On this day: April 15

Events on April 15

• 1071 Byzantine–Norman wars: After a siege of almost three years, Italo-Norman forces conquered the city of Bari, the capital of the Catepanate of Italy, ending more than five centuries of Byzantine presence in the region. Wikipedia
• 1071 Bari, the last Byzantine possession in southern Italy, is surrendered to the Norman Robert Guiscard. Wikipedia
• 1071 The sharif of Mecca changes the khutbah from the Shiite Fatimid caliph in Cairo to the Sunni Abbasid Caliph in Bagdhad. Wikipedia
• 1632 Battle of Rain: Swedes under Gustavus Adolphus defeat the Holy Roman Empire during the Thirty Years' War. Wikipedia
• 1738 Serse, an opera by Baroque composer George Frideric Handel loosely based on Xerxes I of Persia, premiered in London. Wikipedia
• 1738 Serse, an Italian opera by George Frideric Handel, receives its premiere performance in London, England. Wikipedia
• 1861 President Abraham Lincoln calls for 75,000 militiamen to quell the insurrection that soon became the American Civil War. Wikipedia
• 1865 President Abraham Lincoln dies after being shot the previous evening by actor John Wilkes Booth. Vice President Andrew Johnson becomes president. Wikipedia
• 1896 Closing ceremony of the Games of the I Olympiad in Athens, Greece. Wikipedia
• 1912 The British passenger liner RMS Titanic sinks in the North Atlantic at 2:20 a.m., two hours and forty minutes after hitting an iceberg. Only 712 of 2,207 passengers and crew on board survive. Wikipedia
• 1912 More than 1,500 people on the Titanic died when the passenger liner sank after colliding with an iceberg southeast of Newfoundland. Wikipedia
• 1920 Two security guards are murdered during a robbery in South Braintree, Massachusetts. Anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti would be convicted of and executed for the crime, amid much controversy. Wikipedia
• 1922 U.S. Senator John B. Kendrick of Wyoming introduces a resolution calling for an investigation of a secret land deal, which leads to the discovery of the Teapot Dome scandal. Wikipedia
• 1923 Insulin becomes generally available for use by people with diabetes. Wikipedia
• 1923 Ten Japanese-American children were killed in a racially motivated arson attack on a school in Sacramento, California. Wikipedia
• 1927 Torrential rains caused the Mississippi River to break out of its levee system in at least 145 places, resulting in the worst flooding in the history of the United States. Wikipedia
• 1941 World War II: In the Belfast Blitz, 200 bombers of the German Luftwaffe attack Belfast, killing some 1,000 people. Wikipedia
• 1969 The EC-121 shootdown incident: North Korea shoots down a United States Navy aircraft over the Sea of Japan, killing all 31 on board. Wikipedia
• 1989 The death of former Chinese General Secretary Hu Yaobang triggered a series of events that led to the Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing. Wikipedia
• 1994 At a GATT ministerial meeting in Marrakesh, Morocco, representatives of 123 countries and the European Communities signed an agreement to establish the World Trade Organization. Wikipedia
• 1994 Marrakesh Agreement relating to foundation of World Trade Organization is adopted. Wikipedia
• 2002 Air China Flight 129 crashed on approach to Gimhae International Airport in Busan, South Korea, killing 129 people. Wikipedia
• 2002 Air China Flight 129 crashes on approach to Gimhae International Airport in Busan, South Korea, killing 129 people. Wikipedia
• 2013 Two bombs explode near the finish line at the Boston Marathon in Boston, Massachusetts, killing three people and injuring over 500 others. Wikipedia
• 2021 A mass shooting at a FedEx Ground facility in Indianapolis, Indiana, killed nine and injured seven. Wikipedia
• 2021 A mass shooting occurs at a FedEx Ground facility in Indianapolis, Indiana, killing nine and injuring seven. Wikipedia

