On this day in History - Dec. 15

• 0037 - Nero was born (d. 0068). 5th Roman Emperor (54-68)
• 0130 - Lucius Verus was born (d. 0169). Roman Emperor.
• 0533 - The Battle of Ticameron begins
• 0687 - St. Sergius I becomes Pope
• 1025 - Basil II dies (b. 0958). Byzantine Emperor
• 1072 - Alp Arslan dies (b. 1029). Turkish sultan in Persia.
• 1242 - Prince Munetaka was born (d. 1274). Japanese shogun.
• 1256 - Hulagu Khan captures and destroys the Hashshashin stronghold at Alamut in present-day Iran.
• 1263 - King Haakon IV of Norway dies (b. 1204)
• 1488 - Bartholomeus Diaz returns to Portugal after sailing round Cape of Good Hope
• 1567 - Christoph Demantius was born (d. 1643). German composer.
• 1570 - The Peace of Stettin was concluded in Livonia. Denmark recognized the independence of Sweden in the Peace of Stettin. Sweden gave up her claim to Norway.
• 1582 - Spanish Netherlands / Denmark / Norway adopt Gregorian calendar.
• 1598 - Philips van Marnix, lord of Sint-Aldegonde dies (b. 1538). Dutch writer and statesman.
• 1610 - David Teniers the Younger was born (d. 1690). Flemish artist.
• 1621 - Charles de Luynes dies (b. 1578). Constable of France.
• 1626 - Adriaen de Vries, Dutch Sculptor / painter, dies at about 70
• 1634 - Thomas Hansen Kingo was born (d. 1703). Danish poet.
• 1648 - Gregory King was born (d. 1712). English statistician.
• 1673 - Margaret Cavendish dies (b. 1623). English writer.
• 1675 - Johannes Vermeer dies (b. 1632). Dutch painter.
• 1683 - Izaak Walton dies (b. 1593). English writer.
• 1688 - Gaspar Fagel dies (b. 1634). Dutch statesman.
• 1702 - Forty-seven ronin, formerly in the service of Asano Naganori, assault the household of Kira Yoshinaka, and kill him in vengeance for their lord. Their display of the ideals of bushido becomes a national legend.
• 1713 - Welbore Ellis, 1st Baron Mendip was born (d. 1802). British statesman.
• 1715 - George Hickes dies (b. 1642). English minister and scholar.
• 1719 - Ludwig IX, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt was born (d. 1742)
• 1753 - Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington dies (b. 1694). English architect
• 1791 - The United States Bill of Rights is passed.
• 1792 - 1st life insurance policy issued in US (Philadelphia)
• 1792 - Joseph Martin Kraus dies (b. 1756). Swedish composer.
• 1802 - János Bolyai was born (d. 1860). Hungarian mathematician.
• 1817 - Maria Walewska [Leszczinska], lover of Emperor Napoleon I, dies
• 1832 - Gustave Eiffel was born in Dijon (d. 1923). French civil engineer. A noted constructor of bridges and viaducts; he also designed the Eiffel Tower and the internal structure of the Statue of Liberty
• 1845 - General Douglas MacArthur orders end of Shinto as state religion of Japan
• 1852 - Henri Becquerel was born (d. 1908). French physicist, Nobel Prize laureate.
• 1859 - L. L. Zamenhof was born (d. 1917). Russian initiator of Esperanto.
• 1860 - Niels Ryberg Finsen was born (d. 1904). Danish physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1903
• 1861 - Lucinda do Carmo was born. portuguese actress.
• 1861 - Charles Duryea was born (d. 1938). American automobile pioneer.
• 1870 - Josef Hoffmann, was born; Tcheck architect.
• 1877 - Thomas Edison patents phonograph
• 1878 - Hans Carossa was born (d. 1956). German writer.
• 1882 - Helena Rubinstein, was born, US cosmetic manufacturer.
• 1885 - Fernando de Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Fernando II of Portugal, dies (b. 1819)
• 1888 - Maxwell Anderson was born (d. 1959). American writer.
• 1890 - Sioux Indian chief Sitting Bull (b. c. 1831) and 11 other tribe members were killed by Native American police.
• 1891 - James Naismith introduces basketball (Canada).
• 1892 - J. Paul Getty was born (d. 1976). American oil tycoon.
