1915

Published on Monday, June 26th 2006. Edited by Lid Topinkeel, Naperville, United States.

Centuries: 19th century – 20th century – 21st century

Decades: 1880s 1890s 1900s – 1910s – 1920s 1930s 1940s

Years: 1912 1913 1914 – 1915 – 1916 1917 1918

Year 1915 (MCMXV) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Thursday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar).

Events of 1915

1 January: HMS Formidable

January

January While working as a cook at New York’s Sloan Hospital under an assumed name, “Typhoid Mary” infects 25 people, and is placed in quarantine for life.
1 January – Sinking of the battleship HMS Formidable, off Lyme Regis, Dorset, England, by a German U-Boat.
12 January – The Rocky Mountain National Park is established by an act of the U.S. Congress.
12 January – United States House of Representatives rejects proposal to give women the right to vote.
13 January – An earthquake (6.8 in Richter scale) in Avezzano, Italy: more than 29,000 dead.
19 January – Georges Claude patents the neon discharge tube for use in advertising.
19 January – German zeppelins bomb the cities of Great Yarmouth and King’s Lynn in the United Kingdom for the first time, killing more than 20.
21 January – Kiwanis International is founded in Detroit, Michigan.
28 January – An act of the U.S. Congress designates the United States Coast Guard, begun in 1790, as a military branch.
31 January – World War I: Germany uses poison gas against Russians.

28 January: United States Coast Guard military branch.

February

8 February – The controversial film The Birth of a Nation by D.W. Griffith premieres (Los Angeles, California).
12 February – In Washington, DC the first stone of the Lincoln Memorial is put into place.
20 February – In San Francisco, CA the Panama-Pacific International Exposition is opened.

March

March to October – 1915 locust plague
3 March – NACA, the predecessor of NASA, is founded.
14 March – World War I: Off the coast of Chile, the Royal Navy forces the German light cruiser SMS Dresden to scuttle.
14 March – 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)
18 March – World War I: British attack on the Dardanelles fails.
19 March – Pluto is photographed for the first time but was not recognized as a planet.
25 March – US submarine F-4 sinks off Hawaii: 21 dead.
28 March – The first Roman Catholic Liturgy is celebrated by Archbishop John Ireland at the newly consecrated Cathedral of Saint Paul in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

14 March: (World War I) Royal Navy forced the German light cruiser SMS Dresden to scuttle.

April

13 April – 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
22 April – World War I: Second Battle of Ypres – German troops introduce poison gas at Ypres, Belgium.
24 April – The Ottoman Empire arrests hundreds of Armenian intellectuals. Armenians mark this as the start of the Armenian Genocide.
25 April – The ANZAC tradition begins during World War I with a landing at Gallipoli on the Turkish coast.
25 April – The Great Fire of Reykjavík, Iceland’s capital.
30 April – Australian submarine AE2 sunk in Sea of Marmara.

May

7 May: (World War I) German U-boat sinks RMS Lusitania.

3 May – John McCrae writes In Flanders Fields.
5 May – World War I: The Turks begin shelling Anzac Cove from a new position behind their lines.
6 May – Babe Ruth hits his first career home run off of Jack Warhop.
7 May – World War I: The RMS Lusitania is sunk by a German U-boat killing 1,198.
9 May – World War I: Second Battle of Artois – German and French forces fight.
17 May – The last purely Liberal government in the United Kingdom ends when Prime Minister Herbert Henry Asquith forms an all party coalition.
22 May – Quintinshill railway disaster, Scotland, UK: 200 killed.
23 May – World War I: Italy joins the Allies after they declare war on Austria-Hungary.
29 May – Teófilo Braga becomes president of Portugal.

June

3 June – Troops of Obregon and Villa clash at León: Obregon loses his right arm in grenade attack but Villa is decisively defeated.
9 June – U.S. Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan resigns over a disagreement regarding his nation’s handling of the RMS Lusitania sinking.
16 June – Foundation of the British Women’s Institute

July

7 July – An extremely overloaded Great Gorge and International Railway trolley with 157 passengers crashes near Queenston, Ontario resulting in 15 casualties.
24 July – The steamer Eastland capsizes in central Chicago, with the loss of 845 lives.
28 July – United States occupation of Haiti begins

August

January: Magazine

5 August-23 August – Hurricane Two of the 1915 Atlantic hurricane season over Galveston and New Orleans: 275 dead.
6 August – 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.
16 August – 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 ? of Dalmatia (from the river of Krka to Bar).
17 August – Jewish American Leo Frank is lynched for the alleged murder of a 13-year-old girl in Atlanta, Georgia.
31 August – Jimmy Lavender of the Chicago Cubs pitches a no hitter against the New York Giants.

