November 15
Events
Pre-1600
- 655 - Battle of the Winwaed: Penda of Mercia is defeated by Oswiu of Northumbria.
- 1315 - Growth of the Old Swiss Confederacy: The Schweizer Eidgenossenschaft ambushes the army of Leopold I in the Battle of Morgarten.
- 1532 - Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire: Commanded by Francisco Pizarro, Spanish conquistadors under Hernando de Soto meet Incan Emperor Atahualpa for the first time outside Cajamarca, arranging for a meeting in the city plaza the following day.
- 1533 - Francisco Pizarro arrives in Cuzco, the capital of the Inca Empire.
1601–1900
- 1705 - Rákóczi's War of Independence: The Habsburg Empire and Denmark win a military victory over the Kurucs from Hungary in the Battle of Zsibó.
- 1760 - The secondly-built Castellania in Valletta is officially inaugurated with the blessing of the interior Chapel of Sorrows.
- 1777 - American Revolutionary War: After 16 months of debate the Continental Congress approves the Articles of Confederation.
- 1806 - Pike Expedition: Lieutenant Zebulon Pike spots a mountain peak while near the Colorado foothills of the Rocky Mountains. It is later named Pikes Peak in his honor.
- 1842 - A slave revolt in the Cherokee Nation commences.
- 1849 - Boilers of the steamboat Louisiana explode as she pulls back from the dock in New Orleans, killing more than 150 people.
- 1864 - American Civil War: Union General William Tecumseh Sherman begins his March to the Sea through Georgia towards the city of Savannah.
- 1884 - The Berlin Conference of 1884–1885 met on 15 November 1884, and after an adjournment concluded on 26 February 1885, with the signature of a General Act, regulating the European colonisation and trade in Africa during the New Imperialism period.
- 1889 - Brazil is declared a republic by Marshal Deodoro da Fonseca as Emperor Pedro II is deposed in a military coup.
- 1899 - Second Boer War: Battle of Chieveley, a British armored train is ambushed and partially derailed. British lose the battle, with 80 soldiers captured, along with war correspondent Winston Churchill.
1901–present
- 1917 - Eduskunta declares itself the supreme state power of Finland, prompting its declaration of independence and secession from Russia.
- 1920 - The first assembly of the League of Nations is held in Geneva, Switzerland.
- 1920 - The Free City of Danzig is established.
- 1922 - At least 300 are massacred during a general strike in Guayaquil, Ecuador.
- 1928 - The RNLI lifeboat Mary Stanford capsizes in Rye Harbour with the loss of the entire 17-man crew.
- 1933 - Thailand holds its first election.
- 1938 - Nazi Germany bans Jewish children from public schools in the aftermath of Kristallnacht.
- 1942 - World War II: The Battle of Guadalcanal ends in a decisive Allied victory.
- 1943 - The Holocaust: German SS leader Heinrich Himmler orders that Gypsies are to be put "on the same level as Jews and placed in concentration camps".
- 1951 - Nikos Beloyannis, along with 11 comrades, is sentenced to death for attempting to reestablish the Communist Party of Greece.
- 1955 - The first part of the Saint Petersburg Metro is opened.
- 1957 - Short Solent 3 crashes near Chessell.
- 1959 - Four members of the Clutter family are murdered near Holcomb, Kansas, by Perry Smith and Richard Hickock, a crime later detailed by Truman Capote in his 1966 non-fiction novel In Cold Blood.
- 1965 - Craig Breedlove sets a land speed record of 600.601 mph in his car, the Spirit of America, at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah.
- 1966 - Project Gemini: Gemini 12 completes the program's final mission, when it splashes down safely in the Atlantic Ocean.
- 1967 - The only fatality of the North American X-15 program occurs during the 191st flight when Air Force test pilot Michael J. Adams loses control of his aircraft which is destroyed mid-air over the Mojave Desert.
- 1968 - The Cleveland Transit System becomes the first transit system in the western hemisphere to provide direct rapid transit service from a city's downtown to its major airport.
- 1969 - Cold War: The Soviet submarine K-19 collides with the American submarine USS Gato in the Barents Sea.
- 1969 - Vietnam War: In Washington, D.C., 250,000–500,000 protesters staged a peaceful demonstration against the war, including a symbolic "March Against Death".
- 1971 - Intel releases the world's first commercial single-chip microprocessor, the 4004.
- 1976 - René Lévesque and the Parti Québécois take power to become the first Quebec government of the 20th century clearly in favor of independence.
- 1978 - A chartered Douglas DC-8 crashes near Colombo, Sri Lanka, killing 183.
- 1979 - A package from Unabomber Ted Kaczynski begins smoking in the cargo hold of a flight from Chicago to Washington, D.C., forcing the plane to make an emergency landing.
- 1983 - Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus declares independence; it is only recognized by Turkey.
- 1985 - A research assistant is injured when a package from the Unabomber addressed to a University of Michigan professor explodes.
- 1985 - The Anglo-Irish Agreement is signed at Hillsborough Castle by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Irish Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald.
- 1987 - In Brașov, Romania, workers rebel against the communist regime of Nicolae Ceaușescu.
- 1987 - Continental Airlines Flight 1713 crashes during takeoff from Stapleton International Airport in Denver, Colorado, killing 25.
