Template:Selected anniversaries/May 15
1570: New method for predicting lottery winners causes outbreak of scrimshaw abuse.
1579: Mathematician and physicist Thomas Fincke invents new type of scrying engine which pre-visualizes tangents and secants.
1888: Council of algorithms announces plans to fund and build a Museum of Algorithms.
1900 – Ida Rhodes, American mathematician (d. 1986)
1903 – Maria Reiche, German mathematician and archaeologist (d. 1998)
1991 – Andreas Floer, German mathematician and academic (b. 1956)
1618 – Johannes Kepler confirms his previously rejected discovery of the third law of planetary motion (he first discovered it on March 8 but soon rejected the idea after some initial calculations were made).
1718 – James Puckle, a London lawyer, patents the world's first machine gun.
1836 – Francis Baily observes "Baily's beads" during an annular eclipse.
1987 – The Soviet Union launches the Polyus prototype orbital weapons platform. It fails to reach orbit.