1915

1915 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 - United States Marines occupy Haiti.
• 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 28 - The first Roman Catholic Liturgy is celebrated by Archbishop John Ireland at the newly consecrated Cathedral of Saint Paul in Saint Paul.
• April 22 - World War I: Second Battle of Ypres - German troops introduce poison gas at Ypres, Belgium.
• April 24 - Turkish troops attack the Armenian region of Van, starting the Armenian Genocide. In Constantinople, Turkish officers round up 300 ethnically Armenian intellectuals and execute them
• 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 Marmora.
• 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 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
• June 29 – Roger Casement is sentenced to be hanged for treason
• July 24 - The steamer Eastland capsizes in central Chicago, with the loss of 845 lives.
• August 5 – 23 - hurricane 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 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.
• October 12 - World War I: British nurse Edith Cavell is executed by a German firing squad for helping Allied soldiers escape from Belgium.
• October 27 - William Morris Hughes becomes 7th Prime Minister of Australia.

• 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.
• 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)
• Armenian Genocide (1915-1918)
• Hellenic Holocaust (1914-1922)

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 24 - Robert Motherwell, American painter (d. 1991)
• January 30 - Joachim Peiper, German senior Waffen-SS officer (d. 1976)
• January 31 - Alan Lomax, American folklorist and musicologist (d. 2002)
  • 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 4 - Sir Norman Wisdom, English comedian, singer, and actor
• February 5 - Robert Hofstadter, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1990)

March

• 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)
  • Archie Williams, American athlete (d. 1993)
• May 5 - Alice Faye, American entertainer (d. 1998)
• May 6 - Orson Welles, American film director (d. 1985)
• May 20 - Moshe Dayan, Israeli military leader and politician (d. 1981)
• May 29 - Karl Münchinger, German conductor (d. 1990)

June

• June 10 - Saul Bellow, Canadian author (d. 2005)
• June 15 - Reva Unsicker, the senile piano/vocal instructor seen in the John Daker video. (d. 1995)
• June 17 - Karl Targownik, Hungarian Psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor (d. 1996)
• June 24 - Sir Fred Hoyle, British astronomer (d. 2001)

July-August

• July 28 - Charles Townes, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
• August 22 - Hugh Paddick, British actor (d. 2000)
• August 27 - Norman F. Ramsey, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate

September-October

• September 23 - Clifford Shull, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2001)
• October 9 - Clifford M. Hardin, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture
• October 17 - Arthur Miller, American playwright (d. 2005)
• October 24 - Tito Gobbi, Italian baritone (d. 1984)

November

• November 11 - William Proxmire, U.S. American politician
• November 25 - Augusto Pinochet, Chilean President
• November 30 - Brownie McGhee, American musician (d. 1996)

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 - Edith 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 31 - Wyndham Halswelle, Scottish runner (b. 1882)
• April 16 - Nelson W. Aldrich, Senator from Rhode Island (b. 1841)
• April 23 - Rupert Brooke, English poet (b. 1887)
• July 16 - Ellen G. White, American prophetess, co-founder of Seventh-Day Adventism (b. 1827)
• 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)
• November 15 - Booker T. Washington, African-American educator (b. 1856)

Nobel Prizes

• Chemistry - Richard Willstätter
• Literature - Romain Rolland
• Medicine - No prize awarded
• Peace - No prize awarded
• Physics - William Henry Bragg and William Lawrence Bragg