December 1915

The following events occurred in December 1915:

December 1, 1915 (Wednesday)

• Battle for Lake Tanganyika — German warship Kingani, on patrol in Lake Tanganyika that separated Belgian Congo from German East Africa, ran a reconnaissance mission on the lake port of Kalemie on Belgian side of the great African lake.^[1]
• A mob of soldiers vandalized the German Club in Sydney, Australia by throwing stones and breaking every facade window of the club. Police broke up the mob shortly after, arresting one soldier and charging him with malicious damage and riotous behaviour.^[2]
• Died: Stuart Merrill, American Symbolist poet writing in French, author of Les Gammes, Les Fastes, and Petits Poèmes d'Automne (b. 1863); Henry Hart, African American entertainer and composer, leading composer and performer of mistrial shows in Indianapolis (b. 1839)

December 2, 1915 (Thursday)

• Fourth Battle of the Isonzo — Cold winter began interfering with supplies to the front lines, forcing the battle between Italy and Austria-Hungary to wane to minor skirmishes throughout the rest of the month. Italian forces suffered 49,500 casualties including 7,500 dead, while Austro-Hungarian forces had 32,100 casualties including 4,000 dead.^[3]
• Battle for Lake Tanganyika — Lieutenant Job Rosenthal, commander of the German warship Kingani, on patrol in Lake Tanganyika was caught on shore while gathering intelligence on Allied defenses on the lake port of Kalemie, Belgian Congo. He was able to smuggle out a letter warning command in German East Africa of mounting Allied action around the African lake but it look months to reach his superiors.^[4]
• The college athletics organization Pacific Coast Conference was established with four charter members from University of California, Berkeley, University of Washington, University of Oregon, and Oregon Agricultural College (now Oregon State University). The conference was disbanded in 1959.^[5]
• The operetta Katinka, composed by Rudolf Friml, premiered in Morristown, New Jersey before appearing at the 44th Street Theatre on Broadway on December 23.^[6]
• Born: Marais Viljoen, last ceremonial President of South Africa from 1979 to 1984, in Robertson, Western Cape, South Africa (d. 2007); Prince Takahito of Mikasa, younger brother of Hirohito, only surviving paternal uncle of Emperor Akihito, in Tokyo (still alive in 2016); Charles Fernley Fawcett, American medical officer, co-founder of the International Medical Corps, in Waleska, Georgia (d. 2008)

December 3, 1915 (Friday)

• A magnitude 6.5 earthquake struck the border of Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh, India,^[7] killing 170 people and destroying many homes.^[8]
• British Indian forces under Major-General Charles Townshend arrived at Kut, located on the Tigris in what is now eastern Iraq. Since the Battle of Ctesiphon weeks earlier, the army had been reduced to a third of its strength and 400 miles deep into Ottoman territory.^[9]
• Senussi Campaign — The British garrison at Matruh, North Africa was increased by 1,400 men, and equipped with several guns from the Royal Marine Artillery, and two aircraft from the Royal Flying Corps as a means to deal with the growing Senussi insurgency.^[10]
• Born: James Day Hodgson, American politician, United States Secretary of Labor from 1970 to 1973 and United States Ambassador to Japan from 1974 to 1977, in Dawson, Minnesota (d. 2012)
• Died: Scipio Slataper, Italian writer and academic, promoter of the intellectual community in Trieste, Italy, author of My Karst, killed at the Fourth Battle of the Isonzo (b. 1888)

December 4, 1915 (Saturday)

• Kosovo Offensive — The Central Powers captured Debar in Serbia (now part of Macedonia), officially ending the offense. The Serbian army lost 30,000 soldiers, 199 guns, 150 vehicles and various other equipment. The remaining Serbian army was transported to the Greek island of Corfu where thousands more died from exhaustion and other health complications related to the retreat.^[11]
• The Panama–Pacific International Exposition officially closed in San Francisco, after receiving close to 19 million visitors over ten months, including 450,000 visitors on its closing day.^[12]
• The Son of Tarzan, the fourth Tarzan novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs, began serial publication in the magazine All-Story Weekly. It would be published in book form in 1917.^[13]
• Born: Virginia deGravelles, American political organizer, national committee member for the Republican Party in Louisiana from 1964 to 1968, in Alexandria, Louisiana (still alive as of 2016); Johnny Lombardi, Canadian television personality, best known for promoting multicultural community TV programming, recipient of the Order of Canada, in Toronto (d. 2002); Eddie Heywood, American jazz musician, best known for his piano hits "Canadian Sunset", "Begin the Beguine" and "The Man I Love", in Atlanta (d. 1989)

