1915

1915 (MCMXV) was a common year starting on Friday (see link for calendar).

Events

January 12 - The Rocky Mountain National Park is established by an act of the U.S. Congress.
January 12 - United States House of Representatives rejects proposal to give women the right to vote.
January 13 – An earthquake (6.8 in Richter scale) in Avezzano, Italy - 32.610 dead
January 19 - George Claude patents the neon discharge tube for use in advertising.
January 19 - German zeppelins bomb the cities of Great Yarmouth and King's Lynn in the United Kingdom for the first time, killing more than 20.
January 21 - Kiwanis International is founded in Detroit, Michigan.
January 27 - Chinese president Yuan Shikai declares himself Emperor
January 28 - An act of the U.S. Congress creates the United States Coast Guard.
January 31 - World War I: Germany uses poison gas against Russians.
February 8 - The controversial film The Birth of a Nation by D.W. Griffith premieres (Los Angeles, California).
February 12 - In Washington, DC the first stone of the Lincoln Memorial is put into place.
March 3 - NACA, the predecessor of NASA, is founded.
March 14 - World War I: Off the coast of Chile, the Royal Navy sinks the German battleship SMS Dresden.
March 14 - Britain, France and Russia agree to give Constantinople and the Bosporus to Russia in case of victory (the treaty is later nullified by the Bolshevik revolution)
March 18 - World War I: British attack on the Dardanelles fails.
March 19 - Pluto is photographed for the first time but was not recognized as a planet.
March 25 - US submarine F-4 sinks off Hawaii - 21 dead
March 28 - The first Roman Catholic Liturgy is celebrated by Archbishop John Ireland at the newly consecrated Cathedral of Saint Paul in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
April 13 - Mexican Revolution - Pancho Villa's attack against Alvaro Obregon's troops in Celaya. Charge of Villa's troops is no match against Obregon's barbed wire and machine guns
April 22 - World War I: Second Battle of Ypres - German troops introduce poison gas at Ypres, Belgium.
April 24 - The Ottoman Empire arrests hundreds of Armenian intellectuals, executing most. Armenians mark this as the start of the Armenian Genocide and commemorate the anniversary.
April 25 - The Anzac tradition begins during World War I with a landing at Gallipoli on the Turkish coast.
April 30 - Australian submarine AE2 sunk in Sea of Marmara.
May 3 - John McCrae writes In Flanders Fields
May 7 - World War I: The RMS Lusitania is sunk by a German U-boat killing 1,198.
May 9 - World War I: Second Battle of Artois - German and French forces fight.
May 17 - The last purely Liberal government in the United Kingdom ends when Prime Minister Herbert Henry Asquith forms an all party coalition.
May 22 - Quintinshill railway disaster, Scotland, UK. 200 killed.
May 23 - World War I: Italy joins the Allies after they declare war on Austria-Hungary.
June 3 - Troops of Obregon and Villa clash at León. Obregon loses his right arm in grenade attack but Villa is decisively defeated
June 9 - U.S. Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan resigns over a disagreement regarding his nation's handling of the RMS Lusitania sinking.
June 16 - Foundation of the British Women's Institute
July 7 - An extremely overloaded Great Gorge and International Railway trolley with 157 passengers crashes near Queenston, Ontario resulting in 15 casualties.
July 24 - The steamer Eastland capsizes in central Chicago, Illinois, with the loss of 845 lives.
July 28 - United States occupation of Haiti begins
August 5 – 23 - Hurricane Two of the 1915 Atlantic hurricane season over Galveston and New Orleans – 275 dead
August 6 - World War I: Battle of Sari Bair begins - The Allies mount a diversionary attack timed to coincide with a major Allied landing of reinforcements at Suvla Bay.
August 16 - The Entente promises the Kingdom of Serbia, should victory be achieved over Austro-Hungary and its allied Central Powers, the territories of Baranja, Srem and Slavonia from the Cisleithanian part of the Dual Monarchy; Bosnia and Herzegovina; and eastern 2/3 of Dalmatia (from the river of Krka to Bar).
August 17 - Jewish American Leo Frank is lynched for the alleged murder of a 13-year-old girl in Atlanta, Georgia.
September 6 - The first prototype tank is tested for the British Army for the first time.
September 7 - Former cartoonist John B. Gruelle is given a patent for his Raggedy Ann doll.
October 12 - World War I: British nurse Edith Cavell is executed by a German firing squad for helping Allied soldiers escape from Belgium.
October 19 - US recognizes Mexican government of Victoriano Carranza de facto (not de jure until 1917)
October 27 - William Morris Hughes becomes 7th Prime Minister of Australia.
November 14 - Vision allegedly encountered by various military personnel in Europe at 22:30 hours, as recounted on the television series One Step Beyond.
November 25 - The theory of general relativity is formulated.
December 26 - Irish Republican Brotherhood Military Council decides to stage a rising on Easter Sunday 1916.

