May 1915 in History

Events in History

May 1 British liner Lusitania leaves NY for Liverpool

May 3 John McCrae writes the poem "In Flanders Fields"

May 4 Italy drops Triple Alliance with Austria-Hungary & Germany
May 5 German U-20 captures and sinks Britsih schooner Earl of Lathom
May 6 German U-20 sinks Centurion SE 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 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 Last liberal British government of H. H. Asquith falls

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

May 24 Thomas Edison invents telescribe to record telephone conversations

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

May 5 Richard Rovere, American political journalist (Goldwater Caper), born in Jersey City, New Jersey (d. 1979)
May 6 John Arnold, British high court judge (d. 2004)
May 6 May Henriquez-Alvarez, Curacao Dutch sculptor, born in Curacao (d. 1999)
May 6 Theodore H. White, American journalist (Making of President, Pulitzer Prize 1962), born in Dorchester, Boston (d. 1986)
May 9 Richard Janvrin, British vice admiral
May 10 Denis Thatcher, husband of British PM Margaret (1979-90), born in London, England (d. 2003)
May 10 John Egerton, 6th Duke of Sutherland, British peer
May 10 Monica Dickens, British author and founder of the Samaritians in the US, born in London, England (d. 1992)
May 12 Mary Kay Ash, American businesswoman, founded Mary Kay Cosmetics (d. 2001)
May 13 John Habakkuk, British principal (Jesus College in Oxford)
May 15 Paul A Samuelson, economist (1970 Nobel, 1947 John Bates Clark Medal)
May 17 Joseph D Craggs, electrical engineer
May 18 Leon Shenandoah, native American leader (Iroquois Confederacy) (d. 1996)

May 20 Israeli military leader and politician (Minister of Defense 1967-74), born in Degania Alef, Ottoman Empire

May 23 Clyde Wiegand, physicist
May 25 Daniel Wolf, American journalist (d. 1996)
May 26 Antonia Forest [Patricia Giulia Caulfield Kate Rubinstein], British children's author (The Marlows), born in Hampstead, London (d. 2003)
May 27 Herman Wouk, American novelist (The Caine Mutiny, Winds of War), born in NYC, New York (d. 2019)
May 28 Joseph Greenberg, American linguist (d. 2001)
May 29 David Jenkins, Welsh librarian (National Library of Wales), born in Blaenclydach, Glamorgan (d. 2002)
May 29 Gerald Charles Arcedeckne Vanneck, 6th Baron Huntingfield, British agent to UN Secreteriat (d. 1994)
May 30 Jerome Bert Weisner, military scientist/disarmer

May 2 Clara Immerwahr, German chemist, first woman to be awarded a doctorate in chemistry in Germany, dies at 44
May 7 Alfred Scott Witherbee Jr., American 3 year old who drowned on Lusitania
May 7 Charles Frohman, American theatre producer (Peter Pan), dies aboard RMS Lusitania at 58
May 8 Henry McNeal Turner, 1 African American Methodist Bishop and 1st African American army chaplain, dies at 82
May 10 Albert Weisgerber, German painter and graphic artist, dies in battle at 37
May 19 John Simpson Kirkpatrick stretcher bearer with the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps at Gallipoli during World War I (b. 1892)
May 21 Leonid Gobyato, Russian general (designed the portable mortar), dies in combat at 40