1915 - Definition and Overview

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.
• 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 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 24 - The steamer Eastland capsizes in Chicago, and over 800 people die.
• June 29 – Roger Casement is sentenced to be hanged for treason
• 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.

• 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 Desiré 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 5 - Arthur H. Robinson, cartographer (d. 2004)
• January 14 - Mark Goodson, game show producer and television pioneer (d. 1992)
• January 20 - Ghulam Ishaq Khan, President of Pakistan
• January 24 – Robert Motherwell, American abstract expressionist painter (d. 1991)
• January 31 - Thomas Merton, monk and author (d. 1968)
• February 1 – Artur London, Czech statesman (d. 1986)
• February 4 - Sir Norman Wisdom, English comedian, singer and actor
• March 10 - Harry Bertoia, Italian artist and designer (d. 1978)
• March 11 - Vijay Hazare, Indian Cricket captain (d. 2004)
• March 20 - Sviatoslav Richter, Ukrainian pianist (d. 1997)
• March 23 - Vasily Zaitsev, Soviet sniper, World War II hero (d. 1991).
• March 31 - Albert Hourani, historian (d. 1993)
• April 4 - Muddy Waters, blues musician (d. 1983)
• April 7 - Billie Holiday, jazz and blues singer (d. 1959)
• May 1 - Krystyna Skarbek, heroine of WW II (d. 1952)
• May 1 - Archie Williams, American athlete
• May 6 - Orson Welles, American director (Citizen Kane) (d. 1985)
• May 20 - Moshe Dayan, Israeli military leader, politician (d. 1981)
• May 29 - Karl Münchinger, German conductor (d. 1990)
• August 22 - Hugh Paddick, British actor (d. 2000)
• October 24 - Tito Gobbi, Italian baritone (d. 1984)
• November 11 - William Proxmire, former U.S. Senator
• November 25 - Augusto Pinochet, Former Chilean President
• December 7 - Eli Wallach, actor
• December 9 - Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, soprano
• December 12 - Frank Sinatra, American entertainer (d. 1998)
• December 19 - Edith Piaf, French singer (d. 1963)

Deaths

• January 15 - Mary Slessor, Scottish Christian missionary to West Africa (b. 1848)
• February 5 - Ross Barnes, baseball player
• March 31 - Wyndham Halswelle, British runner
• April 23 - Rupert Brooke, poet
• July 16 - Ellen G. White, prophetess, co-founder of Seventh-Day Adventism
• September 9 - Albert Spalding, baseball player and sporting goods manufacturer
• October 12 - Charles Sorley, poet
• November 15 - Booker T. Washington, African-American educator