Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/February 15

This is a list of selected February 15 anniversaries that appear in the "On this day" section of the Main Page. To suggest a new item, in most cases, you can be bold and edit this page. Please read the selected anniversaries guidelines before making your edit. However, if your addition might be controversial or on a day that is or will soon be on the Main Page, please post your suggestion on the talk page instead.

Please note that the events listed on the Main Page are chosen based more on relative article quality and to maintain a mix of topics, not based solely on how important or significant their subjects are. Only four to five events are posted at a time and thus not everything that is "most important and significant" can be listed. In addition, an event is generally not posted this year if it is also the subject of the scheduled featured article or picture of the day.

To report an error when this appears on the Main Page, see Main Page errors. Please remember that this list defers to the supporting articles, so it is best to achieve consensus and make any necessary changes there first.

← February 14	February 16 →

Staging area

Images

Use only ONE image at a time

• 
  Tomoyuki Yamashita
• 
  Flag of Canada
• 
  Wreckage of the USS Maine
• 
  DEW Line radar station
• 
  Kevin Mitnick
• Footage of the Chelyabinsk meteor
• 
  Video of the Chelyabinsk meteor exploding

Ineligible

Blurb	Reason
Candlemas (Eastern Christianity);	refimprove sections
1954 – The Canadian and American governments agreed to jointly build the Distant Early Warning Line, a line of radar stations running across the high Arctic.	refimprove section
1971 – The British pound sterling and the Irish pound were decimalised on what was called Decimal Day.	refimprove section
1989 – The Soviet Union officially announced that all of its troops had withdrawn from Afghanistan after a nine-year conflict.	Yellow "too long" banner
1994 – Less than four years after declaring its independence from the Soviet Union, Tatarstan officially agreed to become a federal subject of Russia.	refimprove section
2012 – The world's deadliest prison fire took place at the National Penitentiary at Comayagua, Honduras, killing 361 people.	Uncertain date
Angella D. Ferguson |b|1925|	Orange "lede too short" banner

Eligible

• 1113 – Pope Paschal II issued the papal bull Pie postulatio voluntatis, formally recognising the establishment of the Knights Hospitaller.
• 1493 – Christopher Columbus wrote a letter widely distributed upon his return to Portugal that announced the results of his first voyage to the Americas.
• 1796 – French Revolutionary Wars: The invasion of Ceylon ended with Johan van Angelbeek, the Batavian governor of the island, surrendering Colombo to British forces.
• 1823 – James McBrien made the first official discovery of gold in Australia at Fish River in New South Wales.
• 1898 – The United States Navy battleship USS Maine exploded and sank in Havana, Cuba, killing more than 260 people and precipitating the Spanish–American War.
• 1900 – Second Boer War: British cavalry led by John French defeated Boer forces to end a 124-day siege of Kimberley in present-day South Africa.
• 1907 – Japan and the United States signed a gentleman's agreement whereby the former would not permit further emigration to the U.S., while the latter would not limit Japanese immigration.
• 1915 – Sepoys of Indian Muslim background mutinied against their British officers in Singapore.
• 1942 – Second World War: Japanese forces led by General Tomoyuki Yamashita captured Singapore with the largest surrender of British-led military personnel in history.
• 1961 – All 72 people on board Sabena Flight 548, including the entire U.S. figure-skating team, and one person on the ground were killed when the aircraft crashed on approach to Brussels Airport.
• 1965 – Canada adopted the Maple Leaf flag, replacing the Canadian Red Ensign.
• 1976 – The current Constitution of Cuba, providing for a system of government and law based on those of the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc countries, was adopted by a national referendum.
• 1995 – Kevin Mitnick, the most wanted computer hacker at the time in the U.S., was arrested and charged with computer fraud and wire fraud.
• 1996 – A Long March 3B rocket carrying the communications satellite Intelsat 708 crashed immediately after launch from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center, China, destroying a nearby town and killing an unknown number of inhabitants.
• 2003 – In one of the largest anti-war rallies in history, millions around the world in approximately 800 cities took part in protests against the impending invasion of Iraq.
• 2010 – Two passenger trains collided in Halle, Belgium, when one driver failed to stop at a red signal, resulting in 19 deaths and 171 injuries.
• 2013 – A meteor exploded (video featured) over Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia, producing a shock wave that injured about 1,500 people.
• Born/died: | Oswiu |d|670| Ibn Tabataba |d|815| William Ufford, 2nd Earl of Suffolk |d|1382| Charles-André van Loo |b|1705| Domingo Faustino Sarmiento |b|1811| Charles Lewis Tiffany |b|1812| V. A. Urechia |b|1834| Sophie Bryant |b|1850| Irena Sendler |b|1910| Willy Vandersteen |b|1913| Norman C. Deno |b|1921| Esther Takei Nishio |b|1925|Chin Kung|b|1925| Roger B. Chaffee |b|1935 |

Notes

• Breviary of Aleric appears on February 2, so Codex Theodosianus should not appear in the same year.

February 15: National Flag of Canada Day (1965); Statehood Day in Serbia (1804)

Don Dunstan in 1968

• 438 – The Codex Theodosianus, a compilation of the laws of the Roman Empire, was published.
• 1763 – Prussia, Saxony and the Habsburg monarchy signed the Treaty of Hubertusburg, ending the Third Silesian War.
• 1949 – Gerald Lankester Harding and Roland de Vaux began excavations at Cave 1 of the Qumran Caves in the West Bank, the location of the first seven Dead Sea Scrolls.
• 1979 – Don Dunstan (pictured) resigned as Premier of South Australia, ending a decade of sweeping social liberalisation.
• 1999 – Abdullah Öcalan, one of the founding members of the militant organization the Kurdistan Workers' Party, was arrested by Turkish security forces in Nairobi, Kenya.

• Gisela of Swabia (d. 1043)
• Matt Groening (b. 1954)
• Mo Tae-bum (b. 1989)
• Dawa Dem (d. 2018)

More anniversaries:

• February 14
• February 15
• February 16