December 15 is the 349th day of the year (350th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 16 days remaining.

Events

• 533 - The Battle of Ticameron begins
• 687 - St. Sergius I becomes Pope
• 1791 - The United States Bill of Rights is passed
• 1891 - James Naismith introduces basketball
• 1914 - The Battle of Lodz ends; Russians retreat toward Moscow
• 1916 - France defeats Germany in Battle of Verdun
• 1939 - Gone With the Wind premiers in Atlanta, Georgia
• 1945 - General Douglas MacArthur orders end of Shinto as state religion of Japan
• 1961 - An Israeli war crimes tribunal sentences Adolph Eichmann to die for his part in the Jewish holocaust
• 1965 - Gemini program: Gemini 6A is launched
• 1976 - Samoa becomes a member of the UN
• 1994 - Netscape Navigator 1.0 is first released
• 1994 - Palau becomes a member of the UN.
• 1995 - The European Communities Court of Justice passes the Bosman ruling
• 1997 - A chartered Tupolev TU-154 from Tajikistan crashes in the desert near Sharja, United Arab Emirates airport killing 85
• 2002 - BBC 7, digital radio station is launched in UK

Births

• 37 - Nero, Roman emperor (d. 68)
• 130 - Lucius Verus, Roman emperor (d. 169)
• 1802 - János Bolyai, Hungarian mathematician
• 1832 - Gustave Eiffel, civil engineer (d. 1923)
• 1852 - Antoine Henri Becquerel, physicist and recipient of the Nobel Prize in physics 1903 (d. 1908)
• 1859 - L. L. Zamenhof, initiator of Esperanto (d. 1917)
• 1860 - Niels Ryberg Finsen, Danish physician (d. 1904)
• 1861 - Charles Duryea, automobile pioneer (d. 1938)
• 1888 - Maxwell Anderson, writer (d. 1959)
• 1892 - J. Paul Getty, oil tycoon (d. 1976)
• 1899 - Harold Abrahams, British athlete (d. 1978)
• 1907 - Oscar Niemeyer, Brazilian architect
• 1910 - John Hammond, musician (d. 1987)
• 1912 - Ray Eames, American designer (d. 1988)
• 1912 - Stan Kenton, musician (d. 1979)
• 1916 - Buddy Cole, pianist (d. 1964)
• 1918 - Jeff Chandler, actor (d. 1961)
• 1922 - Alan Freed, disc jockey (d. 1965)
• 1923 - Freeman Dyson, physicist
• 1928 - Friedensreich Hundertwasser, painter and graphic artist (d. 2000)
• 1933 - Tim Conway, actor, comedian
• 1938 - Michael Bogdanov, film director and theatre manager
• 1938 - Billy Shaw, Pro Football Hall of Famer
• 1939 - Cindy Birdsong, singer, member of the Supremes
• 1942 - Dave Clark, musician ("Dave Clark Five")
• 1949 - Don Johnson, actor (Miami Vice)
• 1952 - Cassandra Harris Australian actress (d. 1991)
• 1955 - Paul Simonon, musician
• 1968 - Javid Hussain, film producer
• 1969 - Rick Law, illustrator, producer
• 1973 - Surya Bonaly, figure skater
• 1976 - Baichung Bhutia, football player

Deaths

• 1025 - Basil II, Byzantine emperor (b. 958)
• 1072 - Alp Arslan, Seljuk sultan (b. 1029)
• 1263 - King Haakon IV of Norway (b. 1204)
• 1683 - Izaak Walton, writer (b. 1593)
• 1792 - Joseph Martin Kraus, composer (b. 1756)
• 1816 - Charles Stanhope, engineer, inventor of the calculator
• 1872 - Mary Anne Evans, wife of Benjamin Disraeli (b. 1792)
• 1890 - Sitting Bull, Sioux nation leader (b. c.1831)
• 1943 - Fats Waller, musician (b. 1904)
• 1944 - Glenn Miller, bandleader (presumed date) (b. 1904)
• 1958 - Wolfgang Ernst Pauli, physicist (b. 1900)
• 1966 - Walt Disney, animator, cartoonist (b. 1901)
• 1968 - Jess Willard, boxer
• 1975 - Anatole Litvak, writer
• 1984 - Jan Peerce, American tenor (b. 1904)
• 1991 - Vasily Zaitsev, Soviet sniper, World War II hero.
• 2001 - Rufus Thomas, musician (b. 1917)
• 2003 - Johnny Cunningham, Scottish musician, member of Silly Wizard
• 2003 - George Fisher, American political cartoonist
• 2003 - Keith Magnuson, National Hockey League player (car accident)
• 2004 - Chiang Fang-liang, the widow of Chiang Ching-kuo and the First Lady of the Republic of China on Taiwan from 1978 to 1988.

Holidays and observances

• Roman Empire - Consualia in honor of Consus is held.
• Feast day of St. Valerian, martyred in 457

December 14 - December 16 - November 15 - January 15 -- listing of all days