Events in History in 2015

Events 1 - 200 of 351

• Jan 1 Eurasian Economic Union comes into effect, creating a political and economic union between Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan
• Jan 1 Lithuania adopts the euro as its currency, replacing the litas and becoming the 19th member of the Eurozone

• Jan 3 18 people are killed after the Norwegian cargo ship MS Bulk Jupiter sinks off the coast of Vietnam
• Jan 3 Over 2,000 people are killed in north-east Nigeria after Boko Haram militants raze the town of Baga
• Jan 7 A car bomb explodes in Sana'a, the capital of Yemen, killing 38 people and injuring more than 63

• Jan 10 57 people are killed after an oil tanker collided with a passenger coach outside of Karachi, Pakistan
• Jan 10 72 people are killed & 169 hospitalized after a mass poisoning of beer with crocodile bile at a funeral in Mozambique
• Jan 11 Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović is elected as the first female President of Croatia
• Jan 14 63 people are killed and 70,000 are left homeless after floods devastate Mozambique and Malawi
• Jan 21 Italian fashion label Gucci names Alessandro Michele as its new creative director

• Jan 26 Libby Lane is ordained as the first female bishop of the Church of England

• Jan 31 Australia defeats South Korea in football to win the 2015 AFC Asian Cup
• Jan 31 Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees: Junior Seau, Jerome Bettis, Charles Haley, Will Shields, Tim Brown, Mick Tingelhoff
• Jan 31 Sergio Mattarella is elected President of Italy
• Feb 8 Ivory Coast wins the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations football championship
• Feb 11 Francesco Schettino, Captain of the Costa Concordia that ran aground 2012, is convicted of manslaughter in Grosseto and sentenced to 16 years in jail
• Feb 27 Russian politician Boris Nemtsov is assassinated in Moscow

• Mar 5 -8th Islamic State militants ransack and destroy ancient cities of Nimrud, Hatra and Dur-Sharrukin in Iraq
• Mar 6 NASA's Dawn space probe enters orbit around the dwarf planet Ceres
• Mar 6 US State Department charges 2 Vietnamese and a Canadian citizen with cyberfraud, for stealing 1 billion email addresses for spam
• Mar 7 54 people are killed & 143 are wounded by 5 Boko Haram suicide bombings in Maiduguri city, Nigeria

• Mar 13 Cyclone Pam causes widespread damage in Vanuatu and the South Pacific, including 15-16 deaths.

• Mar 24 Germanwings flight on route between Barcelona and Düsseldorf crashes in the French Alps killing all 150 on board

• Mar 27 Russia's Soyuz TMA-16M launches to deliver three crew members to the international space station to research the long-term effects of micro gravity
• Mar 29 Nigerian General Election - voting is extended to a 2nd day. death toll from Boko Haram attacks at 43
• Apr 1 56 people are killed after the Russian trawler Dalniy Vostok sinks off the coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula
• Apr 2 140 people are killed after gunmen attack Garissa University College, Kenya
• Apr 5 Rolling Stone Magazine retracts its "Rape on Campus" story about a gang rape at the University of Virginia after being discredited
• Apr 11 Barack Obama and Raúl Castro meet in Panama, the 1st meeting of US and Cuban heads of state since the Cuban Revolution

• Apr 13 Migrant ship carrying around 550 sinks off the Libyan coast, about 400 drown
• Apr 14 Archaeologists announce they have found at Lomekwi in Kenya 3.3 million-year old stone tools, the oldest ever discovered and which pre-date the earliest humans

• Apr 19 Boat carrying approx. 850 migrants is shipwrecked in the Mediterranean between Italian and Libya, with only 27 migrants rescued.
• Apr 20 Pulitzer Prize awarded to Anthony Doerr's for his novel "All the Light We Cannot See" and to Elizabeth Kolbert for "The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History"

• Apr 24 Armenia commemorates the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide by the Ottoman Empire

• Apr 25 7.8-magnitude earthquake near Kathmandu in Nepal, killing 8000, leaving over 100,000 homeless, destroying many historic sites

• Apr 29 German Measles is declared eradicated from North and South America - 1st world region to do so
• Apr 29 Indonesia executes 8 prisoners, including 7 foreigners, for drug offences at Besi Prison on the island of Nusakambangan
• Apr 30 MESSENGER spacecraft is intentionally deorbited and destroyed

• May 1 Expo 2015 opens in Milan (thru till 31st October)
• May 2 Celtic wins the 2014–15 Scottish Premiership
• May 5 Archaeornithura meemannae, the oldest known prehistoric bird, is discovered
• May 5 Scientists announce the discovery of the oldest & most distant galaxy known to man, EGS-zs8-1

