January 15 Historical Events

The following events took place on January 15. The list is arranged in chronological order.

Found 47 events. Showing 1 - 30.

• 69
  Otho seizes power in Rome, proclaiming himself Emperor of Rome, but rules for only three months before committing suicide.
• 1541
  King Francis I of France gives Jean-François Roberval a commission to settle the province of New France (Canada) and provide for the spread of the “Holy Catholic faith”.
• 1559
  Elizabeth I is crowned Queen of England in Westminster Abbey, London, England.
• 1582
  Russia cedes Livonia and Estonia to the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
• 1759
  The British Museum opens.
• 1777
  American Revolutionary War: New Connecticut (present day Vermont) declares its independence.
• 1782
  Superintendent of Finance Robert Morris goes before the U.S. Congress to recommend establishment of a national mint and decimal coinage.
• 1815
  War of 1812: American frigate USS President, commanded by Commodore Stephen Decatur, is captured by a squadron of four British frigates.
• 1822
  Greek War of Independence: Demetrios Ypsilantis is elected president of the legislative assembly.
• 1844
  University of Notre Dame receives its charter from the state of Indiana.
• 1865
  American Civil War: Fort Fisher in North Carolina falls to the Union, thus cutting off the last major seaport of the Confederacy.
• 1870
  A political cartoon for the first time symbolizes the Democratic Party with a donkey (“A Live Jackass Kicking a Dead Lion” by Thomas Nast for Harper’s Weekly).
• 1876
  The first newspaper in Afrikaans, Die Afrikaanse Patriot, is published in Paarl.
• 1889
  The Coca-Cola Company, then known as the Pemberton Medicine Company, is incorporated in Atlanta.
• 1892
  James Naismith publishes the rules of basketball.

• 1908
  The Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority becomes the first Greek-letter organization founded and established by African American college women.
• 1910
  Construction ends on the Buffalo Bill Dam in Wyoming, United States, which was the highest dam in the world at the time, at 325 ft.
• 1919
  Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, two of the most prominent socialists in Germany, are tortured and murdered by the Freikorps at the end of the Spartacist uprising.
• 1919
  Great Molasses Flood: A large molasses tank in Boston, Massachusetts, bursts and a wave of molasses rushes through the streets, killing 21 people and injuring 150 others.
• 1933
  A twelve-year-old girl experiences the first Marian apparition of Our Lady of Banneux in Banneux, Belgium.
• 1936
  The first building to be completely covered in glass, built for the Owens-Illinois Glass Company, is completed in Toledo, Ohio.
• 1937
  Spanish Civil War: Nationalists and Republican both withdraw after suffering heavy losses, ending the Second Battle of the Corunna Road.
• 1943
  World War II: The Soviet counter-offensive at Voronezh begins.
• 1943
  The world’s largest office building, The Pentagon, is dedicated in Arlington, Virginia.
• 1947
  The brutalized corpse of Elizabeth Short (The “Black Dahlia”) is found in Los Angeles’ Leimert Park.
• 1949
  Chinese Civil War: The Communist forces take over Tianjin from the Nationalist Government.
• 1951
  Ilse Koch, “The Witch of Buchenwald”, wife of the commandant of the Buchenwald concentration camp, is sentenced to life imprisonment by a court in West Germany.
• 1962
  The Derveni papyrus, Europe’s oldest surviving manuscript dating to 340 BC, is found in northern Greece.
• 1966
  The First Nigerian Republic, led by Abubakar Tafawa Balewa is overthrown in a military coup d'état.
• 1967
  The first Super Bowl is played in Los Angeles. The Green Bay Packers defeat the Kansas City Chiefs 35–10.