Events of 1915

January 1: HMS Formidable

January

• January – While working as a cook at New York's Sloan Hospital under an assumed name, Typhoid Mary infects 25 people, and is placed in quarantine for life.

• January 1 – World War I: The battleship HMS Formidable is sunk off Lyme Regis, Dorset, England, by a German U-Boat.

• January 12 – The Rocky Mountain National Park is established by an act of the U.S. Congress.

• January 12 – The United States House of Representatives rejects a proposal to give women the right to vote.

• January 13 – An earthquake (6.8 in Richter scale) in Avezzano, Italy, kills more than 29,000.

• January 18 – Twenty-One Demands from Japan to China are made.

• January 19 – Georges Claude patents the neon discharge tube for use in advertising.

• January 19 – German zeppelins bomb the cities of Great Yarmouth and King's Lynn in the United Kingdom for the first time, killing more than 20.

• January 21 – Kiwanis International is founded in Detroit, Michigan.

• January 28 – An act of the U.S. Congress designates the United States Coast Guard, begun in 1790, as a military branch.

• January 31 – World War I: Germany uses poison gas against the Russians.

January 28: United States Coast Guard military branch.

February

• February 8 – The controversial film, The Birth of a Nation, directed by D.W. Griffith, premieres in Los Angeles, California.

• February 12 – In Washington, D.C. the first stone of the Lincoln Memorial is put into place.

• February 20 – In San Francisco, CA the Panama-Pacific International Exposition is opened.

March

• March to October – The 1915 locust plague breaks out in Palestine.

• March 3 – NACA, the predecessor of NASA, is founded.

• March 14 – World War I: Off the coast of Chile, the Royal Navy forces the German light cruiser SMS Dresden to scuttle.

• March 14 – Britain, France and Russia agree to give Constantinople and the Bosporus to Russia in case of victory (the treaty is later nullified by the Bolshevik Revolution).

• March 18 – World War I: A British attack on the Dardanelles fails.

• March 19 – Pluto is photographed for the first time but is not then classified as a planet.

• March 25 – The U.S. submarine F-4 sinks off Hawaii; 21 are killed.

• March 28 – The first Roman Catholic Liturgy is celebrated by Archbishop John Ireland at the newly consecrated Cathedral of Saint Paul in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

March 14: (World War I) Royal Navy forced the German light cruiser SMS Dresden to scuttle.

April

• April 24 – Onset of the Armenian Genocide.

May

May 7: (World War I)
German U-boat sinks RMS Lusitania.

• May 3 – John McCrae writes In Flanders Fields.

• May 5 – World War I: The Turks begin shelling Anzac Cove from a new position behind their lines.

• May 6 – Babe Ruth hits his first career home run off of Jack Warhop.

• May 7 – World War I: The RMS Lusitania is sunk by a German U-boat, killing 1,198.

• May 9 – World War I – Second Battle of Artois: German and French forces fight to a standstill.

• May 17 – The last purely Liberal government in the United Kingdom ends when Prime Minister Herbert Henry Asquith forms an all party coalition.

• May 22 – The Quintinshill railway disaster in Scotland leaves more than 200 dead.

• May 23 – World War I: Italy joins the Allies after they declare war on Austria-Hungary.

• May 25 – China agrees to Twenty-One Demands.

• May 29 – Teófilo Braga becomes president of Portugal.

June

• June 3 – Mexican Revolution: Troops of Obregon and Villa clash at León: Obregon loses his right arm in grenade attack but Villa is decisively defeated.

• June 9 – U.S. Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan resigns over a disagreement regarding his nation's handling of the RMS Lusitania sinking.

• June 16 – The British Women's Institute is founded.

July

• July 7 – An extremely overloaded Great Gorge and International Railway trolley with 157 passengers crashes near Queenston, Ontario, resulting in 15 casualties.

• July 24 – The steamer Eastland capsizes in central Chicago, with the loss of 844 lives.

• July 28 – The United States occupation of Haiti begins.

August

• August 5–August 23 – Hurricane Two of the 1915 Atlantic hurricane season over Galveston and New Orleans leaves 275 dead.

• August 6 – World War I – Battle of Sari Bair: The Allies mount a diversionary attack timed to coincide with a major Allied landing of reinforcements at Suvla Bay.

• August 16 – The Entente promises the Kingdom of Serbia, should victory be achieved over Austro-Hungary and its allied Central Powers, the territories of Baranja, Srem and Slavonia from the Cisleithanian part of the Dual Monarchy; Bosnia and Herzegovina; and eastern Dalmatia (from the river of Krka to Bar).

