History of the Day for:
January 15
- 1582: Russia ceded Livonia and Estonia to Poland.
- 1777: Vermont declared its independence from Britain and established a republic which lasted until the state joined the Union in 1791.
- 1780: The Continental Congress established the court of appeals.
- 1797: The top hat was first worn, by John Etherington of London.
- 1844: The University of Notre Dame received its charter from the state of Indiana.
- 1870: A donkey first appeared in a cartoon to symbolize the U.S. Democratic Party. Published in Harper's Weekly, it criticized ex-secretary of war Edwin Stanton and was captioned "A Live Jackass Kicking a Dead Lion."
- 1895: Tchaikovsky's ballet "Swan Lake" premiered.
- 1896: U.S. photographer Mathew Brady, famed for his political portraits and his photographs of the American Civil War, died.
- 1919: Pianist and statesman Ignace Jan Paderewski became the first premier of Poland.
- 1922: The Irish Free State was formed; Michael Collins became its first premier.
- 1929: U.S. civil rights leader Martin Luther King was born in Atlanta.
- 1943: Work was completed on the Pentagon, headquarters of the United States Department of Defense.
- 1944: The European Advisory Commission decided to divide Germany into several occupational zones after the war.
- 1951: The Supreme Court curbed the freedom of speech, ruling "clear and present danger" of incitement to riot was cause for arrest.
- 1967: The first Super Bowl was played as the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League defeated the Kansas City Chiefs of the American Football League, 35-10.
- 1968: Bill Masterson became the first casualty in the National Hockey League when he died of a brain injury sustained in a game two days before.
- 1974: "Happy Days" began an 11-year run on ABC.
- 1975: Space Mountain opened in Disneyland.
- 1976: Sara Jane Moore was sentenced to life in prison for her attempt on the life of President Ford.
- 1977: The Coneheads debut on "Saturday Night Live."
- 1978: Lisa Levy and Margaret Bowman, two students at Florida State University, were murdered in their sorority house by Ted Bundy.
- 1981: "Hill Street Blues" debuted on NBC.
- 1984: Hana Mandlikova ended Martina Navratilova's 54-match winning streak.
- 1988: Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder made racist remarks about black athletes, resulting in his termination from CBS.
- 1999: The Racak incident: 45 Albanians in the Kosovo village of Racak are killed by Yugoslav security forces.
- 2000: A man died after was hit by an LRT train in Singapore while crossing the tracks at the station named Jelapang Station, marking the first fatality on its LRT system.
- 2001: Wikipedia, a free Wiki content encyclopedia, goes online.
- 2005: An intense solar flare blasts X-rays across the solar system.
- 2005: ESA's SMART-1 lunar orbiter discovers elements such as calcium, aluminum, silicon, iron, and other surface elements on the moon.
- 2007: Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, former Iraqi intelligence chief and half-brother of Saddam Hussein, and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, former chief judge of the Revolutionary Court, are executed by hanging in Iraq.
- 2009: US Airways Flight 1549 makes an emergency landing into the Hudson River shortly after takeoff from LaGuardia Airport in New York City. All passengers and crew members survive.