December 15

Events

• 687 - St. Sergius I becomes Pope
• 1702 - Forty-seven ronin, formerly in the service of Asano Naganori, assault the household of Kira Yoshinaka, and kill him in vengence for their lord. Their display of the ideals of bushido becomes a national legend.
• 1791 - The United States Bill of Rights is passed.
• 1891 - James Naismith invents basketball
• 1914 - Battle of Lodz ends; Russians retreat toward Moscow
• 1916 - France defeats Germany in Battle of Verdun
• 1939 - Gone With the Wind premiers in Atlanta, Georgia
• 1945 - General Douglas MacArthur orders end of Shinto as state religion of Japan
• 1965 - Gemini program: Launch of Gemini 6A
• 1994 - Netscape Navigator 1.0 first released.
• 1995 - The European Communities Court of Justice passes the Bosman ruling
• 1997 - A chartered Tupolev TU-154 from Tajikistan crashes in the desert near Sharja, United Arab Emirates airport killing 85
• 2002 - BBC 7, television channel launched in UK

Births

• 37 - Nero, Roman emperor (d. 68)
• 130 - Lucius Verus, Roman emperor (d. 169)
• 1613 - La Rochefoucauld, writer (d. 1680)
• 1832 - Gustave Eiffel, civil engineer (d. 1923)
• 1852 - Antoine Henri Becquerel, physicist and recipient of the Nobel Prize in physics 1903 (d. 1908)
• 1859 - L. L. Zamenhof, initiator of Esperanto (d. 1917)
• 1861 - Charles Duryea, automobile pioneer (d. 1938)
• 1888 - Maxwell Anderson, writer (d. 1959)
• 1892 - J. Paul Getty, oil tycoon (d. 1976)
• 1910 - John Hammond, musician
• 1912 - Ray Eames, American designer (d. 1988)
• 1912 - Stan Kenton, musician (d. 1979)
• 1916 - Buddy Cole, pianist (d. 1964)
• 1918 - Jeff Chandler, actor (d. 1961)
• 1922 - Alan Freed, disc jockey (d. 1965)
• 1923 - Freeman Dyson, physicist
• 1928 - Friedensreich Hundertwasser, painter and graphic artist (d. 2000)
• 1933 - Tim Conway, actor, comedian
• 1938 - Michael Bogdanov, film director and theatre manager
• 1942 - Dave Clark, musician ("Dave Clark Five")
• 1949 - Don Johnson, actor

Deaths

• 1025 - Basil II, Byzantine emperor (b. 958)
• 1072 - Alp Arslan, Seljuk sultan (b. 1029)
• 1263 - King Haakon IV of Norway (b. 1204)
• 1683 - Izaak Walton, writer (b. 1593)
• 1792 - Joseph Martin Kraus, composer (b. 1756)
• 1816 - Charles Stanhope, engineer, inventor of the calculator
• 1890 - Sitting Bull, Sioux nation leader (b. c.1831)
• 1943 - Fats Waller, musician (b. 1904)
• 1944 - Glenn Miller, bandleader (presumed date) (b. (1904)
• 1958 - Wolfgang Ernst Pauli, physicist (b. 1900)
• 1966 - Walt Disney, animator, cartoonist (b. 1901)
• 1968 - Jess Willard, boxer
• 1975 - Anatole Litvak, writer
• 2003 - Johnny Cunningham, Scottish musician, member of Silly Wizard

Holidays and Observances

• Roman Empire - Consualia in honor of Consus is held.

See Also

December 14 - December 16 - November 15 - January 15 -- listing of all days

January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December

Referenced By