On This Day - What happened 15 January

Marcus Otho was Roman emperor for three months, from 15 January to 16 April 69. He was the second emperor of the Year of the Four Emperors. Inheriting the problem of the rebellion of Vitellius, commander of the army in Germania Inferior, Otho led a sizeable force that met Vitellius' army at the Battle of Bedriacum. After initial fighting resulted in 40,000 casualties, and a retreat of his forces, Otho committed suicide rather than fight on, and Vitellius was proclaimed emperor.

Tycho and others had observed the supernova of 1572. Ottavio Brenzoni's letter of 15 January 1605 to Galileo brought the 1572 supernova and the less bright nova of 1601 to Galileo's notice. Galileo observed and discussed Kepler's supernova in 1604. Since these new stars displayed no detectable diurnal parallax, Galileo concluded that they were distant stars, and, therefore, disproved the Aristotelian belief in the immutability of the heavens.

The decisive French triumph at Rivoli in January 1797 led to the collapse of the Austrian position in Italy. At Rivoli, the Austrians lost up to 14,000 men while the French lost about 5,000.

The Stravinsky family returned to Switzerland (as usual) in the fall of 1913. On 15 January 1914, a fourth child, Marie Milène (or Maria Milena), was born in Lausanne. After her delivery, Katya was discovered to have tuberculosis and was confined to the sanatorium at Leysin, high in the Alps. Igor and the family took up residence nearby.

King was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia, to the Reverend Martin Luther King Sr. and Alberta Williams King.

Tarragona fell on 15 January.

On 15 January 1943, Hitler appointed Goebbels as head of the newly created Air Raid Damage committee, which meant Goebbels was nominally in charge of nationwide civil air defenses and shelters as well as the assessment and repair of damaged buildings.

Stravinsky's unconventional dominant seventh chord in his arrangement of the "Star-Spangled Banner" led to an incident with the Boston police on 15 January 1944, and he was warned that the authorities could impose a $100 fine upon any "re-arrangement of the national anthem in whole or in part". The police, as it turned out, were wrong. The law in question merely forbade using the national anthem "as dance music, as an exit march, or as a part of a medley of any kind", but the incident soon established itself as a myth, in which Stravinsky was supposedly arrested, held in custody for several nights, and photographed for police records.

In the early hours of January 15, 1978—one week after his arrival in Tallahassee—Bundy entered FSU's Chi Omega sorority house through a rear door with a faulty locking mechanism.

Beginning at about 2:45 a.m. Bundy bludgeoned Margaret Bowman, 21, with a piece of oak firewood as she slept, then garroted her with a nylon stocking.

Ted then entered the bedroom of 20-year-old Lisa Levy and beat her unconscious, strangled her, tore one of her nipples, bit deeply into her left buttock, and sexually assaulted her with a hair mist bottle.

In an adjoining bedroom Ted attacked Kathy Kleiner, breaking her jaw and deeply lacerating her shoulder; and Karen Chandler, who suffered a concussion, broken jaw, loss of teeth, and a crushed finger. Chandler and Kleiner survived the attack; Kleiner later attributed their survival to automobile headlights illuminating the interior of their room and frightening away the attacker.

Tallahassee detectives later determined that the four attacks took place in a total of fewer than 15 minutes, within earshot of more than 30 witnesses who heard nothing. After leaving the sorority house, Bundy broke into a basement apartment eight blocks away and attacked FSU student Cheryl Thomas, dislocating her shoulder and fracturing her jaw and skull in five places. She was left with permanent deafness and equilibrium damage that ended her dance career. On Thomas' bed, police found a semen stain and a pantyhose "mask" containing two hairs "similar to Bundy's in class and characteristic".

Khomeini was not allowed to return to Iran during the Shah's reign (as he had been in exile). On 16 January 1979, the Shah left the country (ostensibly "on vacation"), never to return.

For Slovenia, the war marked the decisive defense of its independence in regard to Yugoslavia. It was officially recognised by all European Community member states on 15 January 1992.

This so-called Sarajevo Agreement became a lasting ceasefire. Croatia was officially recognized by the European Community on January 15, 1992.

As the UNTAES replaced the UNCRO mission, Prevlaka peninsula, previously under UNCRO control, was put under control of United Nations Mission of Observers in Prevlaka (UNMOP). The UNMOP was established by United Nations Security Council Resolution 1038 of 15 January 1996, and terminated on 15 December 2002.

The new UN mission was established as the United Nations Transitional Authority for Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Sirmium (UNTAES) by United Nations Security Council Resolution 1037 of 15 January 1996.

The transitional period was subsequently extended by a year. On 15 January 1998, the UNTAES mandate ended and Croatia regained full control of the area.

On 15 January 1999 the Račak Killings occurred when "45 Kosovan Albanian farmers were rounded up, led up a hill and massacred".

On 15 January 2009, the South Korean news agency reported that Kim Jong-il had appointed Kim Jong-un to be his successor.

Sullenberger opened the cockpit door and gave the order to evacuate. The crew began evacuating the passengers through the four overwing window exits and into an inflatable slide/raft deployed from the front right passenger door (the front left slide failed to operate, so the manual inflation handle was pulled). A panicked passenger opened a rear door, which a flight attendant was unable to reseal. Water was also entering through a hole in the fuselage and through cargo doors that had come open, so as the water rose the attendant urged passengers to move forward by climbing over seats. One passenger was in a wheelchair. Finally, Sullenberger walked the cabin twice to confirm it was empty.

