November 15

November 15 is the 319th day of the year (320th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 46 days remaining.

Events

• 655 – Battle of Winwaed: Penda of Mercia defeated by Oswiu of Northumbria.
• 1515 – Thomas Cardinal Wolsey invested as a Cardinal
• 1777 – American Revolutionary War: After 16 months of debate the Continental Congress approves the Articles of Confederation.
• 1806 – Pike expedition: Lieutenant Zebulon Pike sees a distant mountain peak while near the Colorado foothills of the Rocky Mountains (it was later named Pikes Peak).
• 1854 – In Egypt, the Suez Canal, linking the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea, is given the needed royal concession by Said.
• 1864 – American Civil War: Union General William Tecumseh Sherman burns Atlanta, Georgia and starts Sherman's March to the Sea.
• 1889 – Brazil is declared a republic by Marechal Deodoro da Fonseca and Emperor Pedro II is deposed in a military coup.
• 1920 – First assembly of the League of Nations is held in Geneva.
• 1926 – The NBC radio network opens with 24 stations.
• 1939 – In Washington, DC, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt lays the cornerstone of the Jefferson Memorial.
• 1940 – The Warsaw Ghetto, with a population of 400,000 Jews, is sealed off from the outside world by the Nazis.
• 1941 – SS chief Heinrich Himmler orders the arrest and deportation to concentration camps of all homosexuals in Germany, with the exception of certain top Nazi officials.
• 1942 – World War II: Battle of Guadalcanal ends.
• 1943 – German SS leader Heinrich Himmler orders that Gypsies were to be put "on the same level as Jews and placed in concentration camps." (see Porajmos)
• 1948 – Louis Stephen St. Laurent succeeds William Lyon Mackenzie King as Prime Minister of Canada. King had the longest combined time (3 terms, 22 years in total) as Premier in British Commonwealth history.
• 1956 – The first film starring Elvis Presley (Love Me Tender) opens.
• 1960 – The Polaris missile is test launched.
• 1966 – Gemini program: Gemini 12 splashes down safely in the Atlantic Ocean.
• 1969 – Cold War: The Soviet submarine K-19 collides with the American submarine USS Gato in the Barents Sea.
• 1969 – Vietnam War: In Washington, DC, 250,000–500,000 protesters staged a peaceful demonstration against the war.
• 1971 – Intel releases world's first commercial single-chip microprocessor, the 4004.
• 1976 – René Lévesque & the Parti Québécois take power to become the first Quebec government of the 20th century clearly in favor of independence.
• 1978 – A chartered DC-8 crashes near Colombo, Sri Lanka, killing 183.
• 1979 – A package from the Unabomber explodes in the mail on its way to Washington.
• 1985 – A research assistant is injured as a package from the Unabomber addressed to a University of Michigan professor explodes.
• 1985 – The Anglo-Irish Agreement is signed at Hillsborough Castle by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Irish Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald.
• 1988 – In the Soviet Union, the unmanned Shuttle Buran is launched on her first and last space flight.
• 1988 – Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: An independent State of Palestine is proclaimed by the Palestinian National Council.
• 1989 – Sachin Tendulkar makes his Test cricket debut playing for India against Pakistan.
• 1990 – Space Shuttle program: Space Shuttle Atlantis launches with flight STS-38.
• 1990 – Producers acknowledge that Milli Vanilli, who won the 1990 "Best Artist" Grammy Award, did not sing themselves on their album.
• 2000 – A chartered Antonov AN-24 crashes after takeoff from Luanda, Angola killing more than 40 people
• 2001 – The Microsoft Xbox video game console launches in North America, along with the now legendary game Halo: Combat Evolved.
• 2002 – Hu Jintao becomes general secretary of the Communist Party of China.
• 2004 – Metroid Prime 2 is released, continuing the long line of Metroid games.
• 2004 – New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey leaves office, three months after resigning due to a gay extra-marital affair. State Senator Richard Codey takes over as interim governor.

