Portal:Biography/Selected anniversaries/December 15

Births

 * 37 – Nero, Roman emperor (d. 68)
 * 1832 – Gustave Eiffel, French engineer and co-designer of the Eiffel Tower (d. 1923)
 * 1852 – Henri Becquerel, French physicist and Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1908)
 * 1859 – L. L. Zamenhof, Polish doctor, linguist, and creator of Esperanto (d. 1917)
 * 1903 – Tamanishiki San'emon, Japanese sumo wrestler and the 32nd Yokozuna (d. 1938)
 * 1923 – Uziel Gal, German-Israeli firearm designer (d. 2002)

Deaths

 * 1025 – Basil II, Byzantine emperor (b. 958)
 * 1675 – Johannes Vermeer, Dutch painter (b. 1632)
 * 1890 – Sitting Bull, American tribal chief (b. 1831)
 * 1958 – Wolfgang Pauli, Austrian-American physicist and Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1900)
 * 1985 – Seewoosagur Ramgoolam, 1st Prime Minister of Mauritius (b. 1900)
 * 2008 – León Febres Cordero, 46th President of Ecuador (b. 1931)