Historical Events in 1915

1915 Calendar

Events 1 - 200 of 271

Battle of Sarikamish

Jan 17 Battle of Sarikamish ends with a Russian victory over Ottoman forces led by Enver Pasha with loss of over 30,000 men of the Turkish Third Army during Caucasus Campaign

Jan 17 Russia occupies Bukovina & Western Ukraine
Jan 18 Japan issues the "Twenty-One Demands" to the Republic of China in a bid to increase its power in East Asia
Jan 18 Train crashes at Colima-Guadalajara Mexico, about 600 die
Jan 19 Neon Tube sign patented by George Claude

Jan 19 World War I: 4 people in Norfolk are killed in the 1st German Zeppelin air raid attack on the United Kingdom

Jan 21 Kiwanis International founded in Detroit
Jan 24 German-British sea battle at Dogger Bank & Helgoland
Jan 25 Giordano, Sardou & Moreau's opera "Madame Sans Gêne" premieres in NYC

Event of Interest

Jan 25 Transcontinental telephone service officially inaugurated as Alexander Graham Bell in NYC calls Thomas Watson in San Francisco, California during the Panama–Pacific International Exposition

Jan 26 Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado, is established
Jan 27 US Marines occupy Haiti
Jan 28 1st US ship lost in WW I, William P Frye (carrying wheat to UK)
Jan 28 The United States Coast Guard is created by merging the US Life Saving Service & the US Revenue Cutter Service

Immigration of Illiterates

Jan 28 US President Woodrow Wilson refuses to prohibit immigration of illiterates

Jan 30 German submarine attack on Le Havre
Jan 30 No 10 batsman F W Hyett scores century on debut, Vic v Tas
Feb 3 Turkish & German army reach Suez Canal
Feb 4 Experiments to find cause of pellagra begin at Mississippi State Penitentiary
Feb 7 1st wireless message sent from a moving train to a station received
Feb 7 Second Battle of Masurian Lakes: German armies surrounded a Russian army

First 12-Reel Film

Feb 8 "The Birth of a Nation" the first 12-reel film in America, directed by D. W. Griffith, starring Lillian Gish and Mae Marsh, premieres at Clune's Auditorium in Los Angeles

Feb 10 US President Woodrow Wilson protests to Britain on the use of US flags on British merchant ships to deceive the Germans
Feb 10 US President Woodrow Wilson warns Germany that the US will hold it 'to a strict accountability' for 'property endangered or lives lost'

Hitler Receives Iron Cross

Feb 12 Adolf Hitler receives the relatively common Iron Cross second class for bravery in World War I

Feb 12 World War I: Kaiser Wilhelm approves the strategic bombing of London's docks
Feb 13 The French try to drive the Germans forces back into the Champagne region
Feb 16 Frank Home Run Baker, 28, announces retirement following a contract dispute with Connie Mack. He sits out 1915 season
Feb 17 Edward Stone, 1st US combatant to die in WW I, is mortally wounded
Feb 18 Germany begins a blockade of Britain
Feb 19 British fleet opens fire on Dardanelles coast
Feb 19 WWI: Germany sinks American Merchant ship Evelyn with mine in the North Sea
Feb 20 Panama-Pacific International Exposition (World's Fair) opens in San Francisco
Feb 21 Russian 20th Army corps surrenders to the German 10th Army after being surrounded
Feb 22 Germany begins "unrestricted" submarine war
Feb 22 WWI: Germany sinks American Merchant ship Carib with mine, and torpedoes Norwegian ship Regin
Feb 23 Nevada reduces residency requirement for divorces from 1 year to 6 months
Feb 26 Malancourt, Argonnen 1st (German) flame-thrower
Feb 28 WWI: After the French try to drive the Germans forces back into the Champagne region, they gain a few hundred yards - at the cost of 50,000 casualties
Mar 2 British vice admiral Sackville Hamilton Carden begins bombardment of Dardanelles forts
Mar 2 Vladmir Jabotinsky forms a Jewish military force to fight in Palestine

Elihu Root Retires

Mar 3 Elihu Root finishes his tenure as United States Senator from New York after choosing not to seek re-election

Mar 3 US National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) created, the predecessor of NASA
Mar 5 World War I: The LZ 33, a zeppelin, is damaged by enemy fire and stranded south of Ostend.

