ON THIS DAY MAY 15

1525 At the battle of Frankenhausen, a German peasant army is surrounded and

5 000 of their number are slaughtered, effectively ending the peasants’ uprising.

1536 Anne Boleyn, the Queen of England, and her brother George, Lord Rochford, stand trial, accused of adultery and incest. She is condemned to death by a specially selected jury, freeing King Henry VIII to marry again. 1718 James Puckle, a London lawyer, patents the world’s first machine gun. (What would a lawyer want with one? – Ed)

1793 Spaniard Diego Marín Aguilera flies a glider for 360m, at a height of 5–6m, in one of the first manned flights.

1900 General Buller’s troops capture Dundee and Glencoe from the Boers.

1911 More than 300 Chinese immigrants are massacred when Mexican revolutionaries take the city of Torreón from the Federales.

1928 Mickey Mouse’s first appearance in the silent film, Plane Crazy.

1936 Pilot Amy Johnson lands after a record flight of 12 days, 15 hours from London to Cape Town and back.

1940 Mcdonald’s opens its first restaurant in San Bernardino, California.

1945 The Battle of Poljana, the final skirmish in Europe, is fought in Slovenia.

1948 Neighbouring Arab states simultaneously attack Israel.

1990 Brothel keeper Lindi St Clair, aka Miss Whiplash, loses her 15-year battle against Britain’s taxman, who was prosecuting her because it considered prostitution to be a trade, prompting heir to say the taxmen were “nothing more than Her Majesty’s pimps”, a sentiment that might be widely agreed with. 2010 Jessica Watson, 16, becomes the youngest person to sail non-stop and unassisted around the world.

2018 The 19km-long Kerch bridge (the longest in Europe), linking Russia and annexed Crimea, is opened by Russian President Vladimir Putin. 2019 Findings from China’s Chang’e-4 moonrover suggests a huge asteroid created the giant crater on the moon’s far side with an impact so great that it cracked its crust and reached the mantle below. | THE HISTORIAN