On This Day - What happened 15 May

The Battle of Calatafimi was fought on the 15 May 1860 between Giuseppe Garibaldi's volunteers and the troops of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies at Calatafimi, Sicily, as part of the Expedition of the Thousand.

Start of construction on the second stage.

15 May: Svirskii tells the strikers they can negotiate only about each factory in turn, but they can hold elections wherever. The strikers elect delegates to represent each mill while they are still out in the streets. Later the delegates elect a chairman.

Robert Nivelle was removed from command by 15 May, replaced by General Philippe Pétain, who suspended bloody large-scale attacks.

In Vicksburg, 1000 white rioters broke Lloyd Clay out of jail, hung him, and burned him in the city center as the crowd watching. The riot spurred by rumors of an attack on a white women.

In late-March de Gaulle was told by Reynaud that he would be given command of the 4th Armoured Division, due to form by 15 May.

The Germans broke through at Sedan on 15 May 1940.

Operation Brevity was a limited offensive conducted in mid-May 1941, during the Western Desert Campaign of the Second World War. Conceived by the commander-in-chief of the British Middle East Command, General Archibald Wavell, Brevity was intended to be a rapid blow against weak Axis front-line forces in the Sollum–Capuzzo–Bardia area of the border between Egypt and Libya. Although the operation got off to a promising start, throwing the Axis high command into confusion, most of its early gains were lost to local counter-attacks, and with German reinforcements being rushed to the front the operation was called off after one day.

After the Doolittle Raid, the Imperial Japanese Army conducted a massive sweep through Zhejiang and Jiangxi of China, now known as the Zhejiang-Jiangxi Campaign, with the goal of finding the surviving American airmen, applying retribution on the Chinese who aided them and destroying air bases. The operation started May 15, 1942, with 40 infantry battalions and 15–16 artillery battalions but was repelled by Chinese forces in September.

In mid-May, Japan started the Zhejiang-Jiangxi Campaign, which lasted from 15 May to 4 September in China, with the goal of inflicting retribution on the Chinese who aided the surviving American airmen in the Doolittle Raid.

In 1954, Batista's government held presidential elections, but no politician standing against him; the election was widely considered fraudulent. It had allowed some political opposition to be voiced, and Castro's supporters had agitated for an amnesty for the Moncada incident's perpetrators. Some politicians suggested an amnesty would be good publicity, and the Congress and Batista agreed. Backed by the US and major corporations, Batista believed Castro to be no threat, and on 15 May 1955, the prisoners were released.

In mid-May, three of Bundy's Washington State DES coworkers, including Carole Ann Boone, visited him in Salt Lake City and stayed for a week in his apartment.

The students remained in the Square during the Gorbachev visit; his welcoming ceremony was held at the airport. The Sino-Soviet summit, the first of its kind in some 30 years, marked the normalization of Sino-Soviet relations, and was seen as a breakthrough of tremendous historical significance for China's leaders. However, its smooth proceedings was derailed by the student movement; this created a major embarrassment ("loss of face") for the leadership on the global stage, and drove many moderates in government onto a more 'hardliner' path. The summit between Deng and Gorbachev took place at the Great Hall of the People amid the backdrop of commotion and protest in the Square.

On 15 May, Stjepan Mesić, a Croat, was scheduled to be the chairman of the rotating presidency of Yugoslavia. Serbia, aided by Kosovo, Montenegro, and Vojvodina, whose presidency votes were at that time under Serbian control, blocked the appointment, which was otherwise seen as largely ceremonial.

On 15 May 1992, a JNA column was ambushed in Tuzla. 92nd Motorised JNA Brigade (stationed in "Husinska buna" barracks in Tuzla) received orders to leave the city of Tuzla and Bosnia-Herzegovina, and to enter Serbia.

On 15–16 May, the Vance-Owen peace plan was rejected on a referendum.