Mar 8 1st US navy minelayer, Baltimore, commissioned
Mar 10 British Army captures Neuve Chapelle, Belgium
Mar 11 The British declare a blockade of all German ports
Mar 13 Brooklyn Robins manager Wilbert Robinson tries to catch a baseball dropped from an airplane, but the pilot substitutes a grapefruit
Mar 14 German cruiser Dresden scuttled off Más a Tierra, Chile, having been pursued by the Royal Navy after the Battle of the Falkland Islands, with her engines worn out and virtually no coal
Mar 16 British battle cruisers Inflexible & Irresistible hit mines in Dardanelles
Mar 16 Federal Trade Commission organizes
Mar 18 Failed British attack in Dardanelles
Mar 18 French battleship Bouvet explodes, 640 killed
Mar 19 Pluto photographed for 1st time (although unknown at the time)
Mar 19 VI Summer (Modern) Olympic Games: IOC President Pierre de Coubertin writes to Associated Press indicating 1916 Berlin Games won't take place because of WWI
Mar 23 Zion Mule Corp formed by the British Army
Mar 25 1st submarine disaster; a US F-4 sinks off Hawaii, killing 21
Mar 25 German U boat torpedoes Netherlands merchant ship Medea
Mar 26 Stanley Cup Final, Denman Arena, Vancouver, BC: Barney Stanley scores 5 goals as Vancouver Millionaires beat Ottawa Senators, 12-3 for a 3-0 sweep of first non-challenge series; Vancouver first PCHA champions

Typhoid Mary Arrested

Mar 27 Typhoid Mary [Mary Mallon] is arrested and returned to quarantine on North Brother Island, New York after spending five years evading health authorities and causing several further outbreaks of typhoid

Apr 4 Germany protests vigorously to the US, claiming it must insist that Britain lifts its blockade and assert American neutrality
Apr 5 French begin Woëvre-offensive

Willard vs Johnson

Apr 5 Jess Willard KOs Jack Johnson after 26 rounds to win the heavyweight boxing title in front of 25,000 fans at Oriental Park Racetrack in Havana, Cuba

Apr 10 Castbergian Child Laws adopted in Norway - one of the first laws in the world to protect the welfare of extra-martial children [1]
Apr 14 A's Herb Pennock is within 1 out of pitching 1st Opening Day no-hitter
Apr 14 Dutch merchant navy ship Katwijk sunk by Germany torpedo
Apr 14 Turkey invades Armenia
Apr 15 Manuel de Falla's ballet "El Amor Brujo" premieres in Madrid

Apr 18 French pilot Roland Garros is shot down and glides to a landing on the German side of the lines during World War I.
Apr 20 Ottoman soldiers lay siege to the Armenian city of Van during World War I
Apr 20 The Armenians rise and seize the Turkish town of Van, which they hold until Russians relieve them on 19 May; thousands of Armenians are killed
Apr 22 First military use of poison gas occurs when Germany uses chlorine gas against the Allies at Ypres in World War I [1]
Apr 22 NY Yankees don pinstripes & hat-in-the-ring logo for 1st time
Apr 22 The Second Battle of Ypres begins on the Western Front in WW I
Apr 23 ACA becomes National Advisory Council on Aeronautics (NACA)
Apr 24 German army fires chloroform gas in Ypres (Leper)
Apr 24 Leaders of the Armenian community in Constantinople (now Istanbul) are arrested by Ottoman authorities, and many later killed, marking the start of the Armenian Genocide
Apr 24 Pittsburgh Rebels' Frank Allen no-hits St Louis Terriers (Federal League), 2-0

Apr 25 First landings at Gaba Tepe and Cape Helles on the Gallipoli Peninsula by ANZAC forces during World War I

Apr 26 Italy secretly signs the "Treaty of London" with Britain, France and Russia, bringing Italy into World War I on the Allied side

Lusitania Leaves NY

May 1 British liner Lusitania leaves NY for Liverpool on its last fateful journey

May 1 German submarine torpedoes US tanker Gulflight
May 2 Bronx, New York City; Old Fordham Road renamed Landing Road

In Flanders Fields

May 3 Canadian poet and physician John McCrae writes the poem "In Flanders Fields" at Ypres on the Western Front

May 4 Italy drops Triple Alliance with Austria-Hungary & Germany
May 5 German U-20 captures and sinks Britsih schooner Earl of Lathom

Ruth's 1st MLB Home Run

May 6 Future Baseball Hall of Fame slugger Babe Ruth hits his first MLB home run; pitches 12 frames in Boston Red Sox 4-3 extra innings loss to New York Yankees

May 6 German U-20 sinks Centurion south east of Ireland
May 6 The Allies on Cape Helles launch three attacks to enlarge their beachheads; after terrible losses, they advance about three miles

May 7 RMS Lusitania sunk by German submarine off the southern coast of Ireland; 1198 lives lost

May 9 German and French forces fight Battle of Artois

Gas Mask Invented

May 10 Canadian physician Cluny Macpherson first presents his gas mask invention to the British War Office

