November 15

November 15 is the 319th day of the year (320th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 46 days remaining until the end of the year.

Events

Up to 1900

655 – Oswiu of Northumbria defeats Penda of Mercia in the Battle of the Winwaed.
1315 – Battle of Morgarten: The Swiss "Eidgenossen" defeat the Habsburgs.
1532 – Commanded by Francisco Pizarro, Spanish conquistadors led by Hernando de Soto meet Inca Emperor Atahualpa for the first time outside Cajamarca, arranging a meeting in the city plaza the following day.
1533 – Francisco Pizarro arrived in Cuzco, capital of the Inca Empire, before plundering the city and setting it on fire.
1688 – William III lands at Brixham, starting the Glorious Revolution.
1777 – After 16 months of debate the Continental Congress approved the Articles of Confederation.
1806 – Pike expedition: Lieutenant Zebulon Pike saw a distant peak while near the Colorado foothills of the Rocky Mountains. It is later named Pikes Peak.
1825 – King John V of Portugal recognised the independence of Brazil.
1859 – The first modern revival of the Olympics took place in Athens, Greece.
1864 – Union General William Tecumseh Sherman burns Atlanta, Georgia and starts Sherman's March to the Sea.
1889 – Brazil is declared a republic by Marechal Deodoro da Fonseca and Emperor Pedro II is removed from power in a military coup. The pattern of stars on the night of this date is now included on the Flag of Brazil.

1901 – 2000

1908 – Colonialism: King Leopold II of Belgium sells the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the Belgian state.
1920 – First assembly of the League of Nations is held in Geneva.
1922 – Over 1,000 people are massacred during a General Strike in Guayaquil, Ecuador.
1926 – The NBC radio network opens with 24 stations.
1928 – The RNLI lifeboat Mary Stanford capsized in Rye Harbour with the loss of the entire 17–man crew.
1935 – Manuel L. Quezon became President of the Philippines.
1935 – Canada and the United States sign a trade agreement in Washington.
1939 – In Washington, D.C., US President Franklin D. Roosevelt lays the cornerstone of the Jefferson Memorial.
1940 – A wall is built around the Warsaw Ghetto.
1941 – Holocaust: SS chief Heinrich Himmler orders the arrest and deportation to concentration camps of all homosexuals in Germany, with the exception of certain top Nazi officials.
1942 – World War II: The Naval Battle of Guadalcanal ends in a Allied victory.
1943 – Holocaust: German SS leader Heinrich Himmler orders that Gypsies were to be put "on the same level as Jews and placed in concentration camps".
1945 – Venezuela joins the UN.
1948 – Louis Stephen St. Laurent succeeds William Lyon Mackenzie King as Prime Minister of Canada.
1949 – Nathuram Godse and Narayan Apte are executed for assassinating Mahatma Gandhi.
1953 – The sugar spreader is patented in West Germany.
1955 – The Liberal Democratic Party of Japan is founded. It ends up governing Japan continuously until 1993.
1960 – Basketball: An NBA record is set when Elgin Baylor of the New York Knicks scored 71 points in a single game.
1960 – A train crash in Pardubice, Czechoslovakia (now–Czech Republic) kills 110 people.
1966 – The Gemini 12 space probe splashed into the Atlantic Ocean, at the end of the Gemini program.
1966 – A Boeing 727 carrying Pan Am Flight 708 crashed near Berlin, killing all the 3 people on board.
1969 – Vietnam War: In Washington, D.C., 250,000–500,000 protesters staged a peaceful demonstration against the war.
1971 – Intel released the world's first commercial single–chip microprocessor, the 4004.
1976 – Rene Levesque became Premier of Quebec.
1978 – A chartered Douglas DC–8 airplane crashed near Colombo, Sri Lanka.
1983 – Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus is founded.
1985 – The Anglo-Irish Agreement is signed by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Irish Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald.
1987 – Continental Airlines Flight 1713, a Douglas–9–14 jetliner, crashed in a snowstorm at Stapleton International Airport, Denver, Colorado, killing 28 people, with 54 surviving.
1987 – In Brasov, Romania, workers rebel against the Communist regime of Nicolae Ceausescu.
1988 – An independent State of Palestine is proclaimed by the Palestinian National Council.
1988 – The first Fairtrade label, Max Havelaar, is launched in the Netherlands.
1990 – A new republican form of government is created in Bulgaria.
1990 – Space Shuttle Atlantis launched with Flight STS–38.
1990 – Producers admit that Milli Vanilli, who won the 1990 "Best New Artist" Grammy Award, did not sing on their album.
2000 – A chartered Antonov An–24 crashed after take–off from Luanda, Angola, killing over 40 people.
2000 – In India, the new state of Jharkhand is created, out of the southern part of the state of Bihar.