- 1988 - In the Soviet Union, the uncrewed Shuttle Buran makes its only space flight.
- 1988 - Israeli–Palestinian conflict: An independent State of Palestine is proclaimed by the Palestinian National Council.
- 1988 - The first Fairtrade label, Max Havelaar, is launched in the Netherlands.
- 1990 - The Communist People's Republic of Bulgaria is disestablished and a new republican government is instituted.
- 1990 - Space Shuttle Atlantis is launched on STS-38, a classified mission for the Department of Defense.
- 1994 - A magnitude 7.1 earthquake hits the central Philippine island of Mindoro, killing 78 people, injuring 430 and triggering a tsunami up to high.
- 2000 - A chartered Antonov An-24 crashes after takeoff from Luanda, Angola, killing more than 40 people.
- 2000 - Jharkhand officially becomes the 28th state of India, formed from eighteen districts of southern Bihar.
- 2001 - Microsoft launches the Xbox game console in North America.
- 2002 - Hu Jintao becomes General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and a new nine-member Politburo Standing Committee is inaugurated.
- 2003 - The first day of the 2003 Istanbul bombings, in which two car bombs, targeting two synagogues, explode, kill 25 people and wound 300 more.
- 2006 - Al Jazeera English launches worldwide.
- 2007 - Cyclone Sidr hits Bangladesh, killing an estimated 5,000 people and destroying parts of the world's largest mangrove forest, the Sundarbans.
- 2010 - A fire in a high-rise apartment building in Shanghai, China kills 58 people.
- 2012 - Xi Jinping becomes General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and a new seven-member Politburo Standing Committee is inaugurated.
- 2016 - Hong Kong's High Court bans elected politicians Yau Wai-ching and Baggio Leung from the city's Parliament.
- 2017 - A flood a few miles outside of Athens results in the death of 25 people.
- 2020 - Lewis Hamilton wins the Turkish Grand Prix and secures his seventh drivers' title, equalling the all-time record held by Michael Schumacher.
- 2022 - The world population reached eight billion.
Births
Pre-1600
- 459 - Bʼutz Aj Sak Chiik, Mayan king
- 1316 - John I, king of France and Navarre
- 1397 - Nicholas V, pope of the Catholic Church
- 1498 - Eleanor of Austria, queen of Portugal and France
- 1511 - Johannes Secundus, Dutch poet and author
- 1556 - Jacques Davy Duperron, French cardinal
1601–1900
- 1607 - Madeleine de Scudéry, French author
- 1660 - Hermann von der Hardt, German historian and orientalist
- 1661 - Christoph von Graffenried, Swiss-American settler and author
- 1692 - Eusebius Amort, German poet and theologian
- 1708 - William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham, English politician, Prime Minister of Great Britain
- 1738 - William Herschel, German-English astronomer and composer
- 1741 - Johann Kaspar Lavater, Swiss poet and physiognomist
- 1746 - Joseph Quesnel, French-Canadian poet, playwright, and composer
- 1757 - Heinrich Christian Friedrich Schumacher, Danish surgeon, botanist, and academic
- 1776 - José Joaquín Fernández de Lizardi, Mexican journalist and author
- 1784 - Jérôme Bonaparte, French husband of Catharina of Württemberg
- 1791 - Friedrich Ernst Scheller, German lawyer, jurist, and politician
- 1793 - Michel Chasles, French mathematician and academic
- 1849 - Mary E. Byrd, American astronomer and educator
- 1852 - Tewfik Pasha, Egyptian ruler
- 1859 - Christopher Hornsrud, Norwegian businessman and politician, 11th Prime Minister of Norway
- 1862 - Gerhart Hauptmann, German novelist, poet, and playwright, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1865 - John Earle, Australian politician, 22nd Premier of Tasmania
- 1866 - Cornelia Sorabji, Indian lawyer, social reformer and writer
- 1867 - Emil Krebs, German polyglot
- 1868 - Emil Racoviță, Romanian biologist, zoologist, and explorer
- 1873 - Sara Josephine Baker, American physician and academic
- 1874 - Dimitrios Golemis, Greek runner
- 1874 - August Krogh, Danish zoologist and physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1879 - Lewis Stone, American actor
- 1881 - Franklin Pierce Adams, American journalist and author
- 1882 - Felix Frankfurter, Austrian-American lawyer and jurist
- 1886 - René Guénon, French-Egyptian philosopher and author
- 1887 - Marianne Moore, American poet, critic, and translator
- 1887 - Georgia O'Keeffe, American painter and educator
- 1888 - Artie Matthews, American pianist and composer
- 1890 - Richmal Crompton, English author and educator
- 1891 - W. Averell Harriman, American businessman and politician, 11th United States Secretary of Commerce
- 1891 - Erwin Rommel, German field marshal
- 1892 - Naomi Childers, American actress
- 1895 - Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna of Russia
- 1895 - Antoni Słonimski, Polish journalist, poet, and playwright
- 1896 - Leonard Lord, English businessman
- 1897 - Aneurin Bevan, Welsh journalist and politician, Secretary of State for Health
- 1897 - Sacheverell Sitwell, English author and critic
- 1899 - Avdy Andresson, Estonian-American soldier and diplomat, Estonian Minister of War