May 10 Zeppelin drops hundred of bombs on Southend-on-Sea, Essex, England
May 12 Croatians plunder Armenia, killing 250
May 12 Franklin K. Mathiews first presents idea of "Book Week"
May 13 US Secretary of State Bryan sends a note to Germany demanding that Germany disavow the attacks on the Lusitania and make immediate reparations; however, the note is written only to 'pacify exited public opinion', according to Bryan
May 17 Cubs George "Zip" Zabel relieves with 2 outs in 1st & winds up with 4-3 19-inning win over Brooklyn in longest relief job ever

May 17 National Baptist Convention chartered
May 20 Bataafsche Petroleum Me begins oil extraction of Maracaibo
May 22 Lassen Peak erupts with a powerful force, only mountain other than Mount St. Helens, to erupt in the continental US during the 20th century
May 22 Local train collides with troop train killing 226 in Gretna, Scotland
May 23 Italy declares war on Austria-Hungary during WW I

Edison Invents Telescribe

May 24 Thomas Edison invents telescribe to record telephone conversations

May 25 A British Cabinet meeting at 10 Downing Street on the failure of the Dardanelles offensive sacks Lord Kitchener as head of munitions and Winston Churchill as Lord of the Admiralty [1]
May 25 Chicago Whales' Claude Hendrix no-hits Pittsburgh Rebels (Federal League), 10-0
May 25 Second Battle of Ypres on the Western Front ends with 105,000 casualties
May 26 H. H. Asquith forms a coalition government in the United Kingdom
May 31 An LZ-38 Zeppelin makes an air raid on London
Jun 3 Austro-German forces recapture Przemysl, a crucial city in southeastern Poland, and the entire Russian front begins to collapse
Jun 5 Denmark amends its constitution to allow women's suffrage
Jun 8 92°F (33.3°C) in De Bilt, Netherlands
Jun 9 US President Woodrow Wilson sends second Lusitania note to Germany protesting sinking of the Lusitania and refuting German claim British blockade illegal

Jun 10 British and French troops conquer German colony of Cameroon
Jun 15 US government mints 1st $50 gold pieces, for Panama Pacific Expo
Jun 16 The foundation of the British Women's Institute

The League to Enforce Peace

Jun 17 The League to Enforce Peace is organised at Independence Hall in Philadelphia with William Howard Taft as president; its program anticipates the League of Nations

Jun 20 German offensive in Argonne
Jun 21 Anti-British revolt in South Africa ends with arrest of General De Law
Jun 21 The U.S. Supreme Court hands down its decision in Guinn v. United States 238 US 347 1915, striking down an Oklahoma law denying the right to vote to some citizens
Jun 22 BMT, then Brooklyn Rapid Transit, begins subway service
Jun 23 Italians launch the first of what will become 11 battles to dislodge the Austrians from the Isonzo River, which keeps the Italians from Trieste
Jun 23 Yanks get record 16 walks & 3 wild pitches beat A's Bruno Hass, 15-0
Jun 26 Germany suppresses "Vorwarts" newspaper after it called for peace
Jun 27 100°F (38°C), Fort Yukon, Alaska (state record)
Jun 27 Dutch SDAP demonstrates against conscription
Jul 1 Australia begins Commonwealth Lighthouse Service
Jul 1 Australian Survey Corps becomes part of Military Forces
Jul 2 Erich Muenter, an instructor in German at Cornell University, explodes a bomb in the US Senate reception room
Jul 3 After exploding a bomb in US Senate reception room previous day, Erich Muenter, a German instructor at Cornell University, shoots JP Morgan for representing the British government in war contract negotiations
Jul 7 A Great Gorge and International Railway trolley with an extreme overload of 157 passengers crashes near Queenston, Ontario, killing 15
Jul 8 The Germans reply to US President Woodrow Wilson's second Lusitania note by saying that Americans may sail on clearly marked neutral ships, but Germany does not deal with Wilson's other demands
Jul 9 Germany surrenders South West Africa to Union of South Africa
Jul 10 British/South African troops march into German SW-Africa
Jul 11 German cruiser Königsberg sinks off Dar-es-Salam
Jul 15 The Austro-German forces launch an offensive along the Eastern Front
Jul 15 The head of German propaganda in the US, Dr Heinrich Albert, loses his briefcase on a New York City subway; an examination of its content reveals extensive network of German espionage and subversion across the US
Jul 17 Italian offensive at Isonzo
Jul 18 WWI: Second Battle of Isonzo begins with Kingdom of Italy offensive against Austria-Hungary, ends 2-1/2 weeks later with over 91,000 combined casualties
Jul 19 Dutch accidents at sea law enforced
Jul 19 The Washington Senators set a MLB record 8 stolen bases in an innings (1st) in 11-4 win v Cleveland
Jul 21 Woodrow Wilson sends the third Lusitania note, warning Germany that future infringement of American rights will be deemed 'deliberately unfriendly'
Jul 24 Excursion ship Eastland capsizes in Lake Michigan, 852 die
Jul 26 International School for Wijsbegeerte forms
Jul 28 Because of virtual anarchy, US Marines go ashore in Haiti on orders from President Woodrow Wilson; this will lead to an occupation that will last until 1934