December 5, 1915 (Sunday)

• Costa Rica held mid-term parliamentary elections, with the Republican Party of Costa Rica two-thirds of the vote, in which just over half of the eligible electorate voted.^[14]
• French submarine Fresnel was scuttled after running aground on the Bojana River that fed into the Adriatic Sea. Austro-Hungarian naval destroyer Warasdiner completed the destruction of the ship and took the French crew prisoner.^[15]
• Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition — The shipwreck camp the polar exploration party set up following the sinking of the polar exploration ship Endurance drifted northward on the ice, reducing the choice of Antarctic islands the crew would make landing to one: Paulet Island.^[16]
• The Sunshine Special luxury passenger train service made its inaugural run on the St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern Railway.^[17]
• Born: Bobby Mattick, American baseball player and manager, played shortstop for the Chicago Cubs and Cincinnati Reds from 1938 to 1942, manager of the Toronto Blue Jays from 1980 to 1981, in Sioux City, Iowa (d. 2004)

December 6, 1915 (Monday)

• Battle of Kosturino — The Second Bulgarian Army under General Georgi Todorov began an assault on British and French defenses at Kosturino in what was part of the Serbian controlled Macedonia.^[18]
• A second Chantilly Conference for the Allied military organizations was held to formulate a coordinated strategy for the upcoming year against the Central Powers.^[19]
• Laurel Run mine fire — An underground coal mine fire near the communities of Laurel Run and Georgetown, in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania started when a miner accidentally left a carbide lamp hanging from a timber support before leaving for the weekend, causing it to ignite. Workers returning the following week discovered the fire and tries to extinguish it by blocking off its air supply by pouring sand in the area and filling the openings of the mine with concrete. However, the fire persisted and spread, continuing to burn well into the 21st-century.^[20]
• Born: Ray McLean, American football player and coach, played running back for the Chicago Bears from 1940 to 1947 and coach for the Green Bay Packers from 1951 to 1958, in Lowell, Massachusetts (d. 1964); Wacław Micuta, Polish resistance fighter and United Nations executive, one of the leaders in the Warsaw Uprising against Nazi occupation in 1944, member of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, in Petrograd, Russian Empire (d. 2008)

December 7, 1915 (Tuesday)

• Gallipoli Campaign — Allied forces began to withdraw from the Gallipoli Peninsula in gradual waves in order to not tip off the Ottomans.^[21] In many cases, rifles were rigged to self-fire to disguise the departure, based on a design put forth by Australian soldier William Scurry.^[22]
• Siege of Kut — Major-General Charles Townshend chose the 6th Division of the British Indian Army to make a stand against an Ottoman force of 11,000 men at Kut 100 miles south of Baghdad rather than retreat further south to Basra, allowing the Ottomans to reinforce their siege while making it harder for the British to send reinforcements.^[23]
• Battle of Kosturino — The Bulgarian army launched a bayonet attacked on British defenders at Kosturino using the cover of fog. Both British and French soldiers regrouped to repel the attack.^[24]
• U.S. President Woodrow Wilson delivered his 1915 State of the Union Address to the 64th United States Congress. While the United States was still neutral during World War One, Wilson emphasized the larger role the country could play on the international stage: "The moral is, that the states of America are not hostile rivals but cooperating friends, and that their growing sense of community or interest, alike in matters political and in matters economic, is likely to give them a new significance as factors in international affairs and in the political history of the world."^[25]
• The German Club in Sydney, Australia applied to renew its licensing to reopen after repairs were made to damages caused by a mob of soldiers on-leave at the start of the month, but the licensing court refused to entertain renewals until after the war, resulting in the club eventually shutting down.^[26]
• Born: Eli Wallach, American actor, best known for film roles such as Baby Doll, The Magnificent Seven and The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, in New York City (d. 2014); Leigh Brackett, American author and screenwriter, author of the screenplays The Big Sleep, Rio Bravo and The Empire Strikes Back, credited for developing the Space Opera novel, in Los Angeles (d. 1978)