• August 17 – Jewish American Leo Frank is lynched for the alleged murder of a 13-year-old girl in Atlanta, Georgia.

• August 31 – Jimmy Lavender of the Chicago Cubs pitches a no hitter against the New York Giants.

September

• September 6 – The first prototype tank is tested for the British Army for the first time.

• September 7 – Former cartoonist John B. Gruelle is given a patent for his Raggedy Ann doll.

• September 11 – The Pennsylvania Railroad begins electrified commuter rail service between Paoli and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, using overhead AC trolley wires for power. This type of system is later used in long-distance passenger trains between New York City, Washington, D.C., and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

October

• October 12 – World War I: British nurse Edith Cavell is executed by a German firing squad for helping Allied soldiers escape from Belgium.

• October 15 – World War I: Austria-Hungary invades the Kingdom of Serbia. Bulgaria enters the war, invading Kingdom of Serbia. The retreat of the Serbian First Army towards Greece begins the Serbian Campaign (World War I).

• October 19 – Mexican Revolution: The U.S. recognizes the Mexican government of Venustiano Carranza de facto (not de jure until 1917).

• October 27 – William Morris Hughes becomes the 7th Prime Minister of Australia.

November

• November – Sykes-Picot Agreement: The governments of Britain and France secretly agree to overtake the Middle-Eastern regions of the Ottoman Empire (mostly Syria and Iraq), and establish their own zones of influence.

• November 14 – A vision is allegedly encountered by various military personnel in Europe at 22:30 hours (as recounted on the television series One Step Beyond).

• November 23 – The Triangle Film Corporation opens its new motion picture theater in Massillon, Ohio.

• November 25 – The theory of general relativity is formulated.

December

• December 12 – Chinese president Yuan Shikai declares himself Emperor.

• December 23 – The HMHS Britannic, the largest individual British loss in World War I, departs Liverpool on her maiden voyage.

• December 25 – British and German forces get out of the trenches in World War I and have a free-for-all kick-around football game in no-man's land.

• December 26 – The Irish Republican Brotherhood Military Council decides to stage a rising on Easter Sunday 1916.

Undated

• Alfred Wegener proposes the theory of Pangaea.

• Emory College is rechartered as Emory University, and plans to move its main campus from Oxford, Georgia to Atlanta.

• Lord Beaverbrook buys the Daily Express.

• An automobile speed record of 102.6 m.p.h. is set at Sheepshead Bay, N.Y. by Gil Anderson, driving a Stutz.

• The first stop sign appears in Detroit, Michigan.

• Women's suffrage is introduced in Denmark and Iceland.

• Franz Kafka's short novel Die Verwandlung is first published in Germany.

• There are 2 million Russian casualties during World War I.

Ongoing

• World War I (1914–1918).

Births

January–February

• January 2 – John Hope Franklin, American historian (d. 2009)

• January 3 – Sid Hudson, American baseball player (d. 2008)

• January 3 – Mady Rahl, German stage and film actress (d. 2009)

• January 5 – Arthur H. Robinson, American geographer and cartographer (d. 2004)

• January 6 – Don Edwards, American politician

• January 9 – Anita Louise, American actress (d. 1970)

• January 11 – Robert Blair Mayne, British soldier and co-founder of the Special Air Service (d. 1955)

• January 14 – Mark Goodson, American television game show producer (d. 1992)

• January 15 – Leo Mol, Ukrainian Canadian artist and sculptor (d. 2009)

• January 16 – Leslie H. Martinson, American television and film director

• January 18 – Santiago Carrillo, Spanish politician

• January 20 – Ghulam Ishaq Khan, President of Pakistan (d. 2006)

• January 23 – Arthur Lewis, British economist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1991)

• January 24 – Robert Motherwell, American painter (d. 1991)

• January 28 – Nien Cheng, Chinese-born American writer

• January 29 – John Serry, Sr., American musician, composer, arranger (d. 2003)

• January 30 – Joachim Peiper, German S.S. officer (d. 1976)

• January 30 – John Profumo, British cabinet minister (d. 2006)

• January 31 – Alan Lomax, American folklorist and musicologist (d. 2002)

• January 31 – Thomas Merton, American monk and author (d. 1968)

• February 1 – Artur London, Czech statesman (d. 1986)

