15 September

Events

• 608 - Saint Boniface IV becomes Pope
• 1620 - The Mayflower departs Plymouth, England
• 1789 - The United States Department of State is established (formerly known as Department of Foreign Affairs).
• 1821 - Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and El Salvador proclaimed independent
• 1830 - The Liverpool to Manchester railway line opens. (see also deaths, below)
• 1862 - Confederate forces capture Harpers Ferry, Virginia
• 1883 - The Bombay Natural History Society is founded in Bombay (now Mumbai), India
• 1894 - Japan defeats China in the Battle of Ping Yang
• 1914 - The Battle of Aisne begins between Germany and France
• 1916 - Tanks are used for the first time in battle, at the Battle of the Somme
• 1935 - Nuremberg Laws deprive German Jews of citizenship
• 1950 - United States forces land at Inchon, Korea
• 1952 - United Nations gives Eritrea to Ethiopia
• 1959 - Nikita Khrushchev becomes the first Soviet leader to visit the United States
• 1963 - Four children are killed when a bomb explodes in the 16th Street Baptist Church, an African-American church in Birmingham, Alabama

Births

• 973 - Al-Biruni, mathematician († 1048)
• 1789 - James Fenimore Cooper, novelist († 1851)
• 1857 - William Howard Taft, President of the United States and Supreme Court Justice († 1930)
• 1876 - Bruno Walter, conductor
• 1889 - Robert Benchley, author († 1945)
• 1890 - Agatha Christie, writer († 1976)
• 1894 - Jean Renoir, film director († 1979)
• 1903 - Roy Acuff, country musician († 1992)
• 1907 - Fay Wray, actress
• 1913 - John N. Mitchell, former United States Attorney General and convicted Watergate criminal († 1988)
• 1914 - Adolfo Bioy Casares, writer († 1999)
• 1915 - Igor Cassini, fashion designer († 2002)
• 1922 - Jackie Cooper, actor, director
• 1924 - Bobby Short, jazz musician
• 1924 - Lucebert, Dutch painter and poet
• 1926 - Jean-Pierre Serre, French mathematician
• 1928 - Cannonball Adderley, saxophonist, bandleader († 1975)
• 1929 - Murray Gell-Mann, American physicist.
• 1933 - Henry Darrow, actor
• 1938 - Gaylord Perry, Baseball star
• 1940 - Merlin Olsen, American football star, actor
• 1946 - Tommy Lee Jones, actor
• 1946 - Oliver Stone, film director
• 1961 - Dan Marino, American football star
• 1984 - Prince Harry of Wales
• 1987 - Philip van Reeuwijk, Dutch Soccer star

Deaths

• 1830 - William Huskisson, M.P., struck by George Stephenson's train engine `Rocket', at the opening of the Liverpool-Manchester line. The first rail fatality of history.
• 1859 - Isambard Kingdom Brunel, engineer
• 1864 - John Hanning Speke - British explorer of Africa
• 1885 - P.T. Barnum's famous Elephant, Jumbo, hit by locomotive while crossing tracks, died instantly. Was later stuffed and put on display with the circus.
• 1891 - Ivan Goncharov, Russian author of Oblomov
• 1893 - Thomas Hawksley, civil engineer
• 1898 - William Seward Burroughs, inventor of the calculator
• 1945 - Anton Webern, Austrian composer
• 1973 - Gustav VI Adolf, king of Sweden
• 1989 - Robert Penn Warren, poet, novelist
• 2003 - Josef Hiršal, novelist

Holidays

• In ancient Greece, the second day of the Eleusinian mysteries, when the priests of Demeter declared the public start of the rites.
• In Japan, Respect for the Aged Day.

See Also: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December - more historical anniversaries

Referenced By