From 2001

2002 – Hu Jintao became general secretary of the Communist Party of China.
2003 – In Istanbul, two synagogues are bombed, killing 25 people.
2005 – Boeing officially launched the stretched Boeing 747–8.
2006 – Al Jazeera English news channel launched worldwide.
2007 – Tropical Cyclone Sidr hits Bangladesh, killing around 5000 people. It also caused a large amount of destruction to the Sundarbans mangrove forest.
2012 – Xi Jinping is announced as the next general secretary of the Communist Party of China, expected to lead China until 2022.
2017 – The military took over in Zimbabwe as President Robert Mugabe is placed under house arrest.
2017 – It is announced that a postal survey in Australia resulted in 61.6% of participating voters supporting same-sex marriage.
2017 – The Scottish Government is allowed to introduce a minimum price for alcohol after a ruling following a long–running court case. This would make Scotland the first country in the world to introduce this policy.
2017 – Leonardo da Vinci's painting "Salvator Mundi" sells for 450 million United States dollars at auction in New York City, smashing the previous record for a work of art in such a sale.
2017 – Argentine submarine "ARA San Juan" was lost off the coast of southern Argentina, with 44 people on board.
2018 – In the United Kingdom, several government ministers resign over Prime Minister Theresa May's proposed Brexit deal, including Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab and Work and Pensions Secretary Esther McVey.

Births

Deaths

Up to 1900

655 – Penda, King of Mercia
1028 – Constantine VIII, Byzantine Emperor (b. 960)
1136 – Leopold III, Margrave of Austria (b. 1073)
1210 – Ly Cap Tong, King of the Ly Dynasty of Vietnam (b. 1173)
1280 – Albertus Magnus, German theologian, bishop and philosopher
1544 – King Jungjong of Joseon of Korea (b. 1506)
1594 – Martin Frobisher, English explorer (b. 1539)
1630 – Johannes Kepler, German astronomer and mathematician (b. 1571)
1670 – John Amos Comenius, Czech writer (b. 1592)
1706 – Tsangyang Gyatso, 6th Dalai Lama (b. 1683)
1712 – James Hamilton, 4th Duke of Hamilton, Scottish general and politician (b. 1658)
1712 – Charles Mohun, 4th Baron Mohun, English politician (b. 1675)
1787 – Christoph Willibald Gluck, German composer (b. 1714)
1794 – John Witherspoon, American signer of the Declaration of Independence (b. 1723)
1819 – Daniel Rutherford, Scottish chemist and physician (b. 1749)
1832 – Jean-Baptiste Say, French economist (b. 1767)
1839 – William Murdoch, Scottish engineer and inventor (b. 1754)
1853 – Maria II of Portugal (b. 1819)

1901 – 2000

1908 – Empress Dowager Cixi of China (b. 1835)
1910 – Wilhelm Raabe, German writer (b. 1831)
1914 – Harry Turner, American baseball player
1916 – Henryk Sienkiewicz, Polish writer (b. 1846)
1917 – Émile Durkheim, French sociologist (b. 1858)
1919 – Alfred Werner, German chemist (b. 1866)
1919 – Mohammad Farid, Egyptian politician (b. 1868)
1922 – Dimitrios Gounaris, Greek politician (b. 1866)
1922 – Georgios Hatzianestis, Greek general (b. 1863)
1922 – Petros Protopapadakis, Greek politician (b. 1854)
1922 – Nikolaos Stratos, Greek politician (b. 1872)
1949 – Nathuram Godse and Narayan Apte, conspirators against Mahatma Gandhi
1954 – Lionel Barrymore, American actor (b. 1879)
1958 – Tyrone Power, American actor (b. 1914)
1959 – Charles Thomson Rees Wilson, Scottish physicist (b. 1869)
1961 – Elsie Ferguson, American actress (b. 1883)
1963 – Fritz Reiner, Hungarian conductor (b. 1888)
1967 – Michael J. Adams, American test pilot (b. 1930)
1976 – Jean Gabin, French actor (b. 1904)
1978 – Margaret Mead, American anthropologist (b. 1901)
1980 – Emilio Pujol, Catalan guitarist and composer (b. 1886)
1982 – Vinoba Bhave, Indian Human rights advocate (b. 1895)
1983 – John Le Mesurier, English actor (b. 1912)
1988 – Archbishop Ieronymos I of Athens, Greek Orthodox Archbishop of Athens (b. 1905)
1996 – Alger Hiss, American government official and spy (b. 1904)
1998 – Stokely Carmichael, American Civil rights activist (b. 1941)
2000 – Piero Pasinati, Italian footballer (b. 1910)