Born on April 15

• 1452 Leonardo da Vinci, Italian painter, sculptor, and architect (died 1519) Wikipedia
• 1469 Guru Nanak, the first Sikh guru (died 1539) Wikipedia
• 1684 Catherine I of Russia (died 1727) Wikipedia
• 1707 Leonhard Euler, Swiss mathematician and physicist (died 1783) Wikipedia
• 1795 Maria Schicklgruber, mother of Alois Hitler and the paternal grandmother of Adolf Hitler (died 1847) Wikipedia
• 1843 Henry James, American novelist, short story writer, and critic (died 1916) Wikipedia
• 1858 Émile Durkheim, French sociologist, psychologist, and philosopher (died 1917) Wikipedia
• 1874 Johannes Stark, German physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1957) Wikipedia
• 1894 Nikita Khrushchev, Russian general and politician, 7th Premier of the Soviet Union (died 1971) Wikipedia
• 1896 Nikolay Semyonov, Russian physicist and chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1986) Wikipedia
• 1907 Nikolaas Tinbergen, Dutch-English ethologist and ornithologist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1988) Wikipedia
• 1912 Kim Il Sung, North Korean general and politician, 1st Supreme Leader of North Korea (died 1994) Wikipedia
• 1920 Richard von Weizsäcker, German soldier and politician, 6th President of Germany (died 2015) Wikipedia
• 1930 Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, Icelandic educator and politician, 4th President of Iceland Wikipedia
• 1931 Tomas Tranströmer, Swedish poet, translator, and psychologist Nobel Prize laureate (died 2015) Wikipedia
• 1938 Claudia Cardinale, Italian actress (died 2025) Wikipedia
• 1940 Penelope Coelen, South African actress, model, beauty queen and 1958 Miss World Wikipedia
• 1943 Robert Lefkowitz, American physician and biochemist, Nobel Prize laureate Wikipedia
• 1949 Alla Pugacheva, Russian singer-songwriter and actress Wikipedia
• 1959 Emma Thompson, English actress, comedian, author, activist and screenwriter Wikipedia
• 1961 Carol W. Greider, American molecular biologist Wikipedia
• 1990 Emma Watson, English actress Wikipedia

Died on April 15

• 956 Lin Yanyu, Chinese court official and eunuch Wikipedia
• 1446 Filippo Brunelleschi, Italian sculptor and architect (born 1377) Wikipedia
• 1558 Hurrem Sultan, wife of Suleiman the Magnificent and the Haseki sultan of Ottoman Empire (born 1505) Wikipedia
• 1719 Françoise d'Aubigné, Marquise de Maintenon, French wife of Louis XIV (born 1635) Wikipedia
• 1764 Madame de Pompadour, mistress of King Louis XV (born 1721) Wikipedia
• 1765 Mikhail Lomonosov, Russian chemist and physicist (born 1711) Wikipedia
• 1865 Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States (born 1809) Wikipedia
• 1888 Matthew Arnold, English poet and critic (born 1822) Wikipedia
• 1942 Robert Musil, Austrian-Swiss author and playwright (born 1880) Wikipedia
• 1945 Hermann Florstedt, German SS officer (born 1895) Wikipedia
• 1966 Habibullah Bahar Chowdhury, Bengali politician, writer, journalist, first health minister of East Pakistan (born 1906) Wikipedia
• 1980 Jean-Paul Sartre, French philosopher and author, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1905) Wikipedia
• 1990 Greta Garbo, Swedish-American actress (born 1905) Wikipedia
• 1998 Pol Pot, Cambodian general and politician, 29th Prime Minister of Cambodia (born 1925) Wikipedia

Holidays and observances

• Christian feast day: Abbo II of Metz Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Blessed César de Bus Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Father Damien (Catholic and Episcopal Church) Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Hunna Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Paternus of Avranches Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: April 15 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics) Wikipedia
• Day of the Sun (North Korea) Wikipedia
• Father Damien Day (Hawaii) Wikipedia
• Hillsborough Disaster Memorial (Liverpool, England) Wikipedia
• Jackie Robinson Day (United States) Wikipedia
• National American Sign Language Day (United States) Wikipedia
• Pohela Boishakh (Bengali New Year; India) Wikipedia
• Tax Day, the official deadline for filing an individual tax return (or requesting an extension). (United States, Philippines) Wikipedia
• Universal Day of Culture Wikipedia

The events, births, deaths and observances above are from the English Wikipedia article “April 15” and the articles it links to (authors and history), retrieved 2026-10-09 through the Wikimedia “On this day” feed. They are licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0; this selection is shared under the same licence. We picked the 26 events, 22 births and 14 deaths with the widest coverage across Wikipedia's language editions (counted from Wikidata) and sorted them by year; the wording is unchanged apart from removing references to pictures.