December 15

December 15 is the 349th (three hundred and forty-ninth) day of the year in the Gregorian calendar and the 350th in leap years. There are 16 days left to end the year.

Events

• 533: 27 km west of Cartago (Tunisia), the troops of the Eastern Roman Empire (under the command of General Belisario) defeat the Vandal troops (under the command of their King Gelimer) in the battle of Tricameron.
• 687: Pope Sergio I is chosen as a commitment between the Easter and Teodoro antipas.
• 1539: in Duitama (present-day Colombia), the soldiers of the Baltasar Maldonado conqueror and those of the Tundama cacique wage the battle of the Banana de la Guerra.
• 1640: In Portugal, Duke Juan de Braganza is elected king after the Portuguese Restoration War against Spanish domination.
• 1710: In Spain—in the framework of the war of Succession—the Bourbon troops of Luis Antonio, Duke of Noailles, place the city of Gerona.
• 1791: The first 10 amendments to the United States Constitution are introduced.
• 1792: In France, in the framework of the French Revolution, King Louis XVI, a prisoner of the revolutionaries, wrote his will in the Temple tower, where he would go out for the cadalso.
• 1869: In Mexico, Julián Escalante and Moreno took office as governor of Sonora.
• 1895: A few kilometers from the village of Cruces (Cuba) the battle of Mal Tiempo takes place between the Spanish forces of Arsenio Martínez Campos and the Cubans of Máximo Gómez.
• 1899: In Colombia—in the framework of the thousand-day war—the battle of Peralonso is waged.
• 1903: In Norway, sea fishing is prohibited for 10 years.
• 1927: American aviator Charles Lindbergh flies without stops from Washington to Mexico (3100 km) in 26 hours.
• 1930: in Cuatro Vientos (Madrid), Major Ramón Franco and General Gonzalo Queipo de Llano lead a republican uprising that will fail due to lack of support.
• 1930: in the locality of Puebla de Guzmán (Spain), the neighbors proclaim the Second Spanish Republic on their own.
• 1937: In Nanking (capital of the Republic of China between 1912 and 1949), the third day of the Nanking massacre takes place, in which, until early February 1938, the Japanese invaders raped and murdered half a million men, women and children.
• 1946: Thailand becomes the UN member number 55.
• 1958: in the province of the East—in the framework of the Cuban Revolution—the Rebel Army releases the villages of Bartolomé Masó and Bartle and attacks Veguitas.
• 1958: in the province of Las Villas—in the framework of the Cuban Revolution—the troops of the Rebel Army of Ernesto Che Guevara attack the population of Fomento in the early morning.
• 1959: between Madrid and Barcelona (Spain) the Talgo is inaugurated.
• 1961: in Jerusalem (Israel), a court condemns the German Nazi scissor Adolf Eichmann to die hanged, after a trial in which he was accused of genocide.
• 1961: In the area of Siguanea, in the Cuban people of Cumanayagua (province of Cienfuegos), the band led by the Congo Pacheco (Manuel Alberto Pacheco Rodríguez)—in the framework of the terrorist attacks organized by the U.S. CIA—kill peasant Lucas Tomás.
• 1961: on the Alameda estate, near Remedios (in the former Cuban province of Las Villas), a terrorist group of elevations—in the framework of the terrorist attacks organized by the U.S. CIA—is raiding several houses. A peasant is wounded.
