Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/May 15

This is a list of selected May 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.

← May 14	May 16 →

Staging area

Images

Use only ONE image at a time

• 
  Statue of Valentinian II
• Kārlis Ulmanis
  Kārlis Ulmanis
• 
  Inukai Tsuyoshi
• 
  An example of Baily's beads
• 
  title=Van Gogh's "Portrait of Dr. Gachet"
• 
  USCAR Building
• 
  Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign
• 
  Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony

Ineligible

Blurb	Reason
; Constituent Assembly Day in Lithuania	Constituent Assembly Day not mentioned in article
Teachers' Day in Mexico and South Korea;	refimprove
Independence Day in Paraguay (1814);	refimprove section
392 – Roman emperor Valentinian II was found hanged in his residence in Vienne, Gaul.	lead too short, refimprove section
1252 – Pope Innocent IV issued the papal bull Ad extirpanda, authorizing the use of torture on heretics during the Medieval Inquisition.	short
1525 – Insurgent peasants led by Anabaptist pastor Thomas Müntzer were defeated at the Battle of Frankenhausen, ending the German Peasants' War in the Holy Roman Empire.	unreferenced section
1793 – Inventor Diego Marín Aguilera, the "father of aviation" in Spain, flew one of the first gliders for about 300 yd (270 m).	heavily reliant on unreliable sources
1891 – Pope Leo XIII issued the encyclical Rerum novarum, which addressed the condition of the working classes and is considered to be the foundation of modern Catholic social teaching.	primary sources
1905 – Las Vegas was established as a railroad town, after 110 acres (0.45 km2) owned by the San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad was auctioned off.	refimprove section, outdated
1928 – Mickey and Minnie Mouse made their film debut in the animated cartoon Plane Crazy.	M/M: refimprove section; Plane Crazy: refimprove
1934 – Latvian Prime Minister Kārlis Ulmanis dissolved the Saeima and established an authoritarian rule.	needs expert attention, refimprove
1932 – Japanese Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi was assassinated in an attempted coup d'état by radical elements of the Imperial Japanese Navy.	refimprove section, expansion
1935 – The first line of the Moscow Metro opened to public, connecting Sokolniki to Park Kultury with a branch from Okhotny Ryad to Smolenskaya.	outdated
1953 – Don Murphy organized the first pinewood derby, an event for Cub Scouts of the Boy Scouts of America where wooden cars built by the scouts are raced.	refimprove section
1955 – The Austrian State Treaty was signed in Vienna, re-establishing an independent Austria.	needs more footnots
1974 – A unit of the Golani Brigade assaulted an elementary school in Ma'alot, Israel, where three armed members of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine had taken 115 people hostage, resulting in 28 deaths.	refimprove section
1991 – Édith Cresson became the only female Prime Minister of France.	unreferenced section
1997 – During the dedication of the Laos Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery, the United States first publicly acknowledged its role in the Laotian Civil War, which had ended 22 years earlier.	refimprove section

Eligible

• 1836 – English astronomer Francis Baily first observed "Baily's beads", a phenomenon during a solar eclipse in which the rugged lunar limb topography allows beads of sunlight to shine through.
• 1850 – Members of the 1st Cavalry Regiment of the United States Cavalry massacred at least 135 Pomo Indians in Lake County, California.
• 1869 – Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton founded the National Woman Suffrage Association, breaking away from the American Equal Rights Association which they had also previously founded.
• 1904 – Russo-Japanese War: After striking several mines off Port Arthur, the Japanese battleships Hatsuse and Yashima sank.
• 1916 – Jesse Washington, a teenage African-American farmhand, was lynched in Waco, Texas, U.S., in what became a well-known example of racially motivated lynching.
• 1941 – Playing for the New York Yankees of Major League Baseball, Joe DiMaggio began a 56-game hitting streak, setting a record that still stands today.
• 1945 – The British Army forced the Croatian Armed Forces to the Yugoslav Partisans, beginning the Bleiburg repatriations.
• 1948 – One day after the Israeli Declaration of Independence, Egypt, Transjordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia invaded Israel to begin the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.
• 1957 – The United Kingdom tested its first hydrogen bomb over Malden Island in Operation Grapple.
• 1970 – During a confrontation with a group of Jackson State College students, police opened fire, killing two students and injuring twelve.
• 1972 - The Ryukyu Islands were returned to Japan by the United States, and the U.S. occupation government was abolished.
• 1990 – Vincent van Gogh's Portrait of Dr. Gachet was sold at auction in Christie's New York office for US$82.5 million, at the time the world's most expensive painting.
• 2004 – Arsenal became the football team in England's top flight to finish a season undefeated since Preston North End did so in 1888–1889.
• 2010 – Upon her return to Sydney three days before her 17th birthday, Jessica Watson became the youngest person to sail non-stop and unassisted around the world.
• Born/died: Klemens von Metternich (b. 1773) · Emily Dickinson (d. 1886) · Patrice Evra (b. 1981)

Notes

• Kent State shootings appears on May 4, so Jackson State killings should not appear in the same year
• Allied-occupied Austria appears on May 12, so Austrian State Treaty should not appear in the same year
• Israeli Declaration of Independence appears on May 14, so Arab–Israeli War should not appear in the same year

May 15: Nakba Day in Palestinian communities

"Cadets at [the Battle of] New Market"

• 1602 – English explorer Bartholomew Gosnold led the first recorded European expedition to visit Cape Cod in present-day Massachusetts.
• 1864 – American Civil War: A small Confederate force, which included cadets (pictured) from the Virginia Military Institute, forced the Union Army out of the Shenandoah Valley.
• 1911 – Mexican Revolution: A force of Maderistas captured Torreón and proceeded to massacre 303 of the city's Chinese residents.
• 1948 – The Australian cricket team, on tour in England, set a first-class world record that still stands by scoring 721 runs in a day against Essex.
• 1966 – Disapproving of his handling of the Buddhist Uprising, South Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyễn Cao Kỳ ordered an attack on the forces of General Tôn Thất Đính and ousted him from the position.

Mleh, Prince of Armenia (d. 1175) · Levi Lincoln Sr. (b. 1749) · Mohamed Brahmi (b. 1955)

More anniversaries:

• May 14
• May 15
• May 16