• February 1 – Sir Stanley Matthews, English footballer (d. 2000)

• February 1 – Alicia Rhett, American actress and painter

• February 2 – Khushwant Singh, Indian writer

• February 4 – Sir Norman Wisdom, English comedian, singer, and actor

• February 5 – Robert Hofstadter, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1990)

• February 7 – Teoctist Arăpaşu, Ex-Romanian Orthodox Church Patriarch (d. 2007)

• February 11 – Patrick Leigh Fermor, British author and soldier

• February 14 – Ray Evans, American composer (d. 2007)

• February 16 – Jim O'Hora, American college football coach (d. 2005)

• February 16 – Elisabeth Eybers, South African poet (d. 2007)

• February 19 – John Freeman, British politician

• February 23 – Paul Tibbets, American World War II bomber pilot (Enola Gay) (d. 2007)

• February 26 – Preacher Roe, American baseball player (d. 2008)

• February 28 – Zero Mostel, American film and stage actor (A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum) (d. 1977)

• February 28 – Peter Medawar, Brazilian-born scientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1987)

March–April

• March 3 – Wally Cassell, American actor

• March 4 – Carlos Surinach, Spanish composer (d. 1997)

• March 6 – Syedna Mohammed Burhanuddin, Leader of the Dawoodi Bohra Community

• March 9 – John Edgar "Johnnie" Johnson, English pilot (d. 2001)

• March 10 – Harry Bertoia, Italian artist and designer (d. 1978)

• March 11 – Vijay Hazare, Indian cricketer (d. 2004)

• March 14 – Alexander Brott, Canadian conductor and composer (d. 2005)

• March 17 – Bill Roycroft, Australian equestrian

• March 19 – Patricia Morison, American actress

• March 20 – Rudolf Kirchschlaeger, Austrian politician (d. 2000)

• March 20 – Sviatoslav Richter, Ukrainian pianist (d. 1997)

• March 23 – Vasily Zaitsev, Soviet sniper (d. 1991)

• March 27 – Robert Lockwood Jr., American musician (d. 2006)

• March 30 – Arsenio Erico, Paraguayan footballer (d. 1977)

• March 30 – Pietro Ingrao, Italian politician

• March 31 – Albert Hourani, English historian (d. 1993)

• April 3 – Piet de Jong, Dutch politician, Prime Minister of the Netherlands from 1967 until 1971

• April 4 – Muddy Waters, African-American musician (d. 1983)

• April 7 – Albert O. Hirschman, German-born economist

• April 7 – Billie Holiday, African-American singer (d. 1959)

• April 8 – Ivan Supek, Croatian physicist, author, and human rights activist (d. 2007)

• April 10 – Harry Morgan, American actor (Dragnet)

• April 12 – Július Tomin, Czech writer (d. 2003)

• April 15 – Elizabeth Catlett, American-born artist

• April 21 – Anthony Quinn, Mexican actor (Zorba The Greek) (d. 2001)

• April 23 – Robert Kellard, American actor (d. 1981)

• April 29 – Donald Mills, lead tenor of The Mills Brothers (d. 1999)

• April 30 – Elio Toaff, Italian rabbi

May–June

• May 1 – Archie Williams, American athlete (d. 1993)

• May 2 – Doris Fisher, American singer and songwriter (d. 2003)

• May 3 – Stu Hart, Canadian wrestling trainer (d. 2003)

• May 5 – Alice Faye, American entertainer (d. 1998)

• May 6 – Orson Welles, American film director (Citizen Kane) (d. 1985)

• May 6 – George Perle, American composer (d. 2009)

• May 8 – Milton Meltzer, American author (d. 2009)

• May 10 – Denis Thatcher, British businessman, husband of UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (d. 2003)

• May 12 – Frère Roger, Swiss founder of the Taizé Community (d. 2005)

• May 15 – Hilda Bernstein, English-born author, artist, and activist (d. 2006)

• May 15 – Mario Monicelli, Italian film director

• May 15 – Paul Samuelson, American economist, Nobel Prize laureate

• May 20 – Moshe Dayan, Israeli military leader and politician (d. 1981)

• May 20 – Peter Copley, English actor (d. 2008)

• May 26 – Sam Edwards, American actor (d. 2004)

• May 27 – Esther Soré, Chilean musician (d. 1996)

• May 27 – Herman Wouk, American author (The Winds of War)

• May 29 – Karl Münchinger, German conductor (d. 1990)

