1915 In The British Empire

Events

Below, the events of World War I have the "WWI" prefix.

January

*January – British physicist Sir Joseph Larmor publishes his observations on "The Influence of Local Atmospheric Cooling on Astronomical Refraction".
* January 1
** WWI: British Royal Navy battleship HMS ''Formidable'' is sunk off Lyme Regis, Dorset, England, by an Imperial German Navy U-boat, with the loss of 547 crew.
** Battle of Broken Hill: A train ambush near Broken Hill, New South Wales, Australia, is carried out by two men (claiming to be in support of the Ottoman Empire) who are killed, together with 4 civilians.
* January 5 – Joseph E. Carberry sets an altitude record of , carrying Capt. Benjamin Delahauf Foulois as a passenger, in a fixed-wing aircraft.
* January 12
** The United States House of Representatives rejects a proposal to give women the right to vote.
** ''A Fool There Was'' premières in the United States, starring Theda Bara as a ''femme fatale''; she quickly becomes one of early cinema's most sensational stars.
* January 17 – WWI: Caucasus Campaign – Battle of Sarikamish: Russia defeats Ottoman Turkey.
* January 18 – Twenty-One Demands from Japan to China are made.
* January 19
** Georges Claude patents the neon discharge tube for use in advertising.
** WWI: German Zeppelins bomb the coastal towns of Great Yarmouth and King's Lynn in England for the first time, killing more than 20.
* January 21 – Kiwanis is founded in Detroit, Michigan, as The Supreme Lodge Benevolent Order Brothers.
* January 23 – Chilembwe uprising: Baptist minister John Chilembwe initiates an ultimately unsuccessful uprising against British colonial rule in Nyasaland (modern-day Malawi).
* January 24 – WWI: Battle of Dogger Bank: The British Grand Fleet defeats the German High Seas Fleet, sinking the armoured cruiser .
* January 25 - The first United States coast-to-coast long-distance telephone call is facilitated by a newly invented vacuum tube amplifier, ceremonially inaugurated by Alexander Graham Bell in New York City and his former assistant Thomas A. Watson, in San Francisco, California.
* January 26
** WWI: The Ottoman Army begins the Raid on the Suez Canal.
** The Rocky Mountain National Park is established by an act of the United States Congress.
* January 27 – WWI: French military casualties begin arriving at the Hôpital Temporaire d'Arc-en-Barrois, established earlier in the month by British volunteers.
* January 28 – An act of the United States Congress designates the United States Coast Guard, began in 1790, as a military branch.
* January 31 – WWI: Battle of Bolimów – Germany's first large-scale use of poison gas as a weapon occurs, when 18,000 artillery shells containing liquid xylyl bromide tear gas are fired on the Imperial Russian Army, on the Rawka River west of Warsaw; however, freezing temperatures prevent it being effective.

February

* February – While working as a cook at New York's Sloane Hospital for Women under an assumed name, "Typhoid Mary" (an asymptomatic carrier of typhoid fever) infects 25 people, and is placed in quarantine for life on March 27.
* February 4 – The Maritz Rebellion of disaffected Boers against the government of the Union of South Africa ends with the surrender of the remaining rebels.
* February 8 – The controversial film '' The Birth of a Nation'', directed by D. W. Griffith, premieres in Los Angeles. It will be the highest-grossing film for around 25 years.
* February 18 – WWI: Germany regards the waters around the British Isles to be a war zone from this date, as part of its U-boat Campaign.
* February 20 – In San Francisco, the Panama–Pacific International Exposition is opened.
* February 25 – Armenian genocide: The Ottoman Empire transfers Armenians from its armed forces to unarmed Ottoman labour battalions.