September

6 September – The first prototype tank is tested for the British Army for the first time.
7 September – Former cartoonist John B. Gruelle is given a patent for his Raggedy Ann doll.
11 September – The Pennsylvania Railroad begins electrified commuter rail service between Paoli and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, using overhead AC trolley wires for power. This type of system would later be used in long-distance passenger trains between New York City, Washington, D.C., and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

October

12 October – World War I: British nurse Edith Cavell is executed by a German firing squad for helping Allied soldiers escape from Belgium.
15 October – World War I: Austria-Hungary invades Kingdom of Serbia. Bulgaria enters the war, invading Kingdom of Serbia. Retreat of the Serbian First Army towards Greece begins Serbian Campaign (World War I)
19 October – US recognizes Mexican government of Venustiano Carranza de facto (not de jure until 1917)
27 October – William Morris Hughes becomes 7th Prime Minister of Australia.

November

November – Sykes-Picot Agreement, a secret understanding between the governments of Britain and France to overtake Middle-Eastern regions of the Ottoman Empire (mostly Syria and Iraq) and establish their own zone of influence.
14 November – Vision allegedly encountered by various military personnel in Europe at 22:30 hours, as recounted on the television series One Step Beyond.
23 November – Triangle Film Corporation opens its new motion picture theatre in Massillon, Ohio.
25 November – The theory of general relativity is formulated.

December

12 December – Chinese president Yuan Shikai declares himself Emperor
23 December – HMHS Britannic, the largest individual British loss in World War I, departs Liverpool on her maiden voyage.
25 December – British and German forces get out of the trenches in World War One and have a free-for-all kick-around football game in no-man’s land.
26 December – Irish Republican Brotherhood Military Council decides to stage a rising on Easter Sunday 1916.

Undated

Alfred Wegener proposes the theory of Pangaea.
Emory College is rechartered as Emory University, and plans to move its main campus from Oxford, Georgia to Atlanta.
Lord Beaverbrook buys the 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.
Women’s suffrage is introduced in Denmark and Iceland.
Franz Kafka’s short novel Die Verwandlung is first published in Germany.

Ongoing

World War I (1914–1918).

Births

1915 in other calendars

Gregorian calendar 1915 MCMXV

Ab urbe condita 2668

Armenian calendar 1364 ԹՎ ՌՅԿԴ

Bahá'í calendar 71 – 72

Berber calendar 2865

Buddhist calendar 2459

Burmese calendar 1277

Byzantine calendar 7423 – 7424

Chinese calendar 甲寅年十一月十六日 (4551/4611-11-16)

— to —

乙卯年十一月廿五日 (4552/4612-11-25)

Coptic calendar 1631 – 1632

Ethiopian calendar 1907 – 1908

Hebrew calendar 5675 – 5676

Hindu calendars

- Vikram Samvat 1970 – 1971

- Shaka Samvat 1837 – 1838

- Kali Yuga 5016 – 5017

Holocene calendar 11915

Iranian calendar 1293 – 1294

Islamic calendar 1333 – 1334

Japanese calendar Taishō 4 (大正4年)

Korean calendar 4248

Thai solar calendar 2458

January-February

2 January – John Hope Franklin, American historian
3 January – Sid Hudson, baseball player
5 January – Arthur H. Robinson, American geographer and cartographer (d. 2004)
6 January – Don Edwards, American politician
9 January – Anita Louise, American actress (d. 1970)
11 January – Robert Blair Mayne, British soldier and co-founder of the Special Air Service (d. 1955)
14 January – Mark Goodson, American television game show producer (d. 1992)
18 January – Santiago Carrillo, Spanish politician
20 January – Ghulam Ishaq Khan, President of Pakistan (d. 2006)
23 January – Arthur Lewis, British economist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1991)
24 January – Robert Motherwell, American painter (d. 1991)
29 January – John Serry, Sr., American musician, composer, arranger (d. 2003)
30 January – Joachim Peiper, German SS officer (d. 1976)
30 January – John Profumo, British cabinet minister (d. 2006)
31 January – Alan Lomax, American folklorist and musicologist (d. 2002)
31 January – Thomas Merton, American monk and author (d. 1968)
1 February – Artur London, Czech statesman (d. 1986)
1 February – Sir Stanley Matthews, English footballer (d. 2000)
1 February – Alicia Rhett, American actress and painter
2 February – Khushwant Singh, Indian writer
4 February – Sir Norman Wisdom, English comedian, singer, and actor
5 February – Robert Hofstadter, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1990)
7 February – Teoctist Arăpaşu, Ex-Romanian Orthodox Church Patriarch (d. 2007)
11 February – Patrick Leigh Fermor, British author and soldier
14 February – Ray Evans, American composer (d. 2007)
16 February – Jim O'Hora, American college football coach (d. 2005)
16 February – Elisabeth Eybers, South African poet (d. 2007)
19 February – John Freeman, British politician
23 February – Paul Tibbets, American pilot (d. 2007)
26 February – Preacher Roe, baseball player
28 February – Zero Mostel, American film and stage actor (d. 1977)
28 February – Peter Medawar, Brazilian-born scientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1987)

