December 15

December 15 is the 349th day of the year (350th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 16 days remaining.

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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 vengeance 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
• 1961 - An Israeli war crimes tribunal sentences Adolph Eichmann to die for his part in the Jewish holocaust.
• 1965 - Gemini program: Launch of Gemini 6A
• 1976 - Samoa is member of the UN
• 1994 - Netscape Navigator 1.0 first released, and Palau is member of the UN.
• 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)
• 1802 - János Bolyai, the greatest Hungarian matematician
• 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)
• 1899 - Harold Abrahams, British athlete (d. 1978)
• 1910 - John Hammond, musician (d. 1987)
• 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
• 1939 - Cindy Birdsong, singer, member of the Supremes
• 1942 - Dave Clark, musician ("Dave Clark Five")
• 1949 - Don Johnson, actor (Miami Vice)
• 1952 - Cassandra Harris Australian actress (d. 1991)
• 1968 - Javid Hussain, film producer
• 1969 - Rick Law, illustrator, producer
• 1973 - Surya Bonaly, figure skater
• 1976 - Baichung Bhutia, football player
• 1979 - Gregory John Grappone, heir

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
• 1872 - Mary Anne Evans, wife of Benjamin Disraeli (b. 1792)
• 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
• 2001 - Rufus Thomas, musician (b. 1917)
• 2003 - Johnny Cunningham, Scottish musician, member of Silly Wizard

Holidays and observances

• Roman Empire - Consualia in honor of Consus is held.
• Feast day of St. Valerian, martyred in 457

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

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