December 8, 1915 (Wednesday)

• Battle of Kosturino — The Bulgarian broke through the British-French lines and captured 10 artillery guns.^[27]
• Siege of Mora – British soldiers burned an African village that had been supplying food supplies to German defenders at Mora in Kamerun in a means to starve German troops and force them to surrender.^[28]
• Canadian medical soldier John McCrae published his war poem "In Flanders Fields" anonymously in Punch after it had been rejected by The Spectator, but Punch attributed the poem to McCrea in its year-end index.^[29]
• Swedish composer Jean Sibelius premiered his Symphony No. 5 with the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra at a concert held on his birthday.^[30]
• Born: Ernest Lehman, American screenwriter, known for his scripts for The Sound of Music and West Side Story, received six Academy Award nominations without a single win, recipient of the Academy Honorary Award, in New York City (d. 2005); Nikos Gatsos, Greek poet, best known for contributing lyrics to Greek composers such as Manos Hadjidakis, Mikis Theodorakis and Stavros Xarchakos, in Asea, Greece (d. 1992)
• Born: Frederick Ralph Sharp, Canadian air force officer, Chief of the Defence Staff for Canada from 1969 to 1972, in Moosomin, Saskatchewan (d. 1992); Bernard Fagg, British archaeologist, leading excavator and curator of digs in Nigeria, in London (d. 1987)
• Died: Gaetano Perusini, Italian physician, pupil and colleague of Alois Alzheimer, died from wounds sustained from a grenade during the Italian campaign (b. 1879)

December 9, 1915 (Thursday)

• Battle of Kosturino — The French repulsed an attack that left 400 Bulgarian soldiers dead before regrouping at Bajimia.^[27]
• British cargo ship Orteric was torpedoed and sunk in the Mediterranean Sea 140 nautical miles (260 km) southeast of Gavdos, Greece by German submarine SM U-39 with the loss of two crew.^[31]
• The French tested the Breton-Prétot machine on the former battlefield of Souain, France. The machine was designed to maneuver over trenches and shell craters while cutting through barbed wire.^[32]
• Born: Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, German-British opera singer, best known for her performance work with the Royal Opera House in London, especially the role of the Marschallin in the Richard Strauss opera Der Rosenkavalier, in Jarocin, Prussia (now part of Poland) (d. 2006)

December 10, 1915 (Friday)

• The 1 millionth Ford car rolled off the assembly line at the River Rouge Plant in Detroit.^[33]
• Russian naval destroyers sank two Ottoman gunboats in the Black Sea while they were on a salvaging mission to recover German U-boat SM U-13 in what became known as the Battle of Kirpen Island.^[34][35]
• Born: William N. Deramus III, American rail executive, president of Chicago Great Western Railway from 1949 to 1957, Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad from 1957 to 1961, and Kansas City Southern Railway from 1961 to 1973, in Pittsburg, Kansas (d. 1989); Roger Nicole, German-Swiss theologian, one of the contributors to the New International Version of the Bible, in Charlottenburg, Germany (d. 2010)

December 11, 1915 (Saturday)

• Field Marshall John French was appointed Command-in-Chief of Home Forces in Great Britain^[36] and dissolved the Third Army from being a central reserve to a coastal defense force.^[37]
• Battle of Kosturino — The Bulgarian army captured the city of Bogdanci in Serbian-controlled Macedonia.^[38]
• Senussi Campaign — An Allied armored column on patrol in the Sahara Desert were attacked by 300 Senussi tribesmen. With superior firepower and reinforcements from artillery and an Australian cavalry repelled the attack, killing 80 Senussi soldiers. Allied casualties were light.^[39]
• Born: Madhukar Dattatraya Deoras, Indian political leader, third leader of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh Hindu nationalist organization in India, in Nagpur, India (d. 1996)

December 12, 1915 (Sunday)