• 1892 - Jose Maria Castro was borm. Argentine composer and conductor.
• 1896 - The Brazilian Academy of Letters (Academia Brasileira de Letras) is founded. Machado de Assis is proclaimed the first President
• 1899 - Harold Abrahams was born (d. 1978). British athlete who won a gold medal in the 100-metre dash at the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris, a victory that became the subject of the Academy Award-winning film Chariots of Fire (1981). [Note of the webmaster: I watched this film on my wedding's day]
• 1899 - Battle at Colenso, South Africa, the Boers defeat the British.
• 1907 - Oscar Niemeyer was born. Brazilian architect.
• 1908 - Gualberto Villarroel was born. President of Bolívia (1943-1946)
• 1910 - John H. Hammond was born (d. 1987). American musician and record producer.
• 1912 - Ray Eames was born (d. 1988). American designer.
• 1912 - Stan Kenton was born (d. 1979). American musician.
• 1913 - Nicaragua becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty.
• 1914 - The Battle of Łódź ends; Russians retreat toward Moscow
• 1916 - Maurice Wilkins was born (d. 2004). New Zealand-born, English physician who was laureate with The Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 1992 (shared with Francis Crick and James Watson)
• 1916 - the French defeated the Germans in the World War I Battle of Verdun.
• 1916 - Buddy Cole was born (d. 1964). American pianist.
• 1916 - Miguel Arraes was born in Ceará. Brazilian politician, co-founder of the Socialist Party
• 1917 - Moldavian Republic declares independence from Russia
• 1918 - Jeff Chandler [Ira Grossel] was born in Brooklyn (d. 1961). American actor (Broken Arrow).
• 1920 - China won a place on the League Council; Austria was admitted.
• 1922 - Alan Freed was born (d. 1965). American disc jockey.
• 1923 - Freeman Dyson was born. English-born physicist.
• 1927 - Trotski is excluded from the URSS Comunist Party
• 1928 - Friedensreich Hundertwasser was born (d. 2000). Austrian artist.
• 1933 - Tim Conway was born. American actor and comedian
• 1938 - Billy Shaw was born. American football player
• 1939 - Cindy Birdsong was born. American singer (Supremes)
• 1939 - Gone with the Wind premiers in Atlanta, Georgia. This film directed by David Selznick and starred Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable is an adaptation from the 1936 novel by Margaret Mitchell
• 1942 - Dave Clark was born. British musician (Dave Clark Five)
• 1943 - Fats Waller dies (b. 1904). American musician.
• 1944 - Band leader Glenn Miller disappeared in a plane crash over the English Channel.
• 1944 - American forces invaded Mindoro Island in the Philippines.
• 1944 - the Senate approved the promotions of Henry H. Arnold, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Douglas MacArthur and George C. Marshall to the five-star rank of General of the Army and the nominations of William D. Leahy, Ernest J. King and Chester W. Nimitz as Admirals of the Fleet.
• 1945 - General Douglas MacArthur orders end of Shinto as state religion of Japan
• 1946 - Vietnam leader Ho Chi Minh sent a note to the new French Premier, Leon Blum, asking for peace talks.
• 1947 - All India Muslim League meeting in Karachi resolved to split itself into two separate organizations for Pakistan and India.
• 1947 - Arthur Machen [pseudonym of Arthur Llewellyn Jones] dies (b. 1863). Welsh-born novelist and essayist
• 1948 - João Tamagnini de Sousa Barbosa dies (b. 1883). Former Prime-Minister of Portugal.
• 1948 - Former U.S. State Department official Alger Hiss was indicted on two charges of perjury for lying about his dealings with Whittaker Chambers, who accused him of membership in a communist espionage ring.
• 1949 - Don Johnson was born. American actor
• 1949 - Albert Camus' "Les Justes" premieres in Paris
• 1951 - Eric Drummond dies at 75. 1st Secretay-General of League of Nations (1919-33)
• 1952 - Pope Pius XII publishes encyclical Orientales Ecclesias
• 1952 - Cassandra Harris was born (d. 1991). Australian actress.
• 1955 - Paul Simonon was born. British bassist (The Clash)
• 1955 - RTP-Radiotelevisão Portuguesa, SARL is incorporated.
• 1956 - José Sabogal dies (b. 19 Mar 1888). Peruvian painter.