March

* March – The 1915 Palestine locust infestation breaks out in Palestine; it continues until October.
* March 1 - The first issue of the La Boheme Magazine was published in Russia.
* March 2 – Armenian genocide: Earliest recorded deportations.
* March 3 – The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, the predecessor of NASA, is founded in the United States.
* March 8 - New York City Fire Department Rescue Company 1 is put in Service by the New York City Fire Department.
* March 10– 13 – WWI: Battle of Neuve Chapelle – In the first deliberately planned British offensive of the war, British Indian troops overrun German positions in France, but are unable to sustain the advance.
* March 11 – WWI: British armed merchantman is sunk in the North Channel off the coast of Scotland by Imperial German Navy U-boat '' SM U-27''. Around 200 crew are lost, a number of bodies being washed up on the Isle of Man, with only 26 saved.
* March 14 – WWI:
** Battle of Más a Tierra: Off the coast of Chile, the British Royal Navy forces the Imperial German Navy light cruiser SMS ''Dresden'' (last survivor of the German East Asia Squadron) to scuttle.
** Constantinople Agreement: Britain, France and the Russian Empire agree to give Constantinople (Istanbul) and the Bosphorus to Russia in case of victory (the treaty is later nullified by the Bolshevik Revolution).
* March 18 – WWI:
** Gallipoli campaign: A Franco-British naval attack on the Dardanelles fails.
** British Royal Navy battleship sinks German submarine ''U-29'' with all hands in the Pentland Firth off the coast of Scotland by ramming her, the only time this tactic is known to have been successfully used by a battleship.
* March 19 – Pluto is photographed for the first time, but is not classified as a planet.
* March 26 – The Vancouver Millionaires win the Stanley Cup in ice hockey over the Ottawa Senators, 3 games to 0.
* March 28 – The first Roman Catholic liturgy at the newly consecrated Cathedral of Saint Paul, Minnesota, is celebrated by Archbishop John Ireland.

April

* April 5 – Boxer Jess Willard, the latest "Great White Hope", defeats Jack Johnson with a 26th-round knockout in sweltering heat, at Havana, Cuba. Willard becomes very popular among white Americans, for "bringing back the championship to the white race".
* April 11 – Charlie Chaplin's film '' The Tramp'' is released in the United States.
* April 19 – The Armenian genocide begins at scale with the defense of Van, continuing to May 17, during which time 55,000 civilians from the Ottoman Armenian population of Van Vilayet will be massacred by Turkish Ottoman forces.
* April 22 – WWI: Start of Second Battle of Ypres – Germany makes its first large scale use of poison gas on the Western Front.
* April 24 – Armenian genocide: deportation of Armenian notables from Istanbul begins.
* April 25 – WWI: Start of the Gallipoli Campaign by land forces (lasting until January 1916) – A landing at Anzac Cove is conducted by Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, and a landing at Cape Helles by British and French troops, to begin the Allied invasion of the Gallipoli peninsula in the Ottoman Empire.

* April 26 – Treaty of London: Italy secretly agrees to leave the Triple Alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary, and join with the Entente Powers, in exchange for certain territories of Austria-Hungary on its borders.

May

* May 1 – WWI:
** General Louis Botha, Prime Minister of South Africa, leads the army in the occupation of German South West Africa.
** The Battle of Gorlice begins. It is one of the bloodiest battles of World War I.
* May 3 – Canadian soldier John McCrae writes the poem " In Flanders Fields".
* May 5 – WWI: Forces of the Ottoman Empire begin shelling ANZAC Cove from a new position behind their lines.
* May 6 – Baseball player Babe Ruth hits his first career home run (off Jack Warhop), for the Boston Red Sox.
* May 6 – Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition: The SY ''Aurora'' broke loose from its anchorage during a gale, beginning a 312-day ordeal.
* May 7 – WWI: Sinking of the RMS ''Lusitania'': 's main rival, the British ocean liner , is sunk by Imperial German Navy U-boat '' U-20'' off the south-west coast of Ireland, killing 1,198 civilians en route from New York City to Liverpool. The best-known of the celebrities on board was Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt. American sportsman (b. 1877)
* May 9 – WWI – Second Battle of Artois: German and French forces fight to a standstill; German forces defeat the British at the Battle of Aubers Ridge.
* May 17 – The last purely Liberal government in the United Kingdom ends, when the prime minister H. H. Asquith forms an all-party coalition government, the Asquith coalition ministry, effective May 25.
* May 19 – WWI: The third attack on Anzac Cove by Ottoman forces is repelled by the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps.
* May 22
** Quintinshill rail disaster in Scotland: The collision and fire kill 226, mostly troops, the largest number of fatalities in a rail accident in the United Kingdom.
** Lassen Peak, one of the Cascade Volcanoes in California, erupts, sending an ash plume 30,000 feet in the air, and devastating the nearby area with pyroclastic flows and lahars. It is the only volcano to erupt in the contiguous United States this century, until the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens.
* May 23 – WWI: Italy joins the Allies after declaring war on Austria-Hungary.
* May 25 – China agrees to the Twenty-One Demands of the Japanese.
* May 27 – Armenian genocide: The Tehcir Law is promulgated by the Turkish Ottoman Empire authorizing deportation of the Ottoman Armenian population to Deir ez-Zor in the Syrian desert, leading to the deaths of anywhere between 800,000 and over 1,500,000 civilians and confiscation of their property.
* May 28 – International Congress of Women meet at the Hague as a major peace initiative.
* May 29 – Teófilo Braga becomes president of Portugal.