• President of the Republic of China Yuan Shikai declared himself Emperor.^[40]
• Battle of Kosturino — British and French forces retreat over the Greece border, ending the battle. The British suffered 1,209 British casualties while the French sustained 1,804. Bulgarian casualties were estimated to be higher but no firm estimates could be obtained. Even so, the captured Serbian territory allowed the Central Powers to run a direct rail line from Berlin to Constantinople.^[41]
• Senussi Campaign — A British column pursued but failed to capture retreating Senussi that attacked them the previous day, returning to the garrison in Matruh with casualties of 25 dead and 65 wounded. The Senussi suffered a further 17 killed and 30 wounded during the pursuit.^[42]
• German destroyer SMS V107 struck a mine and sank in the Baltic Sea off Liepāja, Latvia with the loss of a crew member.^[43]
• German pilot Theodor Mallinckrodt made the initial short flight of the world's first practical all-metal aircraft, the Junkers J 1.^[44]
• Born: Frank Sinatra, American singer and actor, one of the best-selling music artists of all time with 150 million records sold, also known for acclaimed film roles such as From Here to Eternity and The Manchurian Candidate, headed the noteworthy "Rat Pack", in Hoboken, New Jersey (d. 1998)
• Born: Tobias Faber, Danish architect and academic, president of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts from 1954 to 1973 and professor of the Academy's School of Architecture (d. 2010); Carlos Humberto Perette, Argentine politician, 26th Vice President of Argentina, in Paraná, Entre Ríos, Argentina (d. 1992)

December 13, 1915 (Monday)

• A municipal election was held in Edmonton, Alberta, with William Thomas Henry re-elected by acclamation as mayor while five new aldermen were elected to vacancies on the 10-seat city council.^[45]
• The Cecil B. DeMille directed drama The Cheat was released, starring Fannie Ward, Sessue Hayakawa, and Jack Dean, Ward's real-life husband.^[46] The film was controversial among Japanese Americans for its leading Japanese character being portrayed as a sinister villain and was consequently not shown in Great Britain or Japan.^[47]
• Born: Ross Macdonald, American-Canadian crime fiction writer, best known for the Lew Archer series, in Los Gatos, California (d. 1983); Curd Juergens, Austrian-German film actor, known for roles in The Longest Day and The Spy Who Loved Me, in Solln, Germany (d. 1982); B. J. Vorster, South African politician, Prime Minister of South Africa from 1966 to 1978, in Uitenhage, Cape Province, South Africa (d. 1983)
• Died: Francis Cockrell, American politician, U.S. Senator from Missouri from 1875 to 1905 (b. 1834)

December 14, 1915 (Tuesday)

• Born: José Toribio Merino, Chilean naval officer, Commander-in-chief of the Chilean Navy, one of the principle leaders in the 1973 Chilean coup d'état that allowed Augusto Pinochet to take power, in La Serena, Chile (d. 1996); Dan Dailey, American actor and singer, known for musical leading roles such as There's No Business Like Show Business, in New York City (d. 1978); Hilliard Gates, American sports broadcaster, broadcaster and general manager of WKJG-TV, the leading sports broadcast station in Indiana until the 1980s (d. 1996)
• Died: Enoch Wood Perry, Jr., American painter, known for his portraits of Jefferson Davis and Brigham Young (b. 1831)

December 15, 1915 (Wednesday)

• William John Bowser became Premier of British Columbia, replacing Richard McBride.^[48]
• The Roman Catholic Diocese of Caratinga was established in Caratinga, Brazil.^[49]

December 16, 1915 (Thursday)

• William Kissam Vanderbilt was found to be in violation of antitrust laws in the United States because the New York Central owned a controlling interest in the Nickel Plate Road, both of which Vanderbilt owned.
• Born: Georgy Sviridov, Russian composer, known for compositions including film scores for Soviet films such as Time, Forward! and The Blizzard, in Fatezh, Russia (d. 1998)

December 17, 1915 (Friday)

• The St Bedes Junction rail crash in England killed 19 people.^[50]
• German cruiser SMS Bremen struck a mine and sank in the Baltic Sea off Ventspils, Lithuania.^[51]
• British gunboat HMS Cricket was launched at Barclay Curle at Glasgow for service in the Middle East.^[52]
• Born: Robert A. Dahl, American political scientist, author of Who Governs? which introduced the concept of pluralist democracy, in Inwood, Iowa (d. 2014); André Claveau, French singer, best known for the hit French-language song "Dors, mon amour" in 1958, in Paris (d. 2003)
• Born: Joan Woodbury, American actress, best known for appearing in many Charlie Chan serials starting with Charlie Chan on Broadway, in Los Angeles (d. 1989); Turk Murphy, American jazz musician, best known for his trombone Dixieland style that was used on some of the Sesame Street shorts in the 1970s, in Palermo, California (d. 1987)