• June 1 – John Randolph, American actor (d. 2004)

• June 9 – Les Paul, American inventor and musician (d. 2009)

• June 10 – Saul Bellow, Canadian-born writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2005)

• June 10 – Peride Celal, Turkish author

• June 12 – David Rockefeller, American banker and philanthropist

• June 15 – Thomas Huckle Weller, American virologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 2008)

• June 17 – Karl Targownik, Hungarian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor (d. 1996)

• June 17 – Mario Echandi Jiménez, President of Costa Rica

• June 20 – Paul Castellano, American gangster (d. 1985)

• June 24 – Sir Fred Hoyle, British astronomer (d. 2001)

• June 26 – Charlotte Zolotow, American author

• June 27 – Grace Lee Boggs, American feminist and author

• June 28 – David Honeyboy Edwards, American musician

July–August

• July 2 – Arthur Wellesley, 8th Duke of Wellington

• July 5 – John Woodruff, American athlete (d. 2007)

• July 15 – Albert Ghiorso, American nuclear scientist

• July 17 – Fred Ball, American movie studio executive, actor, and the brother of comedienne Lucille Ball (d. 2007)

• July 24 – Enrique Fernando, Chief Justice of the Philippine Supreme Court (d. 2004)

• July 26 – Pattabhi Jois, Indian yogi (d. 2009)

• July 28 – Charles Townes, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate

• July 28 – Frankie Yankovic, American accordion player (d. 1998)

• July 28 – Dick Sprang,American comic book artist during the golden age of comics and an explorer (d. 2000)

• August 3 – Pete Newell, Canadian-born basketball coach (d. 2008)

• August 3 – Frank Arthur Calder, Canadian politician (d. 2006)

• August 12 – Michael Kidd, American choreographer (d. 2007)

• August 19 – Ring Lardner Jr., American film screenwriter (d. 2000)

• August 22 – Hugh Paddick, British actor (d. 2000)

• August 25 – Walter Trampler, American violist (d. 1997)

• August 27 – Norman F. Ramsey, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate

• August 28 – Tasha Tudor, American illustrator (d. 2008)

• August 28 – Max Robertson, British sports commentator

• August 29 – Ingrid Bergman, Swedish actress (d. 1982)

• August 30 – Princess Lilian, Duchess of Halland

• August 30 – Robert Strassburg, American composer (d. 2003)

September–October

• September 2 – Meinhardt Raabe, American actor

• September 3 – Knut Nystedt, Norwegian composer

• September 8 – Frank Cady, American actor

• September 8 – Frank Pullen, English business person and racehorse owner (d. 1992)

• September 12 – Frank McGee, American television personality (d. 1974)

• September 14 – John Dobson, American astronomer

• September 14 – Douglas Kennedy, American actor (d. 1973)

• September 15 – Ismail Yasin, Egyptian comedian and actor (d. 1972)

• September 17 – M F Husain, Indian artist

• September 17 – Adolfo Sánchez Vázquez, Spanish-born philosopher

• September 23 – Julius Baker, American flautist (d. 2003)

• September 23 – Clifford Shull, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2001)

• September 29 – Vincent DeDomenico, American entrepreneur (d. 2007)

• September 30 – Lester Maddox, Governor of Georgia (d. 2003)

• October 1 – T. Llew Jones, Welsh author and poet (d. 2009)

• October 9 – Clifford M. Hardin, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture

• October 13 – Terry Frost, English artist (d. 2003)

• October 15 – Nellie Lutcher, American singer (d. 2007)

• October 15 – Yitzhak Shamir, Israeli politician

• October 17 – Arthur Miller, American playwright (d. 2005)

• October 19 – Farid al-Atrash, Arab composer, singer, virtuoso oud player, and actor (d. 1974)

• October 24 – Bob Kane, American comic book artist/writer. Creator of Batman (d. 1998)

• October 24 – Tito Gobbi, Italian baritone (d. 1984)

• October 28 – Dody Goodman, American actress and dancer (d. 2008)

• October 29 – William Berenberg, American physician (d. 2005)

• October 30 – Jane Randolph, American actress (d. 2009)

November–December

• November 4 – Wee Kim Wee, 4th president of Singapore (d. 2005)

• November 9 – André François, French cartoonist (d. 2005)

• November 9 – Sargent Shriver, American politician

• November 11 – William Proxmire, U.S. Senator (d. 2005)

• November 12 – Roland Barthes, French philosopher and literary critic (d. 1980)