• 1956 - The Communist government of Poland allows religious instruction in schools on a voluntary basis.
• 1958 - Wolfgang Ernst Pauli dies (b. 1900). Austrian-born physicist, Nobel Prize laureate.
• 1960 - King Baudouin of Belgium marries Fabiola Fernanda María de las Victorias Antonia Adelaida de Mora y Aragón
• 1961 - An Israeli war crimes tribunal sentences Adolph Eichmann to die for his part in the Jewish holocaust
• 1961 - Karin Resetarits was born. Austrian journalist and politician.
• 1961 - Adolf Eichmann the Nazi SS colonel who organized Adolf Hitler's "final solution of the Jewish question," was sentenced to death by an Israeli court.
• 1963 - Cristiana Oliveira was born. Brazilian actress.
• 1964 - Canada adopted its national flag, a red maple leaf on a white background.
• 1965 - two U.S. manned spacecraft, Gemini 6 and Gemini 7, maneuvered to within 10 feet of each other while in orbit.
• 1965 - Bangladesh windstorm kills 10,000
• 1965 -The United States bombs an industrial center near Haiphong Harbor, North Vietnam.
• 1965 - Gemini program: Gemini 6A is launched.
• 1966 - Walt Disney dies (b. 1901). American animator.
• 1966 -Animated-cartoon pioneer and movie producer Walt Disney died in Los Angeles (b. 1901)
• 1968 - Jess Willard dies (b. 1881). American boxer.
• 1968 - Javid Hussain was born. Indian film producer
• 1968 - Garrett Wang was born. American actor.
• 1969 - Adriana Esteves was born in Rio de Janeiro. Brazilian actress.
• 1970 - Michael Shanks was born. Canadian actor.
• 1970 - S Korean ferry Namyong-Ho sinks in Strait of Korea, around 300 killed
• 1971 - Paul Lévy, mathematician, dies.
• 1972 - Stuart Townsend was born in Howth, Country Dublin, Irland. Actor.
• 1973 - American Psychiatric Assn declares homosexuality is not mental illness.
• 1973 - Surya Bonaly was born. French-born figure skater
• 1975 - Anatole Litvak dies (b. 1902). Ukrainian-born writer.
• 1976 - Baichung Bhutia was born. Indian footballer
• 1976 - Aden Belza was born. Philisopher
• 1976 - Samoa becomes a member of the UN
• 1977 - Josh Kern was born. Minor-pro hockey player
• 1978 - US to recognize Communist China, dump Taiwan. President Jimmy Carter states that as of January 1, 1979, the United States will recognize the communist People's Republic of China (PRC) and sever relations with Taiwan.
• 1979 - the deposed Shah of Iran left the United States for Panama, the same day the International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled that Iran should release all its American hostages.
• 1979 - Adam Brody was born. American actor.
• 1980 - Charles Burton (d.2002) and his party arrived at the South Pole on their 3-year journey to follow the meridian line connecting Greenwich to the North and South Poles.
• 1981 - Thomas Herrion was born (d. 2005). American football player.
• 1981 - NASA launches Intelsat V
• 1982 - Spain reopens border with Gibraltar.
• 1982 - Sao Tome & Principe constitution approved.
• 1984 - Jan Peerce dies (b. 1904). American tenor.
• 1984 - Lennard Pearce dies (b. 1915). British actor.
• 1985 - Sylvester Stallone & Brigitte Nielson wed
• 1986 - 150 killed during race riot in Karachi
• 1989 - A demonstration that turned into a popular uprising in Romania began the downfall of Nicolae Ceausescu from power a few days afterward.
• 1989 - Mercenary coup in Comoros gives up power after 21 days. The mercenary leader and ex-presidential bodyguard, Bob Denard, attempted to create a 'pirate kingdom' after the assassination of the president Ahmed Abderrahman Abdallah.
• 1989 - Arnold Moss dies (b. 1910). American character actor
• 1990 - Rocker Rod Stewart marries super model Rachel Hunter
• 1991 - Vasily Zaitsev dies (b. 1915). Russian World War II hero.
• 1991 - At least 464 people were left dead or missing when an Egyptian-registered ferry sank in the Red Sea near the port of Safaga.