December 18, 1915 (Saturday)

• U.S. President Woodrow Wilson married Edith Bolling Galt in Washington, D.C.^[53]
• Charlie Chaplin's thirteenth and final film for Essanay Studios, A Burlesque on Carmen, was released. The film was a parody of the overacted Cecil B. DeMille Carmen of 1915 which was itself an interpretation of the popular novella Carmen by Prosper Mérimée.^[54]
• Born: Dario Mangiarotti, Italian fencer, three-time Olympic medalist including silver at the 1948 Summer Olympics and gold and silver at the 1952 Summer Olympics, in Milan (d. 2010)

December 19, 1915 (Sunday)

• Greek Liberal Party leader Eleftherios Venizelos and his caucus boycotted the legislative election held in Greece following Greek monarch Constantine I of Greece calling for new elections. The Liberal Party, which one a majority is legislative elections held in May, publicly opposed Constantine's advocacy that Greece remaining neutral during World War One. As a result, only conservative parties ran and were elected to majority of the seats in legislature. Continual conflict between the Greek Liberals and the monarchy led a crisis later in 1916 known as the National Schism.^[55]
• Douglas Haig replaced John French as commander of the British Expeditionary Force.^[56]
• Captain M.M. Bell-Irving of the No.1 Squadron, Royal Flying Corps, achieved the first aerial victory by a Canadian when he shot down a German aircraft.^[57]
• Kasimir Malevich staged the 0.10 Exhibition and introduced Suprematism to the art public.^[58]
• Born: Édith Piaf, French singer, best known for international French-language hits including "La Vie en rose" and "Non, je ne regrette rien", in Paris (d. 1963)
• Died: Alois Alzheimer, German psychiatrist and neuroscientist, identified the first published case of "presenile dementia", later known as Alzheimer's disease (b. 1864); Arthur Williams Wright, American physicist, leading researcher in X-ray imaging (b. 1836)

December 20, 1915 (Monday)

• Gallipoli Campaign — Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) completed their evacuation from Anzac Cove and Sulva Bay before dawn.^[59]
• The Roman Catholic Diocese of Porto Nacional was established in Porto Nacional, Brazil.^[60]
• Born: Noël Browne, Irish politician, Minister for Health from 1948 to 1951, in Waterford Ireland (d. 1997); Harry Wayland Randall, American war photographer, member of the photographic unit for the XV International Brigade during the Spanish Civil War, in Spokane, Washington (d. 2012)
• Died: John T. Morrison, American politician, 6th Governor of Idaho (b. 1860); Carl Locher, Danish painter, member of the Skagen Group (b. 1851)

December 21, 1915 (Tuesday)

• Battle of Hartmannswillerkopf — French and German forces made one final battle for supremacy of the Hartmannswillerkopf peak in the Vosges mountain of the Alsace region that bordered France and Germany.^[61]
• British hospital ship SS Huntly, formerly the German hospital ship Ophelia, was torpedoed and sunk in the English Channel by German submarine SM UB-10 with the loss of two of her crew.^[62]
• Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition — Polar expedition leader Ernest Shackleton ordered a second march to Paulet Island off the main coast of Antarctica.^[63]
• The association football organization Cantabrian Federation of Football Clubs (now the Royal Asturias Football Federation) was formed with official backing from the Royal Spanish Football Federation to oversee football clubs in Asturias, Spain.^[64]
• Born: Werner von Trapp, member of the Trapp Family Singers, in Zell am See, Austria (d. 2007); Samuel L. Devine, American politician, U.S. Representative from Ohio from 1959 to 1981, in South Bend, Indiana (d. 1997)
• Died: Thomas Sergeant Hall, Australian geologist and biologist, recipient of the The Murchison Fund for his research into Graptolithina (prehistoric animals) (b. 1858); Violet Florence Martin, Irish author, co-writer with cousin Edith Somerville of the Somerville and Ross novels, including The Irish R.M. series (b. 1862)

December 22, 1915 (Wednesday)