• 1961: in the municipality of Quemado de Güines, near Remedios (in the former Cuban province of Las Villas), the band of the terrorist Thondike (Margarito Lanza Flores)—in the framework of the terrorist attacks organized by the U.S. CIA—attacks several houses where literate brigades were housed. Cira García O’Reilly is injured.
• 1967: in a well 332 meters underground, in the U3fh area of the Nevada atomic testing site (about 100 km northwest of the city of Las Vegas), at 7:00 (local time) United States detonates its 2 kiloton Stilt atomic bomb. It's the 532 bomb of 1131 that the United States detonated between 1945 and 1992.
• 1970: in Madrid, Spain, student riots motivate the closure of the university.
• 1973: According to the American Psychiatry Association, homosexuality is no longer considered a disease.
• 1976: In Spain, after the dictatorship of Francisco Franco, there is a referendum on political reform that will give way to a new political model. Democracy begins.
• 1982: Spain reopened the border (at the footstep, for Spanish and British, only with passport) with the city of Gibraltar, after 13 years of blockade.
• 1983: in Argentina, President Raúl Alfonsín created CONADEP (National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons).
• 1984: The Soviet Union launches the probe Vega 1To study the planet Venus and comet Halley.
• 1984: in a well 640 meters underground, in the U19ac area of the Nevada atomic testing site (about 100 km northwest of the city of Las Vegas), at 6:45 (local time) United States detonates its 80 kiloton Earth atomic bomb. It is the 1023 bomb of 1131 that the United States detonated between 1945 and 1992.
• 1989: The United Nations General Assembly adopted the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aimed at abolishing the death penalty.
• 1989: in Tolú, Colombia, police kill Colombian drug dealer Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha (alias) El Mexicano) of the Medellin cartel.
• 1995: in Madrid, Spain, the member states of the European Union agree to the creation of a common European currency, the euro.
• 1999: in Venezuela, a plebiscite approves the new Venezuelan Constitution of 1999, promoted by President Hugo Chávez.
• 1999: in the state Vargas (Venezuela) the tragedy of Vargas, floods and landslides in which between 10,000 and 30 000 people die.
• 2000: In Chernobyl the last reactor is shut down, at a ceremony where Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma gave the order directly by teleconference.
• 2005: in Iraq the first parliamentary or legislative elections are held under the new constitution of the country; the party or coalition that won these elections will govern the country as the Council of Representatives elects the Prime Minister and the President of the Republic. It wins the Alliance of Shiite Religious Parties, but without the majority enough to rule alone, so it will have to negotiate agreements with the Kurdish and Sunni parties.
• 2005: the Anti-Tabaco Act is passed in Spain.
• 2006: in Bhutan abdicates King Jigme Singye Wangchuck, after 34 years of reign. He gives command to his son Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck (26 years old), who will reign from Timbu.
• 2006: Air Madrid stops running leaving 300 000 passengers stranded around the world.
• 2011: In eastern Papua New Guinea an earthquake of 7.3 degrees is recorded on the Richter scale.^{[chuckles]required]}
• 2021: the soccer player Sergio Agüero retires from soccer at 33 years of age due to a cardiac arrhythmia.

