TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON: AUGUST 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.
1620 Mayflower sets sail from Southampton with 102 Pilgrims
1872 The first ballot voting in England is conducted.
1877 Thomas Edison wrote to the president of the Telegraph Company in Pittsburgh, PA. The letter stated that the word, “hello” would be a more appropriate greeting than “ahoy” when answering the telephone.
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.
1945 Gasoline and fuel oil rationing ends in the United States.
1947 Britain grants independence to India and Pakistan.
1948 The Republic of Korea was proclaimed.
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.
1994 US Social Security Administration, previously part of the Department of Health and Human Services, becomes an independent government agency.
1997 The U.S. Justice Department decided not to prosecute FBI officials in connection with the deadly 1992 Ruby Ridge siege in Idaho. The investigation dealt with an alleged cover-up.
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 began using UTC+08:30 (official name Pyongyang Time) as a rejection of Japanese imperialism.
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
