1213 After years of disagreement and political struggle, King John of England yields to Rome and allows Stephen Langton to return and become Archbishop of Canterbury. The crisis is a major factor that led to the Magna Carta in 1215.
1222 Mongolian leader Genghis Khan meets the leader of the Taoist Dragon Gate sect Master Changchun (Qiu Chuji) at his camp in Parwan near the Hindu Kush in Afghanistan
1568 Mary Queen of Scots spent her last night on Scottish soil here at Dundrennan Abbey The next morning she boarded a fishing boat bound for Workington in England and for imprisonment and eventual execution.
1800 King George III survives a second assassination attempt
in 1928: Mickey Mouse appeared in his first cartoon. The cartoon was called "Plane Crazy" and was only ever released in a test screening. The film was a black and white silent film; however, it failed to pick up a distributor.
1940 In San Bernadino, California, brothers Maurice (“Mac”) and Richard McDonald opened a drive-in restaurant that gave rise to the fast-food chain McDonald's.
1972 – The island of Okinawa, under U.S. military governance since its conquest in 1945, reverts to Japanese control.
On the 15th May 1973 the Llyn Brianne Dam was officially inaugurated by Princess Alexandra. Llyn Brianne is a man-made reservoir in the headwaters of the River Tywi at Rhandirmwyn above Llandovery, constructed to provide water for Swansea and its surrounding area. It is, in essence, a constructed mountain of crushed rock and clay 300 ft high, blocking the valley. It is the tallest dam in the UK and is the world's largest clay core dam. In 1996 a concrete extension was built, which increased the capacity of the reservoir to 14,200 million gallons. It has a hydroelectric plant, with three turbines producing 4.3Mw – enough electricity to power a small town. It is named after a stream called ‘Nant y Bryniau’, misspelt as Brianne.
May 15 1996 Independent Television in Britain broadcast the earliest known footage of The Beatles, shot in February 1961. That was three years before the group became world-famous. The film, which had no soundtrack, was found in a drawer in a house in Liverpool.
