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Events on May 15 in history

1987May, 15

The Soviet Union launches the Polyus prototype orbital weapons platform. It fails to reach orbit.

The Polyus spacecraft (Russian: Полюс, pole), also known as Polus, Skif-DM, GRAU index 17F19DM, was a prototype Soviet orbital weapons platform designed to destroy Strategic Defense Initiative satellites with a megawatt carbon-dioxide laser. It had a Functional Cargo Block derived from a TKS spacecraft to control its orbit and it could launch test targets to demonstrate the fire control system.

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Events on 1987

  • 27Apr

    Kurt Waldheim

    The U.S. Department of Justice bars Austrian President Kurt Waldheim (and his wife, Elisabeth, who had also been a Nazi) from entering the USA, charging that he had aided in the deportations and executions of thousands of Jews and others as a German Army officer during World War II.
  • 1May

    Auschwitz concentration camp

    Pope John Paul II beatifies Edith Stein, a Jewish-born Carmelite nun who was gassed in the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz.
  • 5Jul

    Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam

    Sri Lankan Civil War: The LTTE uses suicide attacks on the Sri Lankan Army for the first time. The Black Tigers are born and, in the following years, will continue to kill with the tactic.
  • 27Jul

    RMS Titanic

    RMS Titanic Inc. begins the first expedited salvage of wreckage of the RMS Titanic.
  • 7Nov

    Habib Bourguiba

    In Tunisia, president Habib Bourguiba is overthrown and replaced by Prime Minister Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.