• 1993 - GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) Uruguay Round completed with approval by 117 countries
• 1993 - British premier Major and Irish premier Reynolds sign Downing Street Declaration concerning Northern Ireland self determination
• 1993 - Haitian premier Robert Malval resigns.
• 1993 - Silvana Ocampo dies (b. 1903). Argentine writer.
• 1994 - John Bruton becomes Ireland's premier.
• 1994 - Netscape Navigator 1.0 first released.
• 1994 - Palau become member of the UN.
• 1995 - The European Communities Court of Justice passes the Bosman ruling
• 1995 - The future european coin is baptized with the name of EURO
• 1995 - Louis Monier of digital Equipment Corp. unveiled the Alta Vista search engine. It used several hundred “spiders” in parallel to index the web.
• 1995 - Vasco Graça Moura receives The Pessoa Prize for his translations of Dante. Born in 1942 in Porto, Vasco Graça Moura is one of the leading contemporary poets of the Portuguese language. He has published more than 60 books (poetry, prose, essays, and literary translations) and has won a great many distinctions including the “Golden Crown” of the 43rd edition of the Struga Poetry Evenings.
• 1995 - Diogo Neto dies. Portuguese general.
• 1995 - Varela Silva dies. Portuguese actor.
• 1996 - In Mexico Humberto Roque Villanueva was sworn in as the new head of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).
• 1996 - The Russian Booker Prize for literature, inaugurated in 1992, was awarded to Andrei Sergeyev for his book "Stamp Album."
• 1997 - A chartered Tupolev TU-154 from Tajikistan crashes in the desert near Sharja, United Arab Emirates airport killing 85
• 1997 - The U.S. Department of Defense ordered that all 1.4 million Americans in its service be inoculated against anthrax, a potential weapon of biological warfare.
• 1997 - In Guyana elections for president were held. Janet Jagan (77) led the elections with 55%, becoming the first elected female president in South America and the first white president of Guyana.
• 1998 - A 40-nation conference on the Dayton accord opened in Madrid.
• 1999 - In Venezuela a vote for the approval of a new constitution was scheduled. The new document contained 368 articles and included the possibility of recall referendums. Voters approved the new constitution which included changing the name of the country to the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
• 2000 - US First Lady and Senator-elect Hillary Rodham Clinton agreed to an $8 million book deal with publisher Simon and Schuster for her White House memoirs.
• 2000 - Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant shut down for good Operators shut down the Chernobyl nuclear power plant with the flip of a switch, closing the facility for good 14 years after it spawned the world's worst nuclear accident.
• 2000 - Banif - Banco de Investimento S.A is incorporated.
• 2001 - The Leaning Tower of Pisa reopens to visitors (no more than 30 at a time), after being closed since 1990, while its tilt was being reduced from 4.50 meters to 4.09 meters.
• 2001 - Russ Haas dies (b. 1974). American professional wrestler.
• 2001 - Rufus Thomas dies (b. 1917). American musician.
• 2002 - BBC 7, digital radio station is launched in UK
• 2002 - Election to the 182-seat state assembly of Gujarat, India. The anti-Muslim Hindu fundamentalist Bharatiya Janata Party, which also leads the national coalition government, wins 126 seats, the Congress Party 51. Gujarat, whose population is 55 million, has 5 million Muslims.
• 2002 - Japan won golf's World Cup for the first time in 45 years.
• 2002 - In Venezuela hundreds of thousands of people marched through the capital demanding Pres. Chavez step down. The strike had cut oil output by at least 70%.
• 2003 - Former nurse Charles Cullen was charged with murder after telling prosecutors he had killed 30 to 40 severely ill patients in Pennsylvania and New Jersey since 1987 by injecting them with drugs
• 2003 - Keith Magnuson dies. National Hockey League player (car accident)
• 2003 - George Fisher dies (b. 1923). American political cartoonist.
• 2003 - In Peru President Alejandro Toledo, with his popularity dropping, swore in a new Cabinet chief and several ministers. Toledo named congressman Carlos Ferrero to replace Prime Minister Beatriz Merino.
• Roman Empire - Consualia in honor of Consus is held.
• Feast day of St. Valerian, martyred in 457
• Zamenhof Day celebrated in the Esperanto movement in honor of L. L. Zamenhof, the creator of Esperanto.
• Bill of Rights Day in the United States, in honor of the 1791 ratification of the United States Bill of Rights