• May 9 A gun fight erupts in Macedonian town of Kumanovo between police and Albanian separatists adding to the government crisis

• May 17 A mudslide hits the alpine town of Salgar in Western Colombia killing over 50 people
• May 17 Canada defeats Russia to win gold at the 2015 IIHF World Championship
• May 17 Gun fight between rival biker gangs and police in Waco, Texas leaves 9 dead and 18 injured. 170 later arrested for organised crime.
• May 17 Melbourne Victory FC defeats Sydney FC to win the Australian A-League

• May 19 UK inflation is recorded as a negative for the first time since 1960
• May 20 5 major world banks (JPMorgan, Barclays, Citigroup, RBS and UBS) fined US$5.7bn for manipulating currency markets - some of the largest ever fines
• May 20 Journal Nature publishes findings of the oldest human-made tools from Kenya’s Turkana basin - 3.3 million years, 1st found to pre-date the Homo genus
• May 22 Ireland becomes 1st country in the world to legalise same-sex marriage by popular vote
• May 29 Heat wave in India centered in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh states is reported to have killed 1800 people in a week

• May 30 FC Barcelona defeat Athletic Bilbao 3-1 in the 2014–15 Copa del Rey final
• May 30 Namibia defeat Mozambique 2-0 to win the 2015 COSAFA Cup
• Jun 1 Cruise ship carrying 458 people capsizes on Yangtze River, less than 50 survive
• Jun 2 100 volunteers in Bhutan set a world record for tree planting - 49,672 in 1 hour
• Jun 2 FIFA President Sepp Blatter announces his resignation, 5 days after his re-election, amid FIFA's involvement in a bribery scandal
• Jun 2 US Congress passes new legislation to reform National Security Agency procedures, restricting gathering of phone records
• Jun 3 200 people are killed by an explosion at a gasoline station in Accra, Ghana
• Jun 3 Dr. Jesse Selber performs the world's first partial-skull and scalp transplant at Houston Methodist Hospital
• Jun 5 6.0 magnitude earthquake (strongest to affect Malaysia since 1978) strikes Ranau, Sabah, Malaysia, killing 18 people on Mount Kinabalu
• Jun 6 236th Epsom Derby: Golden Horn ridden by Frankie Dettori wins
• Jun 6 Convicted killers Richard Matt and David Sweat break out of Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York
• Jun 7 -8 41st G7 summit held in Schloss Elmau, Bavaria
• Jun 12 Al-Qaeda's 2nd-in-command Nasser al-Wuhayshi (Osama Bin Laden's former private secretary) is killed in a US air strike in Yemen
• Jun 12 Zimbabwe discards its own currency, offering an exchange of $1 for 35 quadrillion Zimbabwean dollars
• Jun 13 Floods in Tbilisi, Georgia, kill 12 people and free animals from the city's zoo, including bears and hippos, to roam the city
• Jun 13 Philae, 1st spacecraft to land on a comet in European Space Agency’s Rosetta mission re-awakes after 7 months

• Jun 15 Remains of a 2,000 year old women dubbed "the sleeping beauty" are announced discovered in Northern Ethiopia from ancient kingdom of Aksum
• Jun 17 9 people are shot and killed inside Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, by a 21 year old gunman

• Jun 18 18 vigilantes are killed & 53 are injured after an accidental detonation of an explosive device in Monguno, Nigeria

• Jun 19 The right-wing Venstre block wins the 2015 Danish general election
• Jun 20 1000 humanoid robots named "Pepper" sell out in under a minute ($1,600 each) in Japan, according to its creator SoftBank Robotics Corp.
• Jun 20 Heat wave peaks in southern Pakistan, goes on to kill about 2,000 people from dehydration and heat stroke
• Jun 21 94 people die & 45 are hospitalized after drinking moonshine in Mumbai, India
• Jun 21 Hackers ground 1400 passengers by attacking IT system at Warsaw Chopin airport in Poland
• Jun 22 JAMA Internal Medical Journal announces obese Americans now outnumber those just overweight

• Jun 25 The Affordable Care Act ('Obamacare') subsidies preserved by US Supreme Court Ruling in King v Burwell 6-3