From 2001

2002 – Myra Hindley, English murderer (b. 1942)
2003 – Dorothy Loudon, American actress (b. 1933)
2003 – Speedy West, American musician (b. 1924)
2004 – Elmer L. Anderson, American politician (b. 1909)
2006 – Ana Carolina Reston, Brazilian fashion model (b. 1985)
2007 – Joe Nuxhall, American baseball player (b. 1928)
2009 – Pavle, Serbian Patriarch (b. 1914)
2009 – Pierre Harmel, Prime Minister of Belgium (b. 1911)
2010 – Larry Evans, American chess player (b. 1932)
2011 – Oba Chandler, American murderer (b. 1946)
2011 – Dulcie Gray, British actress (b. 1915)
2013 – Glafcos Clerides, 4th President of Cyprus (b. 1919)
2013 – Raimondo D'Inzeo, Italian equestrian show jumper (b. 1925)
2014 – Lucien Clergue, French photographer (b. 1934)
2014 – Reg Withers, Australian politician (b. 1924)
2014 – Valéry Mézague, Cameroonian footballer (b. 1983)
2015 – Moira Orfei, Italian actress (b. 1931)
2015 – Vincent Margera, American television personality (b. 1956)
2015 – Saeed Jaffrey, Indian actor (b. 1929)
2015 – Herbert Scarf, American mathematician (b. 1930)
2015 – Dora Doll, French actress (b. 1922)
2015 – Nicoletta Machiavelli, Italian actress (b. 1944)
2016 – Mose Allison, American jazz musician (b. 1927)
2016 – Sixto Durán Ballén, 37th President of Ecuador (b. 1921)
2017 – Luis Bacalov, Argentine–Italian film score composer (b. 1933)
2017 – Keith Barron, English actor (b. 1934)
2017 – Françoise Héritier, French anthropologist and feminist (b. 1933)
2017 – Frans Krajcberg, Polish–Brazilian artist (b. 1921)
2017 – Lil Peep, American singer and rapper (b. 1996)
2018 – John Bluthal, Polish–born British–Australian actor (b. 1929)
2018 – Roy Clark, American country music singer and television host (b. 1933)
2018 – Adolf Grünbaum, German–American science professor (b. 1923)
2018 – Zhores Medvedev, Russian agronomist, biologist and dissident (b. 1925)
2018 – Mike Noble, British comic artist and cartoonist (b. 1930)
2018 – Luigi Rossi di Montelera, Italian businessman and politician (b. 1946)
2018 – Aldyr Schlee, Brazilian writer, journalist, translator, illustrator and professor (b. 1934)
2018 – Sigmund Steinnes, Norwegian politician (b. 1959)
2019 – Mark Cady, American judge (b. 1953)
2019 – Jim Coates, American baseball player (b. 1932)
2019 – Harrison Dillard, American athlete (b. 1923)
2019 – Vladimir Hotineanu, Moldovan politician (b. 1950)
2019 – Irv Noren, American baseball player (b. 1924)
2019 – Juliusz Paetz, Polish archbishop (b. 1935)
2024 – Yuriko, Princess Mikasa, member of the Imperial House of Japan as widow of Takahito, Prince Mikasa (b. 1923)

Holidays and observances

Brazil – Republic Proclamation Day (1889)
Palestine – Independence Day (declared 1988)
Japan – Shichi-Go-San – traditional rite of passage and festival day for three and seven–year–old girls and three and five–year–old boys
Belgium
- Day of the German-speaking Community
- King's Feast
Eastern Orthodox Christianity – beginning of Winter Lent

November 15

Events

Up to 1900

1901 – 2000

From 2001

Births

Up to 1900

1901 – 1950

1951 – 1975

From 1976

Deaths

Up to 1900

1901 – 2000

From 2001

Holidays and observances