May 15: What Happened on This Day in History (High_school Level)?

(Page last edited 10/12/2017)

1. 1536 - Anne Boleyn, Queen of England, stands trial in London on charges of treason, adultery and incest. She is condemned to death by a specially-selected jury.
2. 1618 - Johannes Kepler confirms his previously rejected discovery of the third law of planetary motion (he first discovered it on March 8 but soon rejected the idea after some initial calculations were made).
3. 1776 - American Revolution: the Virginia Convention instructs its Continental Congress delegation to propose a resolution of independence from Great Britain, paving the way for the United States Declaration of Independence.
4. 1793 - Diego Marín Aguilera flies a glider for "about 360 meters", at a height of 5-6 meters, during one of the first attempted manned flights.
5. 1836 - Francis Baily observes "Baily's beads" during an annular eclipse.
6. 1862 - President Abraham Lincoln signs a bill into law creating the United States Bureau of Agriculture. It is later renamed the United States Department of Agriculture.
7. 1869 - Woman's suffrage: in New York, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton form the National Woman Suffrage Association.
8. 1928 - Mickey Mouse premieres in his first cartoon, Plane Crazy
9. 1963 - Project Mercury: The launch of the final Mercury mission, Mercury-Atlas 9 with astronaut L. Gordon Cooper on board. He becomes the first American to spend more than a day in space.
10. 2008 - California becomes the second U.S. state after Massachusetts in2004 to legalize same-sex marriage after the state's own Supreme Court rules a previous ban unconstitutional.
11. Famous Birthdays: Williamina Fleming (Scottish-American astronomer), Pierre Curie (French physicist, Nobel Prize laureate), Frank Hornby (English businessman and politician, invented Meccano), Abraham Zapruder (American businessman, filmed the Zapruder Film), 1951 - Frank Wilczek (American mathematician and physicist, Nobel Prize laureate)

For famous birthdays and other daily events in history, visit our Daily Dose Activities.

Click Here for Yesterday in History: May 14

Click Here for Tomorrow in History: May 16

For more history resources on Internet 4 Classrooms, visit our Social Studies and History index. For Pre K-8th Grade Level History and Social Studies Resources, visit our Grade Level Index.