Births

• 37: Nero, Roman emperor (f. 68).
• 130: Lucio Vero, politician and Roman co-emperator (f. 169).
• 1242: Prince Munetaka, Japanese shogun (f. 1274).
• 1291: Aimone de Saboya, aristocrat saboyano (f. 1343).
• 1447: Alberto IV, Bavarian aristocrat (f. 1508).
• 1567: Christoph Demantius, composer, musical theorist, German writer and poet (f. 1643).
• 1619: David Teniers el Joven, Flamenco painter (f. 1690).
• 1657: Michel-Richard Delalande, composer, organist and French violinist (f. 1726).
• 1719: Louis IX of Hesse-Darmstadt, German aristocrat (f. 1790).
• 1732: Carl Gotthard Langhans, German architect (f. 1808).
• 1742: Francisco Antonio García Carrasco, Spanish military, governor of Chile (f. 1813).
• 1760: David Heinrich Hoppe, pharmacist, botanist, mycologist and German physician (f. 1846).
• 1768: Mariana Victoria of Portugal, Portuguese aristocrat (f. 1788).
• 1789: Carlos Soublette, militar, politician and Venezuelan president (f. 1870).
• 1793: Henry Charles Carey, an American economist (f. 1879).
• 1801: Mariano Cubí and Soler, linguist and Spanish frenologist (f. 1875).
• 1802: János Bolyai, Hungarian mathematician (f. 1860).
• 1804: Giuseppe Frassinetti, religious and holy Italian (f. 1868).
• 1832: Gustave Eiffel, French engineer (f. 1923).
• 1833: Valeriano Domínguez Bécquer, a Spanish painter (f. 1870).
• 1843: Francisco Silvela, a Spanish politician and writer (f. 1905).
• 1844: Arturo Soria, Spanish urbanist (f. 1920).
• 1849: Elena Sanz, Spanish lyric singer (f. 1898).
• 1852: Henri Becquerel, French physicist (f. 1908).
• 1857: Julio Popper, engineer, explorer and genocidal Romanian Jewish nationalized Argentinean (f. 1893).
• 1858: Cristóbal Rojas, Venezuelan painter (f. 1890).
• 1859: L. L. Zamenhof, Polish philologist, Esperanto creator (f. 1917).
• 1860: Niels Ryberg Finsen, Danish doctor, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1903 (f. 1904).
• 1861: Pehr Evind Svinhufvud, Finnish President (f. 1944).
• 1866: Ramón Cáceres, politician and Dominican president (f. 1911).
• 1866: Rene Quinton, pioneer of aviation and self-taught French naturalist (f. 1925).
• 1870: Josef Hoffmann, Austrian architect (f. 1956).
• 1877: Emilia de Sousa Costa, Portuguese writer and feminist (f. 1959).
• 1879: Rudolf von Laban, professor of Hungarian dance and artist (f. 1958).
• 1883: Víctor Andrés Belaúnde, Peruvian intellectual (f. 1966).
• 1889: Joan Riudavets, Spanish supercentennial (f. 2004).
• 1892: Jean Paul Getty, American businessman (f. 1976).
• 1892: Valeriano León, Spanish actor (f. 1955).
• 1898: Fernando Remacha, Spanish composer (f. 1984).
• 1899: Harold Abrahams, British athlete (f. 1978).
• 1903: Antonio Iturmendi Bañales, Spanish carlist (f. 1976).
• 1905: Ferenc Farkas, Hungarian composer (f. 2000)
• 1907: Oscar Niemeyer, Brazilian architect (f. 2012).
• 1908: Aristobulo Donato Aráoz de Lamadrid, politician, lawyer and minister of the Supreme Court of Justice of Argentina (f. 1990)
• 1910: John H. Hammond, producer and critic of jazz and blues (f. 1987).
• 1911: René Rios, Pepo, creator of the magazine Condorito (f. 2000).
• 1914: Carlos Hugo Christensen, Argentine filmmaker (f. 1999).
• 1915: Isabel Crook, writer, professor at the University of Foreign Languages of Beijing and Canadian anthropologist born in China
• 1916: Maurice Wilkins, a New Zealander physicist, co-discoverer of the DNA structure (f. 2004).
• 1918: Chihiro Iwasaki, Japanese artist (f. 1974).
• 1919: Johfra Bosschart, Dutch painter (f. 1998).
• 1922: Juan Carlos Colman, Argentine footballer (f. 1999).
• 1923: Freeman Dyson, American physicist and mathematician (f. 2020).
• 1926: Josep Maria Castellet, Spanish writer and editor (f. 2014).
