What Happened This Day In History - May 15

Today in History
May 15

756		Abd-al-Rahman is proclaimed emir of Cordoba, Spain.
1213		King John submits to the Pope, offering to make England and Ireland papal fiefs. Pope Innocent III lifts the interdict of 1208.
1602		English navigator Bartholomew Gosnold discovers Cape Cod.
1614		An aristocratic uprising in France ends with treaty of St. Menehould.
1618		Johannes Kepler discovers his harmonics law.
1702		The War of Spanish Succession begins.
1730		Following the resignation of Lord Townshend, Robert Walpole becomes the sole minister in the English cabinet.
1768		By the Treaty of Versailles, France purchases Corsica from Genoa.
1795		Napoleon enters the Lombardian capital of Milan in triumph.
1820		The U.S. Congress designates the slave trade a form of piracy.
1849		Neapolitan troops enter Palermo, Sicily.
1862		The Union ironclad Monitor and the gunboat Galena fire on Confederate troops at the Battle of Drewry's Bluff, Virginia.
1864		At the Battle of New Market, Virginia Military Institute cadets repel a Union attack.
1886		Emily Dickinson dies in Amherst, Mass., where she had lived in seclusion for the previous 24 years.
1916		U.S. Marines land in Santo Domingo to quell civil disorder.
1918		Pfc. Henry Johnson and Pfc. Needham Roberts receive the Croix de Guerre for their services in World War I. They are the first Americans to win France's highest military medal.
1930		Ellen Church becomes the first airline stewardess.
1942		The United States begins rationing gasoline.
1958		Sputnik III is launched by the Soviet Union.
1963		The last Project Mercury space flight, carrying Gordon Cooper, is launched.
1968		U.S. Marines relieve army troops in Nhi Ha, South Vietnam after a fourteen-day battle.
1972		George Wallace is shot by Arthur Bremer in Laurel, Maryland.
1975		The merchant ship Mayaguez is recaptured from Cambodia's Khmer Rouge.
1988		Soviets forces begin their withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Born on May 15
1773		Prince Clemens Von Metternich, Chancellor of Austria.
1856		Lyman Frank Baum, author (The Wonderful Wizard of Oz).
1858		Emily Folger, Shakespeare scholar.
1859		Pierre Curie, physicist.
1860		Ellen Louise Axson Wilson, first wife of President Woodrow Wilson.
1890		Katherine Anne Porter, novelist (Ship of Fools).
1891		Mikhail Bulgakov, Russian novelist (Notes of a Dead Man, Heart of a Dog).
1902		Richard Daley, mayor of Chicago through the 1960s and early 1970's.
1923		Richard Avedon, photographer.
1926		Anthony Shaffer, English playwright (Sleuth), twin brother of Peter Shaffer.
1926		Peter Shaffer, English playwright (Equus, Amadeus), twin brother of Anthony Shaffer.
1930		Jasper Johns, Jr., painter, leader of the Pop Art movement.