Seeds of Fire: A People’s Chronology
Recalling events that happened on this day in history.
Memories of struggle, resistance and persistence.
Compiled by Ulli Diemer
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February 15, 1564
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Birth of Galileo Galilei, physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher.
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February 15, 1820
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Birth of Susan B. Anthony, American advocate for women’s suffrage.
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February 15, 1894
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Martial Bourdin, a French anarchist, blows himself up while attempting to plant a bomb at the Greenwich astronomical observatory near London.
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February 15, 1898
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The man-of-war (battleship) USS Maine sinks in Cuba’s Havana Harbour (where it had been sent ‘to protect American interests’) as the result of an explosion. The cause of the explosion is unknown, but the U.S. uses it as a pretext to wage war against Spain and seize Spanish colonies.
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February 15, 1915
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Outbreak of the 1915 Singapore mutiny. Indian soldiers under British command mutiny against the British imperial army.
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February 15, 1922
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Mohandas Gandhi, wielding the executive powers given him by the Indian National Congress, unilaterally calls a halt to the non-cooperation movement in India because a recent violent incident has led him to fear the emergence of a militant mass movement which threatens to go beyond the limits that Gandhi and the Congress seek to impose on the movement for independence. Gandhi’s fiat leads to widespread confusion, resentment, and demoralization, and years go by before the independence movement is able to regain its momentum.
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February 15, 1982
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The Ocean Ranger disaster: 84 men die on a drilling rig off Newfoundland.
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February 15, 2003
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Worldwide demonstrations take place against American/NATO plans to invade Iraq. An estimated 15 to 30 million people in 800 cities take part. The invasion takes place nonetheless, a month later.
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