• November 14 – Martha Tilton, British actress (d. 2006)

• November 17 – David "Stringbean" Akeman, American country music banjo player (d. 1973)

• November 19 – Earl Wilbur Sutherland Jr., American physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1974)

• November 25 – Augusto Pinochet, President of Chile (d. 2006)

• November 25 – Stanley Wilson, American musician (d. 1970)

• November 28 – Evald Okas, Estonian painter

• November 30 – Brownie McGhee, American musician (d. 1996)

• November 30 – Henry Taube, Canadian-born chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2005)

• December 7 – Eli Wallach, American actor

• December 8 – Ernest Lehman, American screenwriter (d. 2005)

• December 9 – Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, German-born soprano (d. 2006)

• December 12 – Frank Sinatra, American entertainer (d. 1998)

• December 13 – Ross Macdonald, American-Canadian writer (d. 1983)

• December 17 – Robert A. Dahl, American political scientist

• December 19 – Édith Piaf, French singer (d. 1963)

• December 21 – Werner von Trapp, member of the Trapp Family Singers (d. 2007)

• December 22 – Barbara Billingsley, American actress (Leave It To Beaver)

• December 27 – Gyula Zsengellér, Hungarian footballer (d. 1999)

Deaths

• Hortensia Antommarchi, Poet (b. 1850)

January–June

• January 14 – Richard Meux Benson, English founder of an Anglican religious order (b. 1824)

• January 15 – Mary Slessor, Scottish Christian missionary (b. 1848)

• January 23 – Anne Whitney American sculptor and poet (b. 1821)

• February 5 – Ross Barnes, American baseball player (b. 1850)

• February 18 – Frank James American outlaw (b. 1843)

• March 4 – William Willett, English promoter of daylight saving time (b. 1856)

• March 9 – François Faber, Luxembourgian cyclist (b. 1887)

• March 15 – George Llewelyn-Davies, one of the 'Lost Boys' for the Peter Pan book (b. 1893)

• March 31 – Wyndham Halswelle, Scottish runner (b. 1882)

• April 16 – Nelson W. Aldrich, U.S. Senator from Rhode Island (b. 1841)

• April 23 – Rupert Brooke, English poet (b. 1887)

• April 23 – Frederick Fisher, Canadian VC recipient (killed in battle) (b. 1894)

• April 27 – Alexander Scriabin, Russian composer (b. 1872)

• May 7 – Charles Frohman American theater producer, died on Lusitania (b. 1856)

• May 19 – Tony Wilding, New Zealand tennis player (born 1883)

• May 24 – Private John Condon, youngest British soldier to die during the First World War (b. c. 1901)

• May 26 – Julian Grenfell, poet (killed in battle) (b. 1888)

• May 31 – Victor Child Villiers, 7th Earl of Jersey, 18th Governor of New South Wales (b. 1845)

• June 7 – Charles Reed Bishop, preeminent businessman and philanthropist in Hawaii (b. 1822)

July–December

• July 2 – Porfirio Díaz, President of Mexico (b. 1830)

• July 16 – Ellen G. White, American prophetess, co-founder of Seventh-Day Adventism, most translated American author (b. 1827)

• August 20 – Paul Ehrlich, German scientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1854)

• August 26 – John Bunny American silent film comedian (b. 1863)

• August 31 – Adolphe Pegoud, aviator (KIA) (b. 1889)

• September 9 – Albert Spalding, baseball player and sporting goods manufacturer (b. 1850)

• September 11 – William Sprague IV, America politician from Rhode Island (b. 1830)

• September 13 – Andrew L. Harris, American Civil War hero and Governor of Ohio (b. 1835)

• September 27 – Fergus Bowes-Lyon, brother of Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon (killed in battle) (b. 1889)

• October 12 – Edith Cavell, nurse and war heroine (shot) (b. 1865)

• October 12 – Charles Sorley, British poet (killed in battle) (b. 1895)

• October 23 – W. G. Grace, English cricketer (b. 1948)

• October 30 – Charles Tupper, Prime Minister of Canada (b. 1821)

• November 15 – Booker T. Washington, American educator (b. 1856)

• November 28 – Mubarak Al-Sabah, Emir of Kuwait (b. 1896)

Nobel Prizes

• Chemistry – Richard Willstätter

• Literature – Romain Rolland

• Medicine – not awarded

• Peace – not awarded

• Physics – William Henry Bragg and William Lawrence Bragg