Saturday, May 15, 2010

15 May in History

1252--Pope Innocent IV issues the papal bull ad extirpanda which authorizes torture of heretics by the Inquisition.

1536--Anne Boleyn is sentenced to death for treason, adultery and incest.

1618--Johannes Kepler confirms his Third Law of Planetary Motion.

1648--The Peace of Westphalia is signed, ending the Thirty Years War.

1776--The Virginia Convention authorizes its representatives in the Continental Congress to propose a resolution of independence for the colonies.

1905--The Russian minelayer IRNS Amur lays a minefield off Port Arthur, which sinks the Japanese battleship IJNS Hatsuse.

1940--Dutch troops surrender to the German invaders.

1958--The United Kingdom tests its first hydrogen bomb in Operation grapple.  The bomb fails.

1958--The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 3.

1960--The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 4.

1963--The United States launches Mercury-Atlas 9 with astronaut Gordon Cooper in the last Mercury Program mission.

1972--The island of Okinawa reverts to local civilian control after being administeres by the United States since 1945.

1988--The Soviet Union begins its withdrawal from Afghanistan.

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