• Battle of Hartmannswillerkopf — The battle for domination of the Hartmannswillerkopf peak in the Vosges mountain of the Alsace region ended indecisively. The cost of the campaign was enormous for both sides, with 30,000 recorded casualties (the majority for the French side).^[65]
• Battle for Lake Tanganyika — British motor boats HMS Mimi and Toutou were launched from the lake port of Kalemie, Belgian Congo onto Lake Tanganyika.^[66]
• The Prince Edward Island Highlanders battalion was mobilized with the Canadian Expeditionary Force during World War One.^[67]
• Born: Barbara Billingsley, American actress, best known as June Cleaver on the 1950s TV series Leave It to Beaver and its 1980s sequel Still the Beaver, in Los Angeles (d. 2010); David Martin, Hungarian-born Australian journalist and poet, recipient of the Order of Australia, in Budapest (d. 1997)
• Born: A. E. Wilder-Smith, British-American chemist, leading proponent of intelligent design, in Reading, Berkshire, England (d. 1995); Felix Slatkin, American conductor and violinist, Concertmaster for 20th Century Fox, in St. Louis (d. 1963)
• Died: Otto von Emmich, German army officer, commander of German forces at the Battle of Liège, the first battle of World War One (b. 1848); Arthur Hughes, English painter and illustrator, member of Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (b. 1832); Joshua Williams, English-New Zealand academic, first chancellor of University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand (b. 1837)

December 23, 1915 (Thursday)

• General elections were held in Luxembourg, with the Party of the Right winning nearly half of the 52 seats in the Chamber of Deputies.^[68]
• HMHS Britannic departed from Liverpool on her maiden voyage as a hospital ship.
• Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition — The shipwrecked expedition party of the polar exploration ship Endurance began their second march to Paulet Island off the main coast of Antarctica. Despite the warmer summer months, the melting snow caused men and lifeboats to sink, making the trek slow-going.^[69]
• The musical Very Good Eddie, by Guy Bolton and Philip Bartholomae with music by Jerome Kern and lyrics by Schuyler Green and Herbert Reynolds, was the second show to premier at Princess Theatre, New York City. The show was a hit, running for 341 performances and leading to further successful collaborations between Bolton and Kern.^[70]
• Died: Roland Leighton, English war poet, his life and death in combat were commemorated in Vera Brittain's memoir, Testament of Youth (b. 1895)

December 24, 1915 (Friday)

• The Dumbarton Bridge in Washington, D.C. officially opened as the Q Street Bridge before changed to its officially name the following year.^[71] The bridge was added to the National Register of Historic Places on July 16, 1973.^[72]
• Died: William J. Mills, American politician, 19th and last Governor of New Mexico Territory (b. 1849)

December 25, 1915 (Saturday)

• The National Protection War erupted in China.^[73]
• Senussi Campaign — The main body of Senussi clashed with two Allied columns in the Sahara Desert resulting in a major defeat but not a knockout blow the Allies hoped for against the insurgency. About 300 Senussi tribesmen were killed and another 20 were captured. The Allies had 13 men killed and another 51 wounded.^[74]
• The Irving Berlin musical Stop! Look! Listen! premiered Christmas Day on Broadway at the Globe Theatre in New York City, resulting in a run of 105 performances.^[75]
• The association football club Varzim S.C. was established in Póvoa de Varzim, Portugal as the Varzim Foot-Ball Club before changing the name three months later.^[76]
• Born: Pete Rugolo, Italian-American jazz composer and bandleader, best known for his collaborations with Stan Kenton and TV and film scores such as Leave It to Beaver and The Fugitive, in San Piero Patti, Sicily, Italy (d. 2011)

December 26, 1915 (Sunday)

• The Treaty of Darin was signed between Great Britain and Najd ruler Ibn Saud, who would become the founder and first monarch of Saudi Arabia. The treaty would recognize the House of Saud would be a British protectorate and would ally against the Ottoman Empire.^[77][78]
• Battle for Lake Tanganyika — The German warship Kingani was captured by the British following a battle with British boats HMS Mimi and Toutou on Lake Tanganyika near Kalemie, Belgian Congo. The smaller boats were faster and able to out-maneuver the larger German ship, causing enough hull damage to force the German crew to surrender.^[79]
• British submarine HMS E6 struck a mine and sank in the North Sea off Harwich, Essex, England with the loss of 31 of her crew.^[80]
• The Irish Republican Brotherhood Military Council decided to stage an Easter Rising in 1916.
• Actress Mary Boland made her screen debut in The Edge of the Abyss, directed by Walter Edwards (the film is now considered lost).^[81]