June

* June – Armenian genocide: 15,000 civilians from the Ottoman Armenian population of Bitlis are massacred by Ottoman Turks and Kurds.
* June 3 – Mexican Revolution: Troops of Álvaro Obregón and Pancho Villa clash at León; Obregón loses his right arm in a grenade attack, but Villa is decisively defeated.
* June 5 – Women's suffrage in national elections is introduced in Denmark.
* June 9 – U.S. Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan resigns over a disagreement regarding his nation's handling of the sinking of the RMS ''Lusitania''.
* June 11 – Friar Leonard Melki and hundreds of other Christians are driven out of Mardin and massacred by Ottoman troops.
* June 16 – Women's Institutes are established in Britain.
* June 19 – In Iceland, at this time a dependency of Denmark:
** Women's suffrage is granted to those over 40.
** The modern civil flag of Iceland is adopted officially.
* June 22 – WWI: The Battle of Gorlice ends in the victory of the Central Powers.

July

* July
** WWI: South West Africa Campaign – The Union of South Africa occupies German South West Africa with assistance from Canada, the United Kingdom, the Portuguese Republic and Portuguese Angola. South Africa will occupy South West Africa until March 1990.
** Armenian genocide: 17,000 civilians from the Ottoman Armenian population of Trebizond are massacred by Ottoman Turks.
* July 1 – WWI: In aerial warfare, German fighter pilot Kurt Wintgens becomes the first person to shoot down another plane, using a machine gun equipped with synchronization gear.
* July 7
** An extremely overloaded International Railway (New York–Ontario) trolleycar with 157 passengers crashes near Queenston, Ontario, resulting in 15 casualties.
** Sinhalese militia captain Henry Pedris is executed in British Ceylon for inciting race riots, a charge later proved false; he becomes a hero of the Sri Lankan independence movement.
* July 9 – WWI: Theodore Seitz, governor of German South West Africa, surrenders to General Louis Botha, between Otavi and Tsumeb.
* July 11 – WWI: Battle of Rufiji Delta – German cruiser is forced to scuttle in the Rufiji River, German East Africa (present-day Tanzania).
* July 14 – The McMahon–Hussein Correspondence between Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca and the British official Henry McMahon concerning the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire begins; in exchange for assistance against the Ottomans, the British offer bin Ali their recognition of an independent Arab kingdom, although clear terms are never agreed.
* July 22 – WWI: The " Great Retreat" is ordered on the Eastern Front; Russian forces pull back out of Poland (at this time part of the Russian Empire), taking machinery and equipment with them.
* July 24 – Steamer capsizes in central Chicago, with the loss of 844 lives.
* July 28 – The American occupation of Haiti (1915–34) begins.

August

* August 5– 23 – Hurricane Two of the 1915 Atlantic hurricane season over Galveston and New Orleans leaves 275 dead.
* August 6 – WWI: Battle of Sari Bair – The Allies mount a diversionary attack timed to coincide with a major Allied landing of reinforcements at Suvla Bay.
* August 16 – WWI: The Allies promises the Kingdom of Serbia, should victory be achieved over Austria-Hungary and its allied Central Powers, the territories of Baranja, Srem and Slavonia from the Cisleithanian part of the Dual Monarchy, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and eastern Dalmatia (from the river of Krka to Bar).