During this time, Yugoslav President Milošević reached an arrangement with Boris Yeltsin of Russia to stop offensive operations and prepare for talks with the Albanians, who refused to talk to the Serbian side throughout the crisis, but would talk with the Yugoslav government. In fact, the only meeting between Milošević and Ibrahim Rugova (first President of the Republic of Kosova) happened on 15 May in Belgrade, two days after Richard Holbrooke announced that it would take place. Holbrooke threatened Milošević that if he did not obey, "what's left of your country will implode". A month later, Holbrooke visited the border areas affected by the fighting in early June, where he was famously photographed with the KLA. The publication of these images sent a signal to the KLA, its supporters and sympathisers, and to observers in general, that the US was decisively backing the KLA and the Albanian population in Kosovo.

He lost the UEFA Champions League final 2–1 to Real Madrid.

No new cases of SARS has been reported through 2005 or in late 2004.

Ballack agreed to join English Premier League club Chelsea on a free transfer on 15 May 2006.

Jolie also voiced the DreamWorks animation Kung Fu Panda (2008), the first work in a major family franchise.

Eminem appeared on his Shade 45 Sirius channel in September 2008, saying: "Right now I'm kinda just concentrating on my own stuff, for right now and just banging out tracks and producing a lot of stuff. You know, the more I keep producing the better it seems like I get 'cause I just start knowing stuff." Interscope confirmed that a new album would be released in spring 2009. In December 2008, Eminem provided more details about the album, entitled Relapse: "Me and Dre are back in the lab like the old days, man. Dre will end up producing the majority of the tracks on 'Relapse'. We are up to our old mischievous ways ... let's just leave it at that."

He also started as Chelsea were victorious against Portsmouth in the 2010 FA Cup final, however he would come off injured shortly before half-time after a tackle by Kevin-Prince Boateng. As a result of the injury, Ballack was not able to participate in the 2010 World Cup.

On 15 May 2012, Macron became the Deputy Secretary General of the Élysée, a senior role in President François Hollande's staff.

On 15 May 2013, US authorities seized accounts associated with Mt. Gox after discovering it had not registered as a money transmitter with FinCEN in the US.

At its developer conference in May 2013, Google announced a special version of the Samsung Galaxy S4, where, instead of using Samsung's own Android customization, the phone ran "stock Android" and was promised to receive new system updates fast. The device would become the start of the Google Play edition program and was followed by other devices, including the HTC One Google Play edition, and Moto G Google Play edition.

On May 15, 2014, the FCC decided to consider two options regarding Internet services: first, permit fast and slow broadband lanes, thereby compromising net neutrality; and second, reclassify broadband as a telecommunication service, thereby preserving net neutrality.

On May 15, 2014, Hernandez was indicted on murder charges for the killings of de Abreu and Furtado, with additional charges of armed assault and attempted murder associated with shots fired at the surviving occupants in the vehicle. The trial began on March 1, 2017. The prosecution case was strongly based on testimony by Bradley, a known drug dealer who had been feuding with Hernandez since the NFL player allegedly shot him in the face and left him to die. Hernandez and Bradley each claimed the other person pulled the trigger. Jose Baez, Hernandez's attorney, argued that the proposed motive was implausible, and Hernandez was a suspect of convenience to close two unsolved murders. Bradley alleged that Hernandez was angered after the victims spilled a drink on him at a nightclub several hours before the shooting and killed them in retaliation. Security camera footage confirmed Hernandez was in the club for less than ten minutes. In that time he calmly posed for a photo with a fan and left by himself — contradicting Bradley's testimony that he departed with Hernandez. Furthermore, Baez characterized the police investigation as extraordinarily sloppy (e.g., the victims' bodies were kept in their bullet-riddled vehicle as it was towed away from the shooting scene, a major protocol violation) with no physical evidence tying Hernandez to the murders.

On 15 May 2019, the Department of Commerce added Huawei and 70 foreign subsidiaries and "affiliates" to its entity list under the Export Administration Regulations, citing the company having been indited for "knowingly and willfully causing the export, reexport, sale and supply, directly and indirectly, of goods, technology and services (banking and other financial services) from the United States to Iran and the government of Iran without obtaining a license from the Department of Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC)". This restricts U.S. companies from doing business with Huawei without a government license.

Popeyes opened the first store in China on May 15, 2020.