TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – AUG 15
1057 Macbeth, king of Scotland, was killed by Malcolm Canmore.
1261 Constantinople falls to Michael VIII of Nicea and his army.
1461 Empire of Trebizond surrenders to forces of Sultan Mehmet II – last Byzantine Empire remnant to fall. Emperor David exiled and later murdered.
1598 Hugh O’Neill, the Earl of Tyrone, leads an Irish force to victory over the British at Battle of Yellow Ford.
1748 United Lutheran Church of US organized
1872 The first ballot voting in England is conducted.
1911 Proctor & Gamble Company introduced Crisco vegetable shortening.
1914 The Panama Canal opens to traffic.
1942 The Japanese submarine I-25 departs Japan with a floatplane in its hold which will be assembled upon arriving off the West Coast of the United States, and used to bomb U.S. forests.
1947 India gains independence from Great Britain, remains a dominion until 1950
1969 Over 400,000 young people attend a weekend of rock music at Woodstock, New York.
1971 US President Richard Nixon announces a 90-day freeze on wages and prices in an attempt to halt rapid inflation.
1973 US involvement in Vietnam ends The Case–Church Amendment passed by the US Congress set August 15 as the deadline for the end of the US military involvement in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.
1986 Ignoring objections from President Ronald Reagan’s Administration, US Senate approves economic sanctions against South Africa to protest that country’s apartheid policies.
1994 US Social Security Administration, previously part of the Department of Health and Human Services, becomes an independent government agency.
1998 Omagh bombing in Northern Ireland, the worst terrorist incident of The Troubles, kills 29 people and injures about 220
2001 Astronomers announce the first solar system discovered outside our own; two planets had been found orbiting a star in the Big Dipper.
2015 North Korea Introduces Pyongyang Time The East Asian country introduced the time change to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the end of the Japanese occupation of Korea
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