Births

• 1316 – King John I of France (d. 1316)
• 1397 – Pope Nicholas V (d. 1455)
• 1559 – Archduke Albert of Austria, governor of the Low Countries
• 1708 – William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham, English politician (d. 1778)
• 1731 – William Cowper, English poet (d. 1800)
• 1738 – William Herschel, astronomer (d. 1822)
• 1741 – Johann Kaspar Lavater, philosopher (d. 1801)
• 1784 – Jerome Bonaparte, French King of Westphalia (d. 1860)
• 1859 – Christopher Hornsrud, Norweigen Prime Minister (d.1960)
• 1862 – Gerhart Hauptmann, German dramatist; recipient of the 1912 Nobel Prize in literature (d. 1946)
• 1879 – Lewis Stone, actor (d. 1953)
• 1881 – Franklin Pierce Adams, American newspaper columnist (d. 1960)
• 1882 – Felix Frankfurter, United States Supreme Court justice (1939-1962) (d. 1965)
• 1886 – René Guénon, French-Egyptian author (d. 1951)
• 1887 – Marianne Moore, American poet (d. 1972)
• 1887 – Georgia O'Keeffe, painter (d. 1986)
• 1889 – King Manuel II of Portugal (d. 1932)
• 1890 – Richmal Crompton, British author (d. 1969)
• 1891 – Averell Harriman, American businessman and politician (d. 1986)
• 1891 – Erwin Rommel, German field marshal (d. 1944)
• 1895 – Antoni Słonimski, Polish poet and writer (d. 1976)
• 1897 – Sacheverell Sitwell, English writer (d. 1988)
• 1899 – Iskander Mirza, first President of Pakistan (d. 1969)
• 1905 – Mantovani, composer, musician, music arranger (d. 1980)
• 1906 – Curtis LeMay, United States Air Force general, candidate for Vice President of the United States (d. 1990)
• 1925 – Howard Baker, former Senator from Tennessee, former White House Chief of Staff
• 1925 – Heinz Piontek, writer
• 1929 – Ed Asner, actor
• 1930 – J. G. Ballard, science fiction author
• 1931 – Pascal Lissouba, Republic of the Congo politician
• 1932 – Petula Clark, singer
• 1933 – Clyde McPhatter, singer (d. 1972)
• 1936 – Wolf Biermann, writer
• 1937 – Yaphet Kotto, actor (Homicide: Life on the Street)
• 1937 – Little Willie John, singer
• 1940 – Sam Waterston, actor (Law & Order)
• 1942 – Daniel Barenboim, pianist, conductor
• 1945 – Anni-Frid Lyngstad, Norwegian singer, ABBA member
• 1947 – Bill Richardson, governor of New Mexico
• 1953 – Dave Ethans, Irish businessman
• 1954 – Beverly D'Angelo, actress
• 1954 – Aleksander Kwasniewski, President of Poland
• 1956 – Michael Hampton, guitarist (P Funk)
• 1957 – Kevin Eubanks, musician
• 1965 – Nigel Bond, English snooker player
• 1968 – Ol' Dirty Bastard, rapper (d. 2004)
• 1969 – Shane Mack (mayor), American mayor
• 1988 – Zena Grey, actress

Deaths

• 655 – Penda, King of Mercia
• 1028 – Emperor Constantine VIII of the Byzantine Empire (b. 960)
• 1136 – Leopold III of Austria, patron saint of Austria
• 1280 – Albertus Magnus, German philosopher
• 1630 – Johannes Kepler, German astronomer and mathematician
• 1787 – Christoph Willibald Gluck, German composer (b. 1714)
• 1908 – Empress Dowager Cixi, Chinese ruler
• 1910 – Wilhelm Raabe, German writer
• 1916 – Henryk Sienkiewicz, Polish author, recipient of the Nobel Prize in literature (b. 1846)
• 1954 – Lionel Barrymore, actor
• 1958 – Tyrone Power, actor
• 1961 – Elsie Ferguson, stage and film actress (b.1883)
• 1963 – Fritz Reiner, Hungarian conductor (b. 1988)
• 1965 – Allen Du Mont, television pioneer
• 1965 – Dawn Powell, American poet
• 1969 – Iskander Mirza, first President of Pakistan
• 1971 – Edie Sedgwick actor, model
• 1978 – Margaret Mead, anthropologist, writer, lecturer
• 1983 – John Le Mesurier, British actor (b. 1912)
• 1996 – Alger Hiss, American government official and spy
• 1998 – Stokely Carmichael, American civil rights activist
• 2002 – Eddie Bracken, actor
• 2003 – Ray Lewis, Canadian athlete
• 2004 – John Morgan, Canadian comedian
• 2004  – Elmer L. Andersen, former governor of Minnesota.

Holidays and observances

• Brazil – Republic Proclamation Day
• Palestine – Independence Day
• Roman Empire – Festival in honor of Feronia
• Eastern Orthodoxy – Feast of Saint Philip the Apostle and the beginning of Winter Lent
• The official skolebrød-day on Sunnland skole, Norway
• Saint Leopold's day — no school in Vienna, Lower Austria and Upper Austria
• America Recycles Day [1]

External links

• BBC: On This Day

November 14 – November 16 – October 15 – December 15 — listing of all days