Aug 5 The Latin-American Conference Convenes in Washington, with representatives from leading South American nations joining the US to discuss conditions in Mexico
Aug 5 Warsaw, evacuated by the Russians, is occupied by Germans
Aug 6 The British land more troops at Suvla Bay on the northern shore of Gallipoli in an effort to break the stalemate on the peninsula during WWI
Aug 7 Dario Resta, driving a Peugeot, wins the first Champ Car race ever to average over 100mph at a 100-mile race in Chicago; average speed 101.8mph
Aug 7 WWI: Assault against Russell's Top at Gallipolis, Turkey - 232 Australians are killed
Aug 9 British attack at Chanak Bair at Gallipoli during WWI

Beatty Made Vice-Admiral

Aug 9 British naval officer David Beatty is confirmed in the rank of vice-admiral

Aug 12 "Of Human Bondage" by William Somerset Maugham, published
Aug 14 British transport Royal Edward sank by German U boat kills 1000
Aug 15 Journalist Albert Siegfried Bettelheim, convicted of murder in Georgia
Aug 16 Kansas City Packers' Alex Main no-hits Buffalo Blues (Federal League), 5-0
Aug 17 German troops over run Kovno, Lithuania
Aug 17 Hurricane makes landfall near Galveston, Texas killing 275, and causing $50M damage
Aug 17 Mob lynches Jewish businessman Leo Frank in Cobb County, Georgia, after death sentence for murder of 13-year-old girl commuted to life
Aug 18 Braves Field opens in Boston to see Braves beat St. Louis Cardinals, 3-1
Aug 19 British liner "SS Arabic" sunk by German submarine without warning leaving Liverpool for New York; killing 44. Creates diplomatic incident
Aug 19 Rationing laws go into effect in Netherlands
Aug 20 Chicago White Sox obtain 'Shoeless' Joe Jackson from Cleveland for Robert Roth, Larry Chappell, Ed Klepfer & $31,500; Jackson involved in 'Black Sox Scandal' 1919
Aug 21 Italy declares war on Turkey in World War One
Aug 23 Tsar Nicolaas II takes control of Russian Army
Aug 26 German troops overrun Brest-Litovsk, Russia
Aug 31 Brazil becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty
Aug 31 Chicago White Sox Jimmy Lavender no-hits NY Giants, 2-0
Sep 1 Jerome Travers establishes a US Amateur Golf Championship record by downing George Crump, 14 & 13, in a 1st-round match at the Country Club of Detroit in Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan
Sep 1 The German ambassador to the US pledges again that German submarines will no longer sink liners without warning and providing safety of passengers and crew following the sinking of the British liner "Arabic"
Sep 5 Anti-war conference in Zimmerwald, Switzerland

Nicholas II Takes Command

Sep 5 Tsar Nicholas II, distressed by increasing Russian losses, assumes personal command of his nation's military forces; clearly a symbolic act and devastating for his leadership

Sep 7 Johnny Gruelle patents his Raggedy Ann doll (US Patent D47789)
Sep 7 St Louis Terriers' Dave Davenport no-hits Chicago Whales (Federal League), 3-0
Sep 8 Association of Negro Life & History founded in the US (now the Association for the Study of African American Life and History)
Sep 9 Association for the Study of Negro Life and History formed in Chicago by Carter G. Woodson and others. Now the Association for the Study of African American Life and History.
Sep 16 Tsar Nicholas II of Russia adjourns 4th Duma
Sep 16 US takes control of customs & finances of Haiti for 10 years

First Appearance of Jeeves and Wooster

Sep 18 Jeeves and Bertie Wooster make their first appearance in P. G. Wodehouse short story "Extricating Young Gussie" published in "The Saturday Evening Post" in the US

Sep 21 Cecil Chubb buys English prehistoric monument Stonehenge for £6,600

Sep 21 Emanuel Querido ("Kerido") begins publishing Querido
Sep 22 Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, holds its 1st class

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Historical Events in 1915 - On This Day