Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/January 15
This is a list of selected January 15 anniversaries that appear in the "On this day" section of the Main Page. To suggest a new item, in most cases, you can be bold and edit this page. Please read the selected anniversaries guidelines before making your edit. However, if your addition might be controversial or on a day that is or will soon be on the Main Page, please post your suggestion on the talk page instead.
Please note that the events listed on the Main Page are chosen based more on relative article quality and to maintain a mix of topics, not based solely on how important or significant their subjects are. Only four to five events are posted at a time and thus not everything that is "most important and significant" can be listed. In addition, an event is generally not posted this year if it is also the subject of the scheduled featured article or picture of the day.
To report an error when this appears on the Main Page, see Main Page errors. Please remember that this list defers to the supporting articles, so it is best to achieve consensus and make any necessary changes there first.
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Images
Use only ONE image at a time
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British Museum, London -
Damage caused by the Boston Molasses Disaster -
Wilson Bentley takes a snowflake photograph -
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Aerial view of the Pentagon -
USS President
Ineligible
| Blurb | Reason |
|---|---|
| Army Day and Jallikattu in India; | Armed Forces Day: refimprove; Jallikattu: {{cleanup-rewrite}} |
| Armed Forces Day in Nigeria; | refimprove |
| 1919 – Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, two prominent socialists in Germany, were tortured and murdered by the Freikorps. | both {{refimprove}} |
| 1947 – The brutalized corpse of the Black Dahlia, a 22-year-old American woman who was the victim of a gruesome and much-publicized murder, was found in Leimert Park, Los Angeles, California. | refimprove section |
| 1999 – Yugoslav forces massacred 45 Kosovo Albanians in the village of Račak, one of the main causes of the subsequent NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. | multiple issues |
Eligible
- 1777 – The Republic of New Connecticut (precursor of Vermont) declared its independence from several jurisdictions and land claims of the British colonies of New Hampshire and New York.
- 1865 – American Civil War: The Union Army captured Fort Fisher, the last seaport of the Confederacy.
- 1885 – American photographer Wilson Bentley took the first known photograph of a snowflake by attaching a bellows camera to a microscope.
- 1908 – Alpha Kappa Alpha, the first Greek-lettered sorority established and incorporated by African American college women, was founded at Howard University in Washington, D.C., by nine students.
- 1910 – Construction on the Buffalo Bill Dam on the Shoshone River in the US state of Wyoming, then the tallest dam in the world, was completed.
- 1919 – A large molasses tank in Boston, Massachusetts, burst and a wave of molasses rushed through the streets, killing 21 people and injuring 150 others.
- 1937 – Spanish Civil War: Nationalists and Republican forces both withdrew after suffering heavy losses, ending the Second Battle of the Corunna Road.
- 1943 – The highest-capacity office building in the world, the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense known as the Pentagon, was dedicated.
- 1967 – The Green Bay Packers defeated the Kansas City Chiefs in the American football championship game now known as Super Bowl I.
- 1974 – American serial killer Dennis Rader blinded, tortured, and killed his first three victims, earning him the nickname "BTK killer".
- 1975 – Portugal signed the Alvor Agreement with UNITA, the MPLA, and the FNLA, ending the Angolan War of Independence.
- 1981 – Hill Street Blues, one of American television's most critically acclaimed shows, aired its pilot episode, "Hill Street Station".
- 1991 – Elizabeth II, as Queen of Australia, signed letters patent allowing Australia to become the first Commonwealth realm to institute its own separate Victoria Cross award in its own honours system.
- 1993 – Salvatore "The Beast" Riina, one of the most powerful members of the Sicilian Mafia, was arrested after three decades as a fugitive.
January 15: John Chilembwe Day in Malawi; Korean Alphabet Day in North Korea
- 1759 – The British Museum (pictured) in London, today containing one of the largest and most comprehensive collections in the world, opened to the public in Montagu House, Bloomsbury.
- 1815 – War of 1812: American frigate USS President, commanded by Commodore Stephen Decatur, was captured by a squadron of four British frigates.
- 1933 – A teenage girl in Banneux, Belgium, reported the first of several Marian apparitions, now known as Our Lady of Banneux.
- 1951 – Ilse Koch, the wife of the commandant of the Buchenwald and Majdanek concentration camps, was sentenced to life imprisonment by a West German court.
- 2009 – After US Airways Flight 1549 struck a flock of Canada geese during its initial climb out from New York City, Captain Chesley Sullenberger successfully made an emergency landing in the Hudson River.