• Jun 26 Gunman opens fire at beach resort in Sousse, Tunisia, killing 38. Isis claims responsibility.
• Jun 26 Saudi suicide bomber kills 27 at Shia Imam al-Sadiq mosque in Kuwait, 227 injured
• Jun 26 US President Barack Obama sings "Amazing Grace" as part of his eulogy for Reverend Clementa Pinckney and 8 church members killed during a bible study in Charleston, South Carolina
• Jun 26 US Supreme Court rules 5-4 same-sex marriage is a legal right across all US states
• Jun 28 David Sweat shot and captured near Canadian border. 2nd prisoner to escape maximum-security Clinton Correctional Facility June 6
• Jun 28 Greek Credit Crisis: Greek government says banks closed for a week and ATM withdrawals restricted after European Central Bank refused to supply emergency funds
• Jun 29 Beijing Times reports 30% of the Great Wall of China has disappeared due to natural forces and stealing of bricks
• Jun 30 A man self-immolates aboard a Nozomi Shinkansen train and kills one other passenger in Japan
• Jun 30 Hercules transporter plane crashes minutes after take-off in Medan, Indonesia killing 116
• Jul 1 Greek Credit Crisis: Greece becomes 1st developed country to default on debt to the International Monetary Fund (1.7 billion)
• Jul 1 US and Cuba announce agreement to re-open embassies and establish full diplomatic ties
• Jul 2 62 people are killed after the Kim Nirvana ferry capsizes off the coast of the Philippines
• Jul 2 BP agrees to compensate US government & gulf states $18.7 billion for the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill
• Jul 3 Adelaide Crows Australian Rules Football coach Phil Walsh is murdered by his son Cy at his Somerton Park home
• Jul 4 Matt "Megatoad" Stonie, in an upset, defeats 8x hot dog eating champion Joey "Jaws" Chestnut at Nathan's Famous, Coney Island with 62 hot dogs
• Jul 4 Unesco grants World Heritage Status to vineyards in Champagne, France along with Singapore's Botanical Gardens, Diyarbakir Fortress (Turkey) and Maymand Caves (Iran)
• Jul 8 The New York Stock Exchange stops trading for nearly four hours due to a technical error
• Jul 9 Chuck Blazer receives a lifetime ban from FIFA and all football related activity due to corruption
• Jul 10 23 people are killed & 50 are injured in a stampede at a free clothing drive in Mymensingh, Bangladesh
• Jul 10 The Confederate flag is taken down for the last time from South Carolina Capitol grounds 1 day after the state legislature ordered it removed.

• Jul 13 Greek Credit Crisis: Eurozone agrees conditional deal to lend €86bn over 3 years if Greece passes reforms.
• Jul 13 Sandra Bland is found dead in Waller County jail, Texas after spending weekend in jail after a traffic offence. Her family disputes her supposed suicide
• Jul 14 Arms deal agreed between 6 world powers and Iran limiting Iranian nuclear arms but ending sanctions

• Jul 14 Scientists from the Large Hadron Collider announce the discovery of a new particle called the pentaquark
• Jul 16 Scientists reveal 1st close-up pictures of Pluto, sent by the New Horizons probe
• Jul 16 Shootings in Chattanooga at a US military recruitment centre and a naval reserve training center kill 5 and injure others
• Jul 17 Scientists solve mystery of sleeping sickness in two villages in northern Kazakhstan - uranium mining had caused increase in carbon monoxide
• Jul 17 Suicide bomber in Khan Bani Saad, Iraq, kills 120, ISIS claims responsibility
• Jul 18 "The Sun" newspaper in Britain controversially publishes old picture and video of Queen Elizabeth giving Nazi salute in 1933
• Jul 18 PayPal is spun off from eBay as a separate publicly traded company on the NASDAQ
• Jul 19 World Health Organization puts world's Ebola death toll at 11,284
• Jul 20 Hacker group the Impact Team announce they have hacked married dating site Ashley Madison
• Jul 20 Suicide bomber kills 30 in Turkish town of Suruc near Syrian border
• Jul 21 On This Day changes its domain name and brand from HistoryOrb.com to OnThisDay.com
• Jul 22 'Oldest' Qur'an fragments discovered in collection of Birmingham University, radiocarbon testing dates to AD568 - AD645
• Jul 23 NASA's Kepler mission announces discovery of the most Earth-like planet yet - Kepler-452b, 1,400 light years from Earth
• Jul 24 US President Barack Obama begins an historic 2 day visit to Kenya
• Jul 27 Fiat Chrysler fined record $105 million by Us regulators over their number of car recalls
• Jul 27 The Shanghai Composite Index drops 8.5% in one day
• Jul 29 27 people are killed and 149 are injured after a truck runs into a religious procession in Zacatecas, Mexico
• Jul 29 Microsoft launches Windows 10
• Jul 29 Mohammed Omar, mullah and Taliban leader is confirmed dead (killed 2013) by the Afghan government
• Jul 29 Over 3,500 immigrants over 2 days attempt to enter the Channel Tunnel at Calais, to cross into Britain
• Jul 29 Part of missing airline MH370 is found on the island of Reunion
• Jul 29 Zion Harvey became the first paediatric patient to receive a double hand transplant at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
• Jul 30 In Bandar Mahshahr, Iran, the temperature reaches 46C (109F), humidity makes it feel like 73C