September

* September 5 – The Zimmerwald Conference begins in Switzerland.
* September 6 – The prototype military tank is first tested by the British Army.
* September 7 – Crtoonist John B. Gruelle is given a patent for his '' Raggedy Ann'' doll.
* September 8 – WWI: A Zeppelin raid destroys No. 61 Farringdon Road, London; it is rebuilt in 1917, and called The Zeppelin Building.
* September 11 – The Pennsylvania Railroad begins electrified commuter rail service between Paoli and Philadelphia, using overhead AC trolley wires for power. This type of system is later used in long-distance passenger trains between New York City, Washington, D.C., and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
* September 12 – French soldiers rescue over 4,000 Armenian genocide survivors stranded on Musa Dagh, a mountain in the Hatay province of Turkey.
* September 25– October 14 – WWI: Battle of Loos – British forces take the French town of Loos, but with substantial casualties, and are unable to press their advantage. This is the first time the British use poison gas in World War I, and also their first large-scale use of 'New' (or Kitchener's Army) units.
* September 30 – WWI: Serbian Army private Radoje Ljutovac becomes the first soldier in history to shoot down an enemy aircraft, with ground-to-air fire.

October

* October – Franz Kafka's novella '' The Metamorphosis'' (''Die Verwandlung'') is first published in Germany.
* October 12 – WWI: British nurse Edith Cavell is executed by a German firing squad, for helping Allied soldiers escape from Belgium.
* October 15 – WWI: Serbian Campaign – Austria-Hungary invades the Kingdom of Serbia. Bulgaria enters the war, also invading Serbia. The Serbian First Army retreats towards Greece.
* October 16 – WWI: France declares war on Bulgaria.
* October 19
** WWI: Russia and Italy declare war on Bulgaria.
** Mexican Revolution: The U.S. recognizes the Mexican government of Venustiano Carranza '' de facto'' (not '' de jure'' until 1917).
* October 21 – The United Daughters of the Confederacy holds its first annual meeting outside the South, in San Francisco. Historian General Mildred Rutherford addresses the gathering on the "Historical Sins of Omission & Commission", of Yankee historians.
* October 23 – WWI: The torpedoing of armored cruiser results in only 3 men being rescued from a crew of 675, the greatest single loss of life for the Imperial German Navy in the Baltic Sea during the war.
* October 25 – Lyda Conley, the first American Indian woman to appear before the Supreme Court of the United States as a lawyer, is admitted to practice there.
* October 27 – William Morris "Billy" Hughes becomes the 7th Prime Minister of Australia.
* October 28 – St. Johns School fire: Fire at St. John's School in Peabody, Massachusetts, claims the lives of 21 girls between the ages of 7 and 17.

November

* November 2 – PSM Makassar is founded as Makassar Voetbal Bond, making it the oldest Indonesian association football club.
* November 18 – The U.S. silent film ''Inspiration'', the first mainstream movie in which a leading actress (Audrey Munson) appears nude, is released.
* November 21 – British polar exploration ship '' Endurance'' finally breaks apart from pressure of ice around it and sinks into the Weddell Sea, stranding Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition party in the Antarctic. The wreck is discovered at a depth of 3,008 metres (9,869 ft), 107 years later in 2022.
* November 23 – The '' Triangle Film Corporation'' opens its new motion picture theater in Massillon, Ohio.
* November 24 – William J. Simmons revives the American Civil War era Ku Klux Klan at Stone Mountain, Georgia.
* November 25 – Albert Einstein presents part of his theory of general relativity to the Prussian Academy of Sciences.

December

* December 10 – The 1 millionth Ford car rolls off the assembly line, at the River Rouge Plant in Detroit, Michigan.
* December 12 – President of the Republic of China Yuan Shikai declares himself Emperor.
* December 18 – United States President Woodrow Wilson marries Edith B. Galt, in Washington, D.C.
* December 23 – HMHS ''Britannic'', which will be the largest British ship lost in WWI (though with only 30 fatalities), departs Liverpool on her maiden voyage as a hospital ship.
* December 26 – The Irish Republican Brotherhood Military Council decides to stage an Easter Rising in 1916.

Date unknown

* Alfred Wegener publishes his theory of Pangaea.
* The first stop sign appears in Detroit.
* The Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis is founded in the United States.
* Carrier Engineering, predecessor of Carrier Global, a global air conditioning brand, is founded in New Jersey, United States.