• 1928: Friedensreich Hundertwasser, philosopher, architect and Austrian painter (f. 2000).
• 1929: Barry Harris, pianist, teacher, arranger and composer of American jazz (f. 2021).
• 1931: Cristino de Vera, a Spanish painter.
• 1932: Edna O'Brien, Irish novelist.
• 1932: Roberto Zárate, Argentine footballer (f. 2013).
• 1934: Raina Kabaivanska, Bulgarian soprano.
• 1934: Elisa Montés, Spanish actress.
• 1936: Pedro Osinaga, Spanish actor.
• 1937: Lorena Velázquez, Mexican actress.
• 1938: Juan Carlos Wasmosy, Paraguayan businessman, president between 1993 and 1998.
• 1938: Klaus Hänsch, German politician, President of the European Parliament between 1994 and 1997.
• 1939: Jimmy Justice, American actor and singer.
• 1941: José Antonio Zaldúa, Spanish footballer.
• 1942: Canela, journalist and television presenter íloargentina.
• 1943: Txomin Perurena, Spanish cyclist.
• 1944: Chico Mendes, rubber collector, trade unionist and Brazilian environmental activist (f. 1988).
• 1947: Patricio Contreras, Chilean actor.
• 1949: Don Johnson, American actor and director.
• 1951: Avelino Corma, Spanish chemist.
• 1952: Tormenta (Liliana Esther Maturano), Argentinean singer.
• 1952: Allan Simonsen, Danish footballer.
• 1955: Roberto Pettinato, musician, humorist, libretist, journalist and radio and Argentine television driver.
• 1955: María Izquierdo, Chilean actress.
• 1955: Paul Simonon, British bassist, of the band The Clash.
• 1958: Alfredo Ormando, Italian writer and theologian.
• 1961: Paula Molina, Spanish actress.
• 1962: Juan y Medio (John José Bautista Martín), Spanish television presenter.
• 1963: Cristiana Oliveira, Brazilian actress.
• 1963: Helen Slater, American actress.
• 1965: Luis Fabián Artime, Argentine soccer player.
• 1965: Luis Martínez Rosado, Puerto Rican Yudoca.
• 1966: Esteban Prol, Argentine actor.
• 1966: Max Angelelli, Italian motor racing pilot.
• 1967: Mo Vaughn, American baseball player.
• 1968: Silverio Cavazos, Mexican politician (f. 2010).
• 1970: Michael Shanks, Canadian actor.
• 1972: Lee Jung-jae, South Korean actor.
• 1975: Sebastian de Caro, filmmaker, screenwriter and Argentine actor.
• 1975: Acey Slade, American musician, of the bands Murderdolls and Dope.
• 1976: Roger García Junyent, Spanish footballer.
• 1977: Ursula Vargués, model and conductor of Argentine television.
• 1978: Mark Jansen, German guitarist, of the Epic band.
• 1979: Adam Brody, American actor.
• 1979: Célida López Cárdenas, Mexican politics.
• 1980: Sergio Pizzorno, musician, guitarist and British composer, of the Kasabian band.
• 1980: Ethel Pozo, Peruvian presenter.
• 1981: Najoua Belyzel, French singer.
• 1981: Roman Pavliuchenko, Russian footballer.
• 1982: Matías Delgado, Argentine soccer player.
• 1982: Borja García, Spanish racing pilot.
• 1982: Charlie Cox, British actor.
• 1983: Rene Goguen, Franco-Canadian professional fighter.
• 1983: Ronnie Radke, American vocalist, of the Falling in Reverse band.
• 1983: Wang Hao, Chinese table tennis player.
• 1983: Camilla Luddington, English actress.
• 1984: Max Green, U.S. bassist, from the Escape The Fate band.
• 1984: Joshua Hayward, British guitarist, of the band The Horrors.
• 1984: Martin Škrtel, Slovak footballer.
• 1986: Keylor Navas, Costa Rican footballer.
• 1986: Samantha Salas, Mexican basketball player.
• 1986: Erjon Tola, Albanian skier.
• 1990: Andrey Francis, Costa Rican footballer.
• 1992: Jesse Lingard, English footballer.
• 1992: Maximiliano Meza, Argentine footballer.
• 1994: Elisabet Casanovas, Spanish actress.
• 1995: Jahlil Okafor, American basketball player.
• 1996: Oleksandr Zinchenko, Ukrainian footballer.
• 1997: Stefania LaVie Owen, an American-Dutch actress.
• 1998: Chandler Canterbury, American actor.
• 1998: José Paradela, Argentine soccer player.

