This day in history

May 15

756Abd-al-Rahman is proclaimed emir of Cordoba, Spain.
1213King John submits to the Pope, offering to make England and Ireland papal fiefs. Pope Innocent III lifts the interdict of 1208.1602English navigator Bartholomew Gosnold discovers Cape Cod.
1614An aristocratic uprising in France ends with treaty of St. Menehould.
1618Johannes Kepler discovers his harmonics law.
1702The War of Spanish Succession begins.
1730Following the resignation of Lord Townshend, Robert Walpole becomes the sole minister in the English cabinet.
1768By the Treaty of Versailles, France purchases Corsica from Genoa.
1795Napoleon enters the Lombardian capital of Milan in triumph.
1820The U.S. Congress designates the slave trade a form of piracy.
1849Neapolitan troops enter Palermo, Sicily.
1862The Union ironclad Monitor and the gunboat Galena fire on Confederate troops at the Battle of Drewry's Bluff, Virginia.
1864At the Battle of New Market, Virginia Military Institute cadets repel a Union attack.
1886Emily Dickinson dies in Amherst, Mass., where she had lived in seclusion for the previous 24 years.
1916U.S. Marines land in Santo Domingo to quell civil disorder.
1918Pfc. Henry Johnson and Pfc. Needham Roberts receive the Croix de Guerre for their services in World War I. They are the first Americans to win France's highest military medal.
1930Ellen Church becomes the first airline stewardess.
1942The United States begins rationing gasoline.
1958Sputnik III is launched by the Soviet Union.
1963The last Project Mercury space flight, carrying Gordon Cooper, is launched.
1968U.S. Marines relieve army troops in Nhi Ha, South Vietnam after a fourteen-day battle.
1972George Wallace is shot by Arthur Bremer in Laurel, Maryland.
1975The merchant ship Mayaguez is recaptured from Cambodia's Khmer Rouge.
1988Soviets forces begin their withdrawal from Afghanistan.