March-April

3 March – Wally Cassell, American actor
4 March – Carlos Surinach, Spanish composer (d. 1997)
9 March – John Edgar “Johnnie” Johnson, English pilot (d. 2001)
10 March – Harry Bertoia, Italian artist and designer (d. 1978)
11 March – Vijay Hazare, Indian cricketer (d. 2004)
14 March – Alexander Brott, Canadian conductor and composer (d. 2005)
17 March – Bill Roycroft, Australian equestrian
19 March – Patricia Morison, American actress
20 March – Sviatoslav Richter, Ukrainian pianist (d. 1997)
23 March – Vasily Zaitsev, Soviet sniper (d. 1991)
27 March – Robert Lockwood Jr., American musician (d. 2006)
30 March – Arsenio Erico, Paraguayan footballer (d. 1977)
30 March – Pietro Ingrao, Italian politician
31 March – Albert Hourani, English historian (d. 1993)
3 April – Piet de Jong, Prime Minister of the Netherlands
4 April – Muddy Waters, American musician (d. 1983)
7 April – Albert O. Hirschman, German-born economist
7 April – Billie Holiday, American singer (d. 1959)
8 April – Ivan Supek, Croatian physicist, author, and human rights activist (d. 2007)
10 April – Harry Morgan, American actor
12 April – Július Tomin, Czech writer (d. 2003)
15 April – Elizabeth Catlett, American-born artist
21 April – Anthony Quinn, Mexican actor (d. 2001)
29 April – Donald Mills, lead tenor of The Mills Brothers (d. 1999)
30 April – Elio Toaff, Italian rabbi

May-June

1 May – Archie Williams, American athlete (d. 1993)
2 May – Doris Fisher, American singer and songwriter (d. 2003)
3 May – Stu Hart, Canadian wrestling trainer (d. 2003)
5 May – Alice Faye, American entertainer (d. 1998)
6 May – Orson Welles, American film director (d. 1985)
6 May – George Perle, American composer
8 May – Milton Meltzer, American author
12 May – Frère Roger, Swiss founder of the Taizé Community (d. 2005)
15 May – Hilda Bernstein, English-born author, artist, and activist (d. 2006)
15 May – Mario Monicelli, Italian film director
15 May – Paul Samuelson, American economist, Nobel Prize laureate
20 May – Moshe Dayan, Israeli military leader and politician (d. 1981)
20 May – Peter Copley, English actor
26 May – Sam Edwards, American actor (d. 2004)
27 May – Herman Wouk, American author
29 May – Karl Münchinger, German conductor (d. 1990)
1 June – John Randolph, American actor (d. 2004)
9 June – Les Paul, American inventor and musician
10 June – Saul Bellow, Canadian-born writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2005)
10 June – Peride Celal, Turkish author
12 June – David Rockefeller, American banker and philanthropist
15 June – Thomas Huckle Weller, American virologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
17 June – Karl Targownik, Hungarian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor (d. 1996)
17 June – Mario Echandi Jiménez, President of Costa Rica
20 June – Paul Castellano, American gangster (d. 1985)
24 June – Sir Fred Hoyle, British astronomer (d. 2001)
26 June – Charlotte Zolotow, American author
27 June – Grace Lee Boggs, American feminist and author
28 June – David Honeyboy Edwards, American musician

July-August

5 July – John Woodruff, American athlete (d. 2007)
15 July – Albert Ghiorso, American nuclear scientist
24 July – Enrique Fernando, Chief Justice of the Philippine Supreme Court (d. 2004)
26 July – Pattabhi Jois, Indian yogi
28 July – Charles Townes, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
28 July – Frankie Yankovic, American accordion player (d. 1998)
3 August – Pete Newell, Canadian-born basketball coach
3 August – Frank Arthur Calder, Canadian politician (d. 2006)
12 August – Michael Kidd, American choreographer (d. 2007)
19 August – Ring Lardner Jr., American film screenwriter (d. 2000)
22 August – Hugh Paddick, British actor (d. 2000)
25 August – Walter Trampler, American violist (d. 1997)
27 August – Norman F. Ramsey, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
28 August – Tasha Tudor, American illustrator
28 August – Max Robertson, British sports commentator
29 August – Ingrid Bergman, Swedish actress (d. 1982)
30 August – Princess Lilian, Duchess of Halland
30 August – Robert Strassburg, American composer (d. 2003)