Deaths

• 1025: Basil II, Byzantine aristocrat, emperor between 976 and 1025 (n. 958).
• 1230: Otakar I of Bohemia, aristocrat Bohemian, king between 1198 and 1230 (n. 1155).
• 1461: Alfonso I de Braganza, noble Portuguese (n. 1377).
• 1467: Jöns Bengtsson, Swedish regent (n. 1417).
• 1618: Ana de Habsburg-Gonzaga, Austrian aristocrat and consort empress of the Holy Roman German Empire (n. 1585).
• 1621: Charles de Luynes, a French politician (n. 1578).
• 1674: Margaret Cavendish, British writer (n. 1623).
• 1675: Johannes Vermeer, a Dutch painter (n. 1632).
• 1683: Izaac Walton, British writer (n. 1593).
• 1713: Carlo Maratta, Italian painter (n. 1625).
• 1753: Richard Boyle, British architect (n. 1694).
• 1792: Joseph Martin Kraus, German composer (n. 1756).
• 1815: José Miguel Luján Pérez Spanish sculptor (n. 1756).
• 1831: José Francisco Bermúdez, military and procer of Venezuelan independence (n. 1782).
• 1857: George Cayley, British engineer and inventor (n. 1773).
• 1885: Fernando II, Portuguese aristocrat (n. 1816).
• 1890: Sitting Bull, chief sioux (n. c. 1831).
• 1893: Karl Ludwig Michelet, German philosopher (n. 1801).
• 1909: Francisco Tárrega, guitarist and Spanish composer (n. 1852).
• 1913: Carlos Cambronero, Spanish historian (n. 1849).
• 1943: Fats Waller, American pianist (n. 1904).
• 1944: Glenn Miller, American musician (n. 1904).
• 1955: Horace McCoy, American writer (n. 1897).
• 1958: Jaime Pujiula, Spanish priest and biologist (n. 1869).
• 1958: Wolfgang Pauli, Austrian physicist (n. 1900).
• 1962: Charles Laughton, British actor (n. 1899).
• 1965: César González Ruano, Spanish writer and journalist (n. 1903).
• 1966: Walt Disney, drawer and filmmaker of the United States who was also a great dreamer (n. 1901).
• 1968: Jess Willard, American boxer (n. 1881).
• 1969: Giuseppe Pinelli, partisan and anarchist Italian (n. 1928).
• 1971: Paul Pierre Lévy, French mathematician (n. 1886).
• 1985: Carlos P. Rómulo, Filipino politician (n. 1899).
• 1989: Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha, Colombian drug dealer (n. 1947).
• 1991: Vasili Záitsev, Soviet military (n. 1915).
• 1994: Oscar Bidegain, politician and professional Argentinean shooter (n. 1905).
• 1995: Manuel Gutiérrez Mellado, a Spanish military and politician (n. 1912).
• 1995: Cyro Martins, Brazilian writer and psychoanalyst (n. 1908).
• 1998: Justiniano Casas Peláez físico español (n. 1915).
• 2000: George Alcock, British astronomer (n. 1912).
• 2003: Margarita Aguirre, Chilean writer and critic, friend and biographer of Pablo Neruda (n. 1925).
• 2005: Julian Marias, Spanish philosopher (n. 1914).
• 2006: Clay Regazzoni, a Swiss motor vehicle pilot (n. 1939).
• 2008: León Febres-Cordero Ribadeneyra, Ecuadorian politician, president of Ecuador between 1984 and 1988 (n. 1931).
• 2009: Oral Roberts, American telepreacher (n. 1918).
• 2010: Blake Edwards, director, BJ (n. 1949).
• 2010: Jean Rollin, director, screenwriter, film producer and French writer (n. 1938).
• 2011: Christopher Hitchens, writer, journalist and British atheist activist (n. 1949).
• 2011: Ricardo Daniel Ibarra, Argentine Olympic Remero (n. 1950).
• 2013: Joan Fontaine, American actress (n. 1917).
• 2015: Licio Gelli, Italian journalist and banker (n. 1919).
• 2018: Girma Wolde-Giorgis, Ethiopian politician, President of Ethiopia between 2001 and 2013 (n. 1924).
• 2021: Flow la Movie, Puerto Rican record producer (n. 1985).

Celebrations

• Otaku World Day
• Argentina: Truck Day
• BoliviaBolivia: Anniversary of Florida (Department of Santa Cruz).
• Esperantujo: Zamenhof Day.
• United States: Day of the Declaration of Rights
• NetherlandsNetherlands: Kingdom Day (Koninkrijksdag)
• Peru Peru: Central Day of Main Feast of the Virgin of the Gate of Otuzco.

Catholic saints list

• San Valeriano de Abbensa, bishop (c. 460).
• Saint Maximine of Micy, priest and abbot (s. VI).
• Saint Urbez or Urbicio of Nocite, monk and priest (c. 802).
• Beato Marino de Cava, abad (1170).
• Blessed Maria Victoria Fornari (1617).
• beata Virginia Centurione Bracelli (1651).
• Saint Mary Crucified of Rosa, virgin (1855).
• Blessed Carlos Steeb, priest (1856).