• Aug 3 The Athens Stock Exchange re-opens after a month and falls by 22%
• Aug 3 US President Obama unveils his Clean Power Plan to cut greenhouse gases
• Aug 4 31 people are killed and 100 are injured after floods partially sweep two passenger trains off a bridge in Madhya Pradesh, India
• Aug 4 A plague of locusts in Southern Russia prompts a state of emergency to be declared
• Aug 5 Fishing boat carrying around 600 migrants sinks of the coast of Libya, 373 rescued
• Aug 5 Torrential rains and flooding leave at least 178 people dead in India, in the wake of Cyclone Komen
• Aug 6 Eqyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi inaugurates the Suez Canal Expansion at a ceremony in Ismaïlia
• Aug 6 Republican Presidential nomination race begins with debate between 7 lesser ranked candidates in Cleveland, Ohio
• Aug 6 World's largest ever Pinball tournament Pinburgh with 700 machines held in Pittsburgh
• Aug 10 110°F (43°C), Apalachicola, Florida (breaking state record of 109°F, set in 1931)

• Aug 11 Japan's Sendai Nuclear Power Plant restarts the first nuclear reactor since the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster
• Aug 11 Largest ever outbreak of Legionnaires' disease in New York - 12 dead, with over 100 cases in the South Bronx
• Aug 11 Spain's top matador Francisco Rivera Ordóñez Jr. is gored and injured by a bull in Huesca
• Aug 12 China cuts its currency the yuan for the 2nd day in a row to boast exports

• Aug 12 In London archaeologists discover a mass grave of 30 bodies from the 1665 plague
• Aug 12 Large series of explosions in Tianjin, China leave at least 50 dead and 700 injured in an industrial accident
• Aug 13 76 people are killed & 212 are wounded by an ISIL truck bomb in Baghdad, Iraq

• Aug 13 US Government formally returns to France Picasso's painting La Coiffeuse, stolen from Paris' National Museum of Modern Art in 2001
• Aug 14 Most extensive face transplant surgery ever performed on Patrick Hardison by Dr. Eduardo Rodriguez at New York University Langone Medical Center
• Aug 15 North Korea creates its own time zone -moving its clocks back half an hour to GMT+8.5
• Aug 16 'Batman' samaritan Lenny B. Robinson is killed in a car accident in Maryland
• Aug 17 Bomb blast in Bangkok at Erawan Shrine kills at least 19, injures over 100
• Aug 17 Discovery of 7,000 year old mass grave in Schöneck-Kilianstädten, Central Germany, published in PNAS Journal. 26 bodies bear evidence of violent conflict
• Aug 17 World's first flower could be underwater plant Montsechia Vidalii claim US botanists (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)
• Aug 19 US Food and Drug administration approves Female Viagra libido pill Addyi
• Aug 20 30 students at West Point Military Academy are injured in a mass pillow fight
• Aug 21 1st British unmanned drone hit on a UK citizen outside a conflict - ISIS fighter Reyaad Khan in Raqqa, Syria
• Aug 21 After 108 years a "message in a bottle" put in the sea by UK Marine Biological Association is announced found on a beach in Amrum, Germany
• Aug 21 European Refugee Crisis: Germany makes it easier for Syrian refugees to claim asylum by suspending their Dublin Regulations
• Aug 21 Terrorist attack on train between Amsterdam and Paris thwarted by 4 passengers overpowering gunman
• Aug 22 A vintage Hawker Hunter plane crashes onto the A27 dual carriageway road during the Shoreham airshow in Britain killing at least 11
• Aug 23 12 year old boy trips and rips 17th-century painting "Flowers" by Paolo Porpora worth $1.5m at exhibition in Taiwan
• Aug 23 Destruction by IS of the 1st century AD temple of Baalshamin in ancient ruins of Palmyra confirmed by Syrian officials
• Aug 24 China stock market's "Black Monday", Shanghai Composite loses 8.5%, sending other international markets lower

• Aug 26 WDBJ TV reporter Alison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward are fatally shot live on TV by an ex-colleague in Moneta, Virginia

• Aug 27 Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos names top Supreme Court judge, Vassiliki Thanou caretaker Prime Minister - Greece's 1st female Prime Minister
• Aug 30 English author Frederick Forsyth (The Day of the Jackal) reveals that he worked for MI6 for more than 20 years

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