Today in History: US Psychiatric Association vote to remove homosexuality from its official list of psychiatric disorders

The following are some of the major events that occurred on December 15 throughout history:

533 – Vandalic War: Byzantine general Belisarius defeats the Vandals, commanded by King Gelimer, at the Battle of Tricamarum.

1167 – Sicilian Chancellor Stephen du Perche moves the royal court to Messina to prevent a rebellion.

1836 – The U.S. Patent Office building in Washington, D.C., nearly burns to the ground, destroying all 9,957 patents issued by the federal government to that date, as well as 7,000 related patent models.

1871 – Sixteen-year-old telegraphist Ella Stewart keys and sends the first telegraphed message from Arizona Territory at the Deseret Telegraph Company office in Pipe Spring.

1899 – British Army forces are defeated at the Battle of Colenso in Natal, South Africa, the third and final battle fought during the Black Week of the Second Boer War.

1914 – World War I: The Serbian Army recaptures Belgrade from the invading Austro-Hungarian Army.

1960 – Richard Pavlick is arrested for plotting to assassinate U.S. President-Elect John F. Kennedy.

1973 – The American Psychiatric Association votes 13–0 to remove homosexuality from its official list of psychiatric disorders, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

2001 – The Leaning Tower of Pisa reopens after 11 years and $27,000,000 spent to stabilize it, without fixing its famous lean.

2014 – Gunman Man Haron Monis takes 18 hostages inside a café in Martin Place for 16 hours in Sydney. Monis and two hostages are killed when police raid the café the following morning.