Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/December 15

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 * 687 – Sergius was elected pope, ending the last disputed period of sede vacante during the Byzantine Papacy.
 * 1025 – Constantine VIII became the sole Byzantine emperor, 63 years after being crowned co-emperor.
 * 1778 – American Revolutionary War: At the Battle of St. Lucia, the Royal Navy prevented French Navy ships from reaching their garrison on Saint Lucia in the West Indies.
 * 1791 – The first ten amendments to the United States Constitution, collectively known as the Bill of Rights, were ratified.
 * 1864 – American Civil War: Union troops defeated the Army of Tennessee, one of the largest Confederate forces, at the Battle of Nashville.
 * 1890 – Sitting Bull, a Hunkpapa Lakota leader, was killed on Standing Rock Indian Reservation in South Dakota by U.S. Indian agency police.
 * 1906 – The Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway, a 14.17 km long deep-level underground tube railway connecting Hammersmith and Finsbury Park, London, opened.
 * 1939 – The American historical epic film Gone With the Wind, adapted from Margaret Mitchell's Pulitzer Prize–winning novel of the same name, premiered in Atlanta, Georgia.
 * 1945 – The US-led occupying forces ordered the government of Japan to cease state support for Shinto.
 * 1946 – U.S.-backed Iranian troops brought an end to the Iran crisis when they marched on the breakaway Republic of Mahabad and recaptured the territory.
 * 1961 – Former Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann was sentenced to death after being found guilty on fifteen criminal charges, including war crimes and crimes against humanity.
 * 1981 – The Iraqi Shia Islamist group al-Dawa carried out one of the first modern suicide bombings, targeting the Iraqi embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, resulting in 61 deaths and at least 100 injuries.
 * 2005 – The F-22 Raptor, an early successful stealth fighter, entered into service despite a protracted and costly development period.
 * Born/died: | David Teniers the Younger |baptised|1610| Sarah Trimmer |d|1810| Florence Jepperson Madsen |b|1886| J. Paul Getty |b|1892| Vibert Douglas |b|1894| Maurice Wilkins |b|1916|  Vallabhbhai Patel |d|1950 | Bob Feller |d|2010| Saufatu Sopoanga |d|2020

December 15


 * 1796 – War of the First Coalition: The French navy launched an expedition to Ireland to assist the Society of United Irishmen in a rebellion against the British.
 * 1871 – Sixteen-year-old Ella Stewart sent the first telegraphed message from Arizona Territory.
 * 1943 – World War II: Australian and American forces (pictured) began the Battle of Arawe against Japanese forces on New Britain as a diversion before a larger landing at Cape Gloucester.
 * 1970 – The Soviet spacecraft Venera 7 touched down on the surface of Venus, making the first successful landing of a spacecraft on another planet.
 * 2013 – The South Sudanese Civil War began when three opposition leaders voted to boycott the meeting of the National Liberation Council in Juba.