Historical Events on 15 Apr

Historical Events on 15 Apr

1450 - Battle of Formigny: Toward the end of the Hundred Years' War, the French attack and nearly annihilate English forces, ending English domination in Northern France.
1632 - Battle of Rain; Swedes under Gustavus Adolphus defeat the Holy Roman Empire during the Thirty Years' War.
1715 - Pocotaligo Massacre triggers the start of the Yamasee War in colonial South Carolina.
1738 - Premiere in London of Serse, an Italian opera by George Frideric Handel.
1755 - Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language published in London.
1783 - Preliminary articles of peace ending Revolutionary War ratified.
1802 - William Wordsworth and his sister, Dorothy see a "long belt" of daffodils, inspiring the former to pen I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud.
1865 - Abraham Lincoln dies after being shot the previous evening by John Wilkes Booth. Andrew Johnson is then sworn in as the 17th President of the United States.
1892 - The General Electric Company is formed.
1906 - The Armenian organization AGBU is established.
1912 - The British passenger liner, the RMS Titanic, sinks in the North Atlantic, after hitting an iceberg two and a half hours earlier, the previous day.
1920 - Anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti allegedly murder two security guards while robbing a shoe store.
1923 - Insulin becomes generally available for use by diabetics.
1924 - Rand McNally publishes its first road atlas.
1940 - The Allies begin their attack on the Norwegian town of Narvik which is occupied by Nazi Germany.
1941 - In the Belfast Blitz, two-hundred bombers of the German Air Force (Luftwaffe) attack Belfast, Northern Ireland killing one thousand people.
1942 - George Cross is awarded to "to the island fortress of Malta - its people and defenders" by King George VI.
1943 - An Allied bomber attack misses the Minerva automobile factory and hits the Belgian town of Mortsel instead, killing 936 civilians.
1945 - The Bergen-Belsen concentration camp is liberated.
1947 - Jackie Robinson debuts for the Brooklyn Dodgers, breaking baseball's color line.
1952 - The maiden flight of the B-52 Stratofortress
1955 - Ray Kroc opens his first franchise of McDonald's restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois.
1957 - White Rock, British Columbia officially separates from Surrey, British Columbia and is incorporated as a new city.
1967 - Scotland defeats rival England 3-2 at Wembley Stadium, causing the Scots fans to jokingly claim their side as "Unofficial world Champions", creating the phenomenon of the Unofficial Football World Championships.
1979 - A disastrous earthquake (of M 7.1) on Montenegro coast.
1984 - British comedian Tommy Cooper suffers a massive heart attack while live on TV.
1986 - The United States launches Operation El Dorado Canyon against Libya.
1989 - Hillsborough disaster: A human crush occurs at Hillsborough Stadium, home of football club Sheffield Wednesday, resulting in the deaths of 96 Liverpool FC fans.
1989 - Upon Hu Yaobang's death, the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 begin in the People's Republic of China.
1992 - The National Assembly of Vietnam adopts the 1992 Constitution of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
1994 - Representatives of 124 countries and the European Communities sign the Marrakesh Agreements revising the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and initiating the World Trade Organization (effective January 1, 1995).
1997 - Fire sweeps through a campsite of Muslims making the Hajj pilgrimage; the official death toll is 343.
2002 - An Air China Boeing 767-200, flight CA129 crashes into a hillside during heavy rain and fog near Busan, South Korea, killing 128.