15 May History
- 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.
15 May Birthdays
- 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.