May 15 birthdays & history

Famous people born on May 15

• 1859Pierre Curie, French physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
• 1891Mikhail Bulgakov, Russian novelist and playwright
• 1937Madeleine Albright, Czech-American politician and diplomat, 64th United States Secretary of State
• 1982Layal Abboud, Lebanese singer
• 1915Paul Samuelson, American economist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
• 1987Andy Murray, Scottish tennis player
• 1845Élie Metchnikoff, Russian zoologist
• 1567Claudio Monteverdi, Italian priest and composer
• 1997Ousmane Dembélé, French footballer
• 1862Arthur Schnitzler, Austrian author and playwright

What happened on May 15

• 1602Early English explorer Bartholomew Gosnold arrived on Cape Cod in present-day Massachusetts.
• 1725Bach led the first performance of his cantata Ich bin ein guter Hirt, BWV 85, about Jesus as the Good Shepherd.
• 1836English astronomer Francis Baily observed Baily's beads, a phenomenon during a solar eclipse in which the rugged topography of the lunar limb allows sunlight to shine through.
• 1862Fertilisation of Orchids, the first book by Charles Darwin which demonstrated the power of natural selection in detail, was published.
• 1869Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton founded the National Woman Suffrage Association, breaking away from the American Equal Rights Association which they had also previously founded.
• 1891Pope Leo XIII issued the encyclical Rerum novarum, which addressed the condition of the working classes and is considered to be the foundation of modern Catholic social teaching.
• 1928Mickey and Minnie Mouse made their film debuts in the animated cartoon Plane Crazy.
• 1953Don Murphy organized the first pinewood derby, an event for Cub Scouts of the Boy Scouts of America where wooden cars built by the scouts are raced.
• 1990Vincent van Gogh's Portrait of Dr. Gachet was sold at auction at Christie's in New York for US$82.5 million, making it the world's most expensive painting at the time.
• 2001A runaway train loaded with hazardous chemicals traveled driverless for 66 miles (106 km) through Ohio before being stopped near Kenton.
• 2004Arsenal became the first football team in England's top flight to finish a season undefeated since Preston North End did so in 1888–1889.
• 2010Three days before her seventeenth birthday, Jessica Watson arrived in Sydney after sailing non-stop and unassisted around the world.

Also observed on May 15

• Aoi Matsuri (Kyoto)
• Constituent Assembly Day (Lithuania)
• International Conscientious Objectors Day
• International Day of Families (International)
• La Corsa dei Ceri begins on the eve of the feast day of Saint Ubaldo. (Gubbio)
• Mother's Day (Paraguay)