Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/January 15
January 15: Pongal (Tamils, 2008); John Chilembwe Day in Malawi, Korean Alphabet Day in North Korea.
- 1759 – The British Museum (pictured) in London, today containing one of the largest and most comprehensive collections in the world, opened to the public in Montagu House, Bloomsbury.
- 1885 – American photographer Wilson Bentley took the first known photograph of a snowflake by attaching a bellows camera to a microscope.
- 1908 – Alpha Kappa Alpha, the first Greek-lettered sorority established by African American women, was founded at Howard University in Washington, D.C. by nine students.
- 1919 – Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, two prominent socialists in Germany, were tortured and murdered by the Freikorps.
- 1943 – The highest-capacity office building in the world, the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense known as the Pentagon, was dedicated.
- 1993 – Salvatore "The Beast" Riina, one of the most powerful members of the Sicilian Mafia, was arrested after three decades as a fugitive.
More anniversaries: