Also on This Day in History January 15
Discover what happened on January 15 with HISTORY's summaries of major events, anniversaries,
famous births and notable deaths.
Births on This Day, January 15
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1929
Martin Luther King, Jr.
American civil rights leader, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize
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1908
Edward Teller
Hungarian-American physicist, father of the Hydrogen bomb
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1877
Lewis M. Terman
American psychologist who developed Stanford-Binet IQ test
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1918
Gamal Abdel Nasser
Egyptian army officer, politician, 2nd President of Egypt
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1875
Ibn Saud
Founder and first King of Saudi Arabia (1932-53)
Deaths on This Day, January 15
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2007
James Hillier
Canadian-American inventor who co-created the electron microscope
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1948
Henri-Alexandre Deslandres
French astrophysicist who invented a spectroheliograph
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1968
Leopold Infeld
Polish nuclear physcist (Motion & Relativity)
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2010
Marshall Warren Nirenberg
Jewish-American biochemist and geneticist, Nobel 1968
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1876
Eliza Johnson
U.S. First Lady
1992
Croatia and Slovenia Internationally Recognized as Independent Nations
On January 15, 1992, Croatia and Slovenia were internationally recognized as independent nations following the dissolution of Yugoslavia. This recognition marked a significant milestone in their histories, paving the way for their integration into the global community as sovereign states.
1975
Space Mountain Opens at Disney World, Orlando, Florida
On January 15, 1975, Space Mountain, a popular indoor roller coaster attraction themed around space travel, opened at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. It quickly became a landmark ride, known for its space-themed decor, exhilarating experience, and contribution to Disney's legacy of imaginative theme park attractions.
1969
Soyuz 5 launched by Soviet Union
Soyuz 5 (Russian: Союз 5, Union 5) was a Soyuz mission using the Soyuz 7K-OK spacecraft launched by the Soviet Union on 15 January 1969, which docked with Soyuz 4 in orbit. It was the first docking of two crewed spacecraft of any nation, and the first transfer of crew from one space vehicle to another of any nation, the only time a transfer was accomplished with a space walk – two months before the United States Apollo 9 mission performed the first internal crew transfer.
1892
Basketball rules published in Triangle Magazine, Mass
The game of Basketball was introduced in the Triangle in the January 15, 1892 edition (Vol. 1, No. 10, p. 144-147) in a four-page article written by James Naismith and included the original 13 rules. Contributing authors included notables in the field such as H. Kallenberg, R. Tait McKenzie, and Amos Alonzo Stagg, E. Hitchcock, Amy Morriss Homans, Dudley Sargent, and William Anderson.