What happened on your birthday?

What’s Your Vietnam War Draft Lottery Number?

The