September-October

2 September – Meinhardt Raabe, American actor
3 September – Knut Nystedt, Norwegian composer
8 September – Frank Cady, American actor
8 September – Frank Pullen, English business person and racehorse owner (d. 1992)
12 September – Frank McGee, American television personality (d. 1974)
14 September – John Dobson, American astronomer
15 September – Ismail Yasin, Egyptian comedian and actor (d. 1972)
17 September – M F Husain, Indian artist
17 September – Adolfo Sánchez Vázquez, Spanish-born philosopher
23 September – Julius Baker, American flautist (d. 2003)
23 September – Clifford Shull, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2001)
29 September – Vincent DeDomenico, American entrepreneur (d. 2007)
30 September – Lester Maddox, Governor of Georgia (d. 2003)
9 October – Clifford M. Hardin, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture
13 October – Terry Frost, English artist (d. 2003)
15 October – Nellie Lutcher, American singer (d. 2007)
15 October – Yitzhak Shamir Israeli politician
17 October – Arthur Miller, American playwright (d. 2005)
19 October – Farid al-Atrash, Arab composer, singer, virtuoso oud player, and actor (d. 1974)
24 October – Bob Kane, American comic book creator (d. 1998)
24 October – Tito Gobbi, Italian baritone (d. 1984)
28 October – Dody Goodman, American actress and dancer
29 October – William Berenberg, American physician (d. 2005)

November-December

4 November – Wee Kim Wee, 4th president of Singapore (d. 2005)
9 November – André François, French cartoonist (d. 2005)
9 November – Sargent Shriver, American politician
11 November – William Proxmire, U.S. Senator (d. 2005)
12 November – Roland Barthes, French philosopher and literary critic (d. 1980)
14 November – Martha Tilton, British actress (d. 2006)
17 November – David “Stringbean” Akeman, American country music banjo player (d. 1973)
19 November – Earl Wilbur Sutherland Jr., American physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1974)
25 November – Augusto Pinochet, President of Chile (d. 2006)
28 November – Evald Okas, Estonian painter
30 November – Brownie McGhee, American musician (d. 1996)
30 November – Henry Taube, Canadian-born chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2005)
7 December – Eli Wallach, American actor
8 December – Ernest Lehman American screenwriter (d. 2005)
9 December – Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, German-born soprano (d. 2006)
12 December – Frank Sinatra, American entertainer (d. 1998)
13 December – Ross Macdonald, American-Canadian writer (d. 1983)
17 December – Robert A. Dahl, American political scientist
19 December – Édith Piaf, French singer (d. 1963)
21 December – Werner von Trapp, member of the Trapp Family Singers (d. 2007)
22 December – Barbara Billingsley, American actress
27 December – Gyula Zsengellér, Hungarian footballer (d. 1999)

Deaths

January – June

14 January – Richard Meux Benson, English founder of an Anglican religious order (b. 1824)
15 January – Mary Slessor, Scottish Christian missionary (b. 1848)
5 February – Ross Barnes, baseball player (b. 1850)
4 March – William Willett, English inventor of daylight saving time (b. 1856)
9 March – François Faber, Luxembourgian cyclist (b. 1887)
15 March – George Llewelyn-Davies, one of the ‘Lost Boys’ for the Peter Pan book (b. 1893)
31 March – Wyndham Halswelle, Scottish runner (b. 1882)
16 April – Nelson W. Aldrich, U.S. Senator from Rhode Island (b. 1841)
23 April – Rupert Brooke, English poet (b. 1887)
23 April – Frederick Fisher, Canadian VC recipient (killed in battle) (b. 1894)
27 April – Alexander Scriabin, Russian composer (b. 1872)
24 May – Private John Condon, the youngest British soldier to die during the First World War {b. c. 1901)
26 May – Julian Grenfell, poet (killed in battle) (b. 1888)
31 May – Victor Child Villiers, 7th Earl of Jersey, 18th Governor of New South Wales (b. 1845)

July – December

2 July – Porfirio Díaz, President of Mexico (b. 1830)
16 July – Ellen G. White, American prophetess, co-founder of Seventh-Day Adventism, most translated American author (b. 1827)
20 August – Paul Ehrlich, German scientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1854)
26 August – John Bunny American silent film comedian (b. 1863)
31 August – Adolphe Pegoud, aviator (killed in action) (b. 1889)
9 September – Albert Spalding, baseball player and sporting goods manufacturer (b. 1850)
11 September – William Sprague IV, America politician from Rhode Island (b. 1830)
13 September – Andrew L. Harris, American Civil War hero and Governor of Ohio (b. 1835)
27 September – Fergus Bowes-Lyon, brother of Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon (killed in battle) (b. 1889)
12 October – Edith Cavell, nurse and war heroine (shot) (b. 1865)
12 October – Charles Sorley, British poet (killed in battle) (b. 1895)
23 October – W. G. Grace, English cricketer (b. 1948)
30 October – Charles Tupper, Prime Minister of Canada (b. 1821)
15 November – Booker T. Washington, American educator (b. 1856)
28 November – 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

Retrieved from “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1915”