848 - Viktor Vasnetsov, Russian painter and illustrator
• 1848 - Carl Wernicke, German neuropathologist.
• 1854 - Ioannis Psycharis, Ukrainian-French philologist and author
• 1856 - L. Frank Baum, American novelist
• 1856 - Matthias Zurbriggen, Swiss mountaineer
• 1857 - Williamina Fleming, Scottish-American astronomer and academic
• 1859 - Pierre Curie, French physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
• 1862 - Arthur Schnitzler, Austrian author and playwright
• 1863 - Frank Hornby, English businessman and politician, invented Meccano
• 1869 - Paul Probst, Swiss target shooter
• 1869 - John Storey, Australian politician, 20th Premier of New South Wales
• 1873 - Oskari Tokoi, Finnish socialist and the Chairman of the Senate of Finland
• 1882 - Walter White, Scottish international footballer
• 1890 - Katherine Anne Porter, American short story writer, novelist, and essayist
• 1891 - Mikhail Bulgakov, Russian novelist and playwright
• 1891 - Hjalmar Dahl, Finnish journalist, translator and writer
• 1891 - Fritz Feigl, Austrian-Brazilian chemist and academic
• 1892 - Charles E. Rosendahl, American admiral
• 1892 - Jimmy Wilde, Welsh boxer
• 1893 - José Nepomuceno, Filipino filmmaker, founder of Philippine cinema
• 1894 - Feg Murray, American hurdler and cartoonist
• 1895 - Prescott Bush, American captain, banker, and politician
• 1895 - William D. Byron, American lieutenant and politician
• 1898 - Arletty, French model, actress, and singer
• 1899 - Jean Étienne Valluy, French general
• 1900 - Ida Rhodes, American mathematician, pioneer in computer programming