Births

January

* January 1
** Branko Ćopić, Yugoslav writer (d. 1984)
** Fazlollah Reza, Iranian university professor, electrical engineer (d. 2019)
* January 3 – Mady Rahl, German stage, film actress (d. 2009)
* January 4 – Adolf Opálka, Czechoslovak soldier (d. 1942)
* January 5 – Humberto Teixeira, Brazilian flautist (d. 1979)
* January 6 – Alan Watts, British philosopher (d. 1973)
* January 7
** Franz Bartl, Austrian field handball player (d. 1941)
** Helen Mussallem, Canadian nursing administrator (d. 2012)
* January 9
** Fernando Lamas, Argentine-born actor (d. 1982)
** Anita Louise, American actress (d. 1970)
* January 11 – Robert Blair Mayne, British soldier, co-founder of the Special Air Service (d. 1955)
* January 16
** Susan Ahn Cuddy, United States Navy gunnery officer (d. 2015)
** Leslie H. Martinson, American film director (d. 2016)
* January 17 – Sammy Angott, American boxer (d. 1980)
* January 18 – Santiago Carrillo, Spanish politician (d. 2012)
* January 20 – Ghulam Ishaq Khan, Pakistani civil servant, 7th President of Pakistan)
* January 23
** W. Arthur Lewis, British economist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1991)
** Potter Stewart, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (d. 1985)
* January 24 – Robert Motherwell, American painter (d. 1991)
* January 25 – Ewan MacColl, English folk singer, songwriter, and poet (d. 1989)
* January 29
** Albert Henderson, American actor (d. 2004)
** V. V. Sadagopan, Indian film actor, music teacher, performer and composer (d. unknown)
* January 30
** Ed Keats, American rear admiral (d. 2019)
** Joachim Peiper, German Waffen-SS officer (d. 1976)
** John Profumo, British politician (d. 2006)
* January 31 – Thomas Merton, American monk, author (d. 1968)

February

* February 1
** Alicia Rhett, American actress (d. 2014)
** Artur London, Czech statesman (d. 1986)
** Sir Stanley Matthews, English footballer (d. 2000)
* February 2
** Abba Eban, South African-born Israeli foreign affairs minister (d. 2002)
** Khushwant Singh, Indian writer (d. 2014)
* February 4
** Ray Evans, American composer (d. 2007)
** Sir Norman Wisdom, English comedian, singer, and actor (d. 2010)
* February 5 – Robert Hofstadter, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1990)
* February 6 – Danuta Szaflarska, Polish actress (d. 2017)
* February 7
** Teoctist Arăpașu, Ex-Romanian Orthodox Church Patriarch (d. 2007)
** Georges-André Chevallaz, 78th President of the Swiss Confederation (d. 2002)
** Liu Jie, Chinese politician (d. 2018)
* February 10 – Karl Winsch, American professional baseball player, manager (d. 2001)
* February 11
** Patrick Leigh Fermor, British author (d. 2011)
** Harry Walker, English rugby union player (d. 2018)
** Richard Hamming, American mathematician (d. 1998)
* February 12
** Richard G. Colbert, American admiral (d. 1973)
** Lorne Greene, Canadian actor (d. 1987)
** Olivia Hooker, American civil rights figure (d. 2018)
* February 13 – Aung San, Burmese national leader (d. 1947)
* February 16
** Elisabeth Eybers, South African poet (d. 2007)
** Jim O'Hora, American college football coach (d. 2005)
* February 19
** Fred Freiberger, American screenwriter, television producer (d. 2003)
** John Freeman, British politician (d. 2014)
* February 20 – Danuta Szaflarska Polish screen, stage actress (d. 2017)
* February 21
** Ann Sheridan, American film actress (d. 1967)
** Anton Vratuša, 8th Prime Minister of Slovenia (d. 2017)
* February 23
** Jon Hall, American actor (d. 1979)
** Paul Tibbets, American World War II bomber pilot (''Enola Gay'') (d. 2007)
* February 25 – S. Rajaratnam, 1st Senior Minister of Singapore (d. 2006)
* February 27 – Dick Crockett, American actor, stunt performer (d. 1979)
* February 28
** Peter Medawar, Brazilian-born scientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1987)
** Zero Mostel, American film, stage actor (d. 1977)

March

* March 1 – Elizabeth Peet McIntosh, American spy (d. 2015)
* March 4
**László Csizsik-Csatáry, Hungarian convicted Nazi war criminal (d. 2013)
**Carlos Surinach

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