December 27, 1915 (Monday)

• Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition — Expedition leader Ernest Shackleton face rebellion in his ranks when ship carpenter Harry McNish refused to work, citing Ship's Articles had expired since the polar exploration ship Endurance sank in November and that he was no longer under orders. Shackleton was able to get the carpenter back in line, but the insubordination cost McNish the Polar Medal which he was not awarded based on Shackleton's recommendation.^[82]
• Born: Gyula Zsengellér, Hungarian association football player, played for Újpest FC from 1936 to 1947, member of the Hungarian national team and second-highest scorer at the 1938 FIFA World Cup (d. 1999); John Cornford, English poet, best known for the anti-fascist poem Full Moon At Tierz, great-grandson of Charles Darwin, in Cambridge (d. 1936, killed in combat during the Spanish Civil War); Mary Kornman, American actress, the female lead in the Our Gang serial, in Idaho Falls, Idaho (d. 1973)

December 28, 1915 (Tuesday)

• Gallipoli Campaign — Allied forces began to evacuate from Cape Helles on the Gallipoli Peninsula.^[83]
• Battle of Durazzo — An Austro-Hungarian naval squadron led by light cruiser SMS Helgoland headed towards Durazzo, Albania.^[84]
• Ross Sea party — Expedition leader Aeneas Mackintosh completed the first of the major supply depots on the Ross Ice Shelf for the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, starting at Minna Bluff before moving on to Mount Hope.^[85]
• During a general meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Columbus, Ohio, 50 attending members voted to form the Ecological Society of America for professionals dedicated to the study and advocacy of ecology. The society has since grown to include 10,000 members worldwide.^[86]
• Born: Frank L. Roberts, American politician, member of the Oregon State Senate from 1975 to 1993, in Boise, Idaho (d. 1993)

December 29, 1915 (Wednesday)

• Battle of Durazzo — The Austro-Hungarian Navy shelled the port of Durazzo, Albania then retreated from French and British squadrons, losing two destroyers in the process.^[87]
• French submarine Monge was sunk in the Adriatic Sea off Kotor, Austria-Hungary by Austro-Hungarian Navy cruiser SMS Helgoland.^[88]
• Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition — Due to deteriorating ice conditions, expedition leader Ernest Shackleton called off the march to Paulet Island and ordered the party to set up a new camp on the open ice. It was now two months since they abandoned the Endurance and the camp would be home for another three months.^[89]
• The town and municipality of Embarcación in Salta Province, Argentina was established.^[90]
• Born: Charles L. Harness, American speculative fiction writer, author of the The Paradox Men, in Colorado City, Texas (d. 2005); LaMar Baker, American politician, U.S. Representative for Tennessee from 1971 to 1975, in Chattanooga, Tennessee (d. 2003)
• Died: Tom Shevlin, American football player and coach, named All-American player with the Yale Bulldogs football team, assistant coach to Yale and the Minnesota Golden Gophers football team (b. 1883)

December 30, 1915 (Thursday)

• British armoured cruiser HMS Natal capsized at anchor in the Cromarty Firth as the result of an internal explosion in her ammunition stores, killing 390 sailors and some civilians.^[91]
• British passenger ship Persia was torpedoed and sunk in the Mediterranean Sea off Crete by German submarine SM U-38 with the loss of 343 of the 519 people on board.^[92]
• The "new" German 8th Army was formed using Army of the Niemen under command of General Otto von Below.^[93]
• The World's Court League was established with American diplomat John Hays Hammond as president. The organization was instrumental in advocating for the creation of the International Court of Justice.^[94]

December 31, 1915 (Friday)

• The National Council for Geographic Education was established at State Normal School in Mankato, Minnesota.^[95]
• Born: Sam Ragan, American poet and journalist, North Carolina Poet Laureate from 1982 to 1996, in Berea, North Carolina (d. 1996); Lee Davenport, American physicist, member of the research team that developed the SCR-584 radar system during World War Two, in Schenectady, New York (d. 2011)
• Died: Winfield Scott Hammond, American politician, 18th Governor of Minnesota (b. 1863); Tommaso Salvini, Italian actor, best known for his leading Shakespearean roles in Othello, Macbeth and King Lear, as well as leading roles in Italian dramas Saul and Francesca da Rimini (b. 1829)

References