Historical Events on this Day in History

May 15

• 1252 – Pope Innocent IV issues the papal bull ad exstirpanda, which authorizes, but also limits, the torture of heretics in the Medieval Inquisition.
• 1525 – The battle of Frankenhausen ends the German Peasants' War.
• 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.
• 1567 – Mary, Queen of Scots, marries James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell, her third husband.
• 1602 – Bartholomew Gosnold becomes the first European to see Cape Cod.
• 1618 – Johannes Kepler confirms his previously rejected discovery of the third law of planetary motion (he first discovered it on March 8 but soon rejected the idea after some initial calculations were made).
• 1648 – The Treaty of Westphalia signed.
• 1701 – The War of the Spanish Succession begins.
• 1718 – James Puckle, a London lawyer, patents the world's first machine gun.
• 1755 – Laredo, Texas is established by the Spaniards.
• 1776 – American Revolution: the Virginia Convention instructs its Continental Congress delegation to propose a resolution of independence from Great Britain, paving the way for the United States Declaration of Independence.
• 1791 – Maximilien Robespierre proposes the Self-denying Ordinance.
• 1792 – War of the First Coalition: France declares war on Kingdom of Sardinia.
• 1793 – Diego Marín Aguilera flies a glider for "about 360 meters", at a height of 5-6 meters, during one of the first attempted flights.
• 1796 – First Coalition: Napoleon enters Milan in triumph.
• 1800 – George III of the United Kingdom survives an assassination attempt by James Hadfield, who is later acquitted by reason of insanity.
• 1811 – Paraguay declares independence from Spain.
• 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 (now Friends Hospital) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
• 1836 – Francis Baily observes "Baily's beads" during an annular eclipse.
• 1849 – Troops of the Two Sicilies take Palermo and crush the republican government of Sicily
• 1850 – The Bloody Island Massacre takes place in Lake County, California, in which a large number of Pomo Indians in Lake County are slaughtered by a regiment of the United States Cavalry, led by Nathaniel Lyon.
• 1858 – Opening of the present Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London.
• 1862 – President Abraham Lincoln signs a bill into law creating the United States Bureau of Agriculture. It is later renamed the United States Department of Agriculture.
• 1864 – American Civil War: Battle of Resaca, Georgia ends.
• 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.
• 1869 – Woman's suffrage: in New York, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton form the National Woman Suffrage Association.
• 1904 – The Russian minelayer Amur laid a minefield about 15 miles off Port Arthur and sank Japan's battleships Hatsuse, 15,000 tons, with 496 crew and "Yashima".
• 1905 – Las Vegas, Nevada, is founded when 110 acres (0.4 km²), in what later would become downtown, are auctioned off.
• 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.
• 1919 – The Winnipeg General Strike begins. By 11:00 a.m., almost the whole working population of Winnipeg, Manitoba had walked off the job.
• 1919 – Greek invasion of İzmir. During the invasion, the Greek army kills or wounds 350 Turks. Those responsible are punished by the Greek Commander Aristides Stergiades.
• 1928 – Mickey Mouse premiered in his first cartoon, Plane Crazy
• 1929 – A fire at the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio kills 123.
• 1932 – The May 15 Incident: in an attempted Coup d'état, the Prime Minister of Japan Inukai Tsuyoshi is killed.
• 1934 – Kārlis Ulmanis establishes an authoritarian government in Latvia.
• 1935 – The Moscow Metro is opened to public.
• 1936 – Amy Johnson arrives back in England after a record-breaking return flight to Cape Town
• 1940 – USS Sailfish (SS-192) recommissioned, originally the USS Squalus.
• 1940 – World War II: After fierce fighting, the poorly trained and equipped Dutch troops surrender to Germany, marking the beginning of five years of occupation.
• 1940 – McDonald's opens its first restaurant in San Bernardino, California.
• 1942 – World War II: in the United States, a bill creating the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) is signed into law.
• 1943 – Joseph Stalin dissolves the Comintern (or Third International).
• 1945 – World War II: The final skirmish in Europe is fought near Prevalje, Slovenia.
• 1948 – Following the demise of the British Mandate of Palestine, Egypt, Transjordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia invade Israel thus starting the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.
• 1951 – The Polish cultural attache in Paris, Czesław Miłosz, asks the French government for political asylum.
• 1957 – At Malden Island in the Pacific, Britain tests its first hydrogen bomb in Operation Grapple. The device fails to detonate properly.
• 1958 – The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 3.
• 1960 – The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 4.
• 1963 – Project Mercury: The launch of the final Mercury mission, Mercury-Atlas 9 with astronaut L. Gordon Cooper on board. He becomes the first American to spend more than a day in space.
• 1966 – After a policy dispute, Prime Minister Nguyen Cao Ky of South Vietnam's ruling junta launches a military attack on the forces of General Ton That Dinh, forcing him to abandon his command.
• 1969 – People's Park: California Governor Ronald Reagan has an impromptu student park owned by University of California at Berkeley fenced off from student anti-war protestors, sparking a riot called Bloody Thursday.
• 1970 – President Richard Nixon appoints Anna Mae Hays and Elizabeth P. Hoisington the first female United States Army Generals.
• 1970 – Philip Lafayette Gibbs and James Earl Green are killed at Jackson State University by police during student protests.
• 1972 – The island of Okinawa, under U.S. military governance since its conquest in 1945, reverts to Japanese control.
• 1972 – In Laurel, Maryland, Arthur Bremer shoots and paralyzes Alabama Governor George Wallace while he is campaigning to be become President.
• 1974 – Ma'alot massacre: In an Arab terrorist attack and hostage taking at an Israeli school, a total of 31 people are killed, including 22 schoolchildren.
• 1987 – The Soviet Union launches the Polyus prototype orbital weapons platform. It fails to reach orbit.
• 1988 – Soviet war in Afghanistan: After more than eight years of fighting, the Red Army begins its withdrawal from Afghanistan.
• 1990 – Portrait of Doctor Gachet by Vincent van Gogh is sold for a record $82.5 million, the most expensive painting at the time.
• 1991 – Edith 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.
• 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.