Unknown dates

Alfred Wegener proposes the theory of Pangea.
Emory College is rechartered as Emory University, and plans to move its main campus from Oxford, Georgia to Atlanta.
Triangle Film Corporation was founded in the summer of this year
U.S. recognizes government of President Venustiano Carranza of Mexico.
Lord Beaverbrook buys the London Daily Express.
Automobile speed record of 102.6 m.p.h. set at Sheepshead Bay, N.Y.. by Gil Anderson driving a Stutz.
The first stop sign appears in Detroit, Michigan.
Female suffrage in Denmark and Iceland
Henri Désiré Landru begins his serial kills
Typhoid Mary isolated

Ongoing events

World War I (1914-1918)

Disputed Events

Assyrian Genocide (1914-1922)
Armenian Genocide (1915-1918)

Births

January

January 5 - Arthur H. Robinson, American geographer and cartographer (d. 2004)
January 14 - Mark Goodson, American television game show producer (d. 1992)
January 20 - Ghulam Ishaq Khan, President of Pakistan
January 23 - Arthur Lewis, British economist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1991)
January 24 - Robert Motherwell, American painter (d. 1991)
January 30 - Joachim Peiper, German SS officer (d. 1976)
January 30 - John Profumo, British cabinet minister (d. 2006)
January 31 - Alan Lomax, American folklorist and musicologist (d. 2002)
January 31 - Thomas Merton, American monk and author (d. 1968)

February

February 1 - Artur London, Czech statesman (d. 1986)
February 1 - Sir Stanley Matthews, English footballer (d. 2000)
February 2 - Khushwant Singh, Indian writer
February 4 - Sir Norman Wisdom, English comedian, singer, and actor
February 5 - Robert Hofstadter, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1990)
February 16 - Jim O'Hora, American college football coach, (d. 2005)
February 28 - Peter Medawar, Brazilian-born scientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1987)

March

March 4 - Carlos Surinach, Spanish composer (d. 1997)
March 9 - John Edgar "Johnnie" Johnson, English WW2 pilot (d. 2001)
March 10 - Harry Bertoia, Italian artist and designer (d. 1978)
March 11 - Vijay Hazare, Indian cricketer (d. 2004)
March 14 - Alexander Brott, Canadian conductor and composer (d. 2005)
March 20 - Sviatoslav Richter, Ukrainian born Soviet pianist (d. 1997)
March 23 - Vasily Zaitsev, Soviet sniper, World War II hero (d. 1991)
March 30 - Arsenio Erico, Paraguayan footballer in Argentina (d. 1977)
March 31 - Albert Hourani, English Middle Eastern historian (d. 1993)

April

April 4 - Muddy Waters, American blues musician (d. 1983)
April 7 - Billie Holiday, American jazz and blues singer (d. 1959)
April 21 - Anthony Quinn, Mexican actor (d. 2001)

May

May 1 - Krystyna Skarbek, Polish-born heroine of World War II (d. 1952)
May 1 - Archie Williams, American athlete (d. 1993)
May 2 - Doris Fisher, American singer and songwriter (d. 2003)
May 5 - Alice Faye, American entertainer (d. 1998)
May 6 - Orson Welles, American film director (d. 1985)
May 10 - Denis Thatcher, husband of Margaret Thatcher (d. 2003)
May 12 - Frère Roger (Brother Roger) founder and prior of the Taizé Community (d. 2005)
May 15 - Paul Samuelson, American economist, Nobel Prize laureate
May 20 - Moshe Dayan, Israeli military leader and politician (d. 1981)
May 26 - Sam Edwards, American actor (d. 2004)
May 29 - Karl Münchinger, German conductor (d. 1990)