The air and water temperatures were about 19 °F (−7 °C) and 41 °F (5 °C) respectively. Some evacuees waited for rescue knee-deep in water on the partially submerged slides, some wearing life-vests. Others stood on the wings or, fearing an explosion, swam away from the plane. One passenger, after helping with the evacuation, found the wing so crowded that he jumped into the river and swam to a boat.

Sullenberger asked controllers for landing options in New Jersey, mentioning Teterboro Airport. Permission was given for Teterboro's Runway 1, Sullenberger initially responded "Yes", but then: "We can't do it ... We're gonna be in the Hudson". The aircraft passed less than 900 feet (270 m) above the George Washington Bridge. Sullenberger commanded over the cabin address system, "Brace for impact", and the flight attendants relayed the command to passengers. Meanwhile, air traffic controllers asked the Coast Guard to caution vessels in the Hudson and ask them to prepare to assist with the rescue.

On January 15, 2009, US Airways Flight 1549 with call sign 'CACTUS 1549' was scheduled to fly from New York City's LaGuardia Airport (LGA) to Charlotte Douglas (CLT), with direct onward service to Seattle–Tacoma International Airport. The aircraft was an Airbus A320-214 powered by two GE Aviation/Snecma-designed CFM56-5B4/P turbofan engines.

The pilot in command was 57-year-old Chesley B. Sullenberger, a former fighter pilot who had been an airline pilot since leaving the United States Air Force in 1980. At the time, he had logged 19,663 total flight hours, including 4,765 in an A320; he was also a glider pilot and expert on aviation safety. First officer Jeffrey B. Skiles, 49, had accrued 20,727 career flight hours, but this was his first Airbus A320 assignment since qualifying to fly it. There were 150 passengers and three flight attendants on board.

At 3:27:11 the plane struck a flock of Canada geese at an altitude of 2,818 feet (859 m) about 4.5 miles (7.2 km) north-northwest of LaGuardia. The pilots' view was filled with the large birds; passengers and crew heard very loud bangs and saw flames from the engines, followed by silence and an odor of fuel.

At 3:27:33, Sullenberger radioed a mayday call to New York Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON): "... this is Cactus 1539 [sic – correct call sign was Cactus 1549], hit birds. We've lost thrust on both engines. We're turning back towards LaGuardia". Air traffic controller Patrick Harten told LaGuardia's tower to hold all departures and directed Sullenberger back to Runway 13. Sullenberger responded, "Unable".

About ninety seconds later, at 3:31 pm, the plane made an unpowered ditching, descending southwards at about 125 knots (140 mph; 230 km/h) into the middle of the North River section of the Hudson tidal estuary, at 40.7695°N 74.0046°W on the New York side of the state line, roughly opposite West 50th Street (near the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum) in Manhattan and Port Imperial in Weehawken, New Jersey. Flight attendants compared the ditching to a "hard landing" with "one impact, no bounce, then a gradual deceleration." The ebb tide then began to take the plane southward.

Sullenberger had ditched near boats, which facilitated rescue. NY Waterway ferries Thomas Jefferson and then Governor Thomas H. Kean both arrived within minutes and began taking people aboard using Jason's cradle. Sullenberger advised the ferry crews to rescue those on the wings first, as they were in more jeopardy than those on the slides, which detached to become life rafts. As the plane drifted, passengers on one slide, fearing that the boat would crush them, shouted for it to steer away. The last person was taken from the plane at 3:55 pm. About 140 New York City firefighters responded to nearby docks, as did police, helicopters, and various vessels and divers. Other agencies provided medical help on the Weehawken side of the river, where most passengers were taken.

There were five serious injuries, including a deep laceration in flight attendant Doreen Welsh's leg. Seventy-eight people were treated, mostly for minor injuries and hypothermia; twenty-four passengers and two rescuers were treated at hospitals, with two passengers kept overnight. One passenger now wears glasses because of eye damage from jet fuel. No pets were being carried on the flight.

After winning his first three matches in charge of the national team, he oversaw a 6–1 defeat to Bolivia, equalling the team's worst-ever margin of defeat. With two matches remaining in the qualification tournament for the 2010 World Cup, Argentina was in fifth place and faced the possibility of failing to qualify, but victory in the last two matches secured qualification for the finals. After Argentina's qualification, Maradona used abusive language at the live post-game press conference, telling members of the media to "suck it and keep on sucking it". FIFA responded with a two-month ban on all footballing activity, which expired on 15 January 2010, and a CHF 25,000 fine, with a warning as to his future conduct.

On January 15, 2013, Facebook announced Facebook Graph Search, which provides users with a "precise answer", rather than a link to an answer by leveraging data present on its site.

On 15 January 2019, May's government was defeated in the House of Commons by a margin of 230 votes (202 in favour and 432 opposed) in a vote on her deal to leave the European Union. It was the largest majority against a United Kingdom government in history.

On 15 January 2019, the House of Commons voted 432 to 202 against the deal, which was the largest majority against a United Kingdom government ever.

A Netflix documentary entitled Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez was released for streaming on January 15, 2020.

The result of this synod was the Raphia Decree, issued on 15 November 217 BC and preserved in three copies.

Irish politician and animal rights activist Richard Martin was born in Ballynahinch Castle.