June

June 1 - John Randolph, American actor (d. 2004)
June 10 - Saul Bellow, Canadian-born writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2005)
June 15 - Thomas Huckle Weller, American virologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
June 17 - Karl Targownik, Hungarian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor (d. 1996)
June 20 - Paul Castellano, American Gangster (d. 1985)
June 24 - Sir Fred Hoyle, British astronomer (d. 2001)

July

July 7 - Yul Brenner, Russian born American actor (d. 1985)
July 28 - Charles Townes, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
July 28 - Frankie Yankovic, American accordian player (d. 1998)

August

August 3 - Pete Newell, Canadian born American college basketball coach
August 19 - Ring Lardner Jr., American movie screenwriter (d. 2000)
August 22 - Hugh Paddick, British actor (d. 2000)
August 27 - Norman F. Ramsey, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
August 29 - Ingrid Bergman, Swedish actress (d. 1982)

September

September 12 - Frank McGee, reporter for NBC News and Today Show co-host (d. 1974)
September 15 - Ethel Rosenberg, wife of Julius Rosenberg (d. 1953)
September 23 - Julius Baker, American flutist for the New York Philharmonic (d. 2003)
September 23 - Clifford Shull, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2001)
September 30 - Lester Maddox, Governor of Georgia (d. 2003)

October

October 9 - Clifford M. Hardin, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture
October 13 - Terry Frost, English artist (d. 2003)
October 17 - Arthur Miller, American playwright (d. 2005)
October 24 - Bob Kane, American comic book creator (d. 1998)
October 24 - Tito Gobbi, Italian baritone (d. 1984)
October 29 - William Berenberg, American physician (d. 2005)

November

November 9 - André François, French cartoonist (d. 2005)
November 9 - Sargent Shriver, American politician
November 11 - William Proxmire, U.S. Senator (d. 2005)
November 12 - Roland Barthes, French philosopher and literary critic (d. 1980)
November 14 - Martha Tilton, British actress
November 19 - Earl Wilbur Sutherland Jr., American physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1974)
November 25 - Augusto Pinochet, President of Chile
November 28 - Evald Okas, Estonian painter
November 30 - Brownie McGhee, American musician (d. 1996)
November 30 - Henry Taube, Canadian-born chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2005)

December

December 7 - Eli Wallach, American actor
December 8 - Ernest Lehman American screenwriter (d. 2005)
December 9 - Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, German soprano
December 12 - Frank Sinatra, American entertainer (d. 1998)
December 19 - Édith Piaf, French singer (d. 1963)
December 27 - Gyula Zsengellér, Hungarian footballer

Deaths

January 15 - Mary Slessor, Scottish Christian missionary (b. 1848)
February 5 - Ross Barnes, baseball player (b. 1850)
March 4 - William Willett, English inventor of Daylight Saving Time (b. 1856)
March 31 - Wyndham Halswelle, Scottish runner (b. 1882)
April 16 - Nelson W. Aldrich, U.S. Senator from Rhode Island (b. 1841)
April 23 - Rupert Brooke, English poet (b. 1887)
July 2 - Porfirio Díaz , President of Mexico (b. 1830)
July 16 - Ellen G. White, American prophetess, co-founder of Seventh-Day Adventism (b. 1827)
August 20 - Paul Ehrlich, German scientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1854)
August 26 - John Bunny American silent film comedian (b. 1863)
September 9 - Albert Spalding, baseball player and sporting goods manufacturer (b. 1850)
September 13 - Andrew L. Harris, American Civil War hero and Governor of Ohio (b. 1835)
October 12 - Charles Sorley, British poet (b. 1895)
October 30 - Charles Tupper, Prime Minister of Canada (b. 1821)
November 15 - Booker T. Washington, American educator (b. 1856)
November 28 - Mubarak Al-Sabah, Emir of Kuwait (b. 1896)

Nobel prizes

Chemistry - Richard Willstätter
Literature - Romain Rolland
Medicine - not awarded
Peace - not awarded
Physics - William Henry Bragg and William Lawrence Bragg

1915

Gourt Home::Gourt :: 1915

Events

Unknown dates

Ongoing events

Disputed Events

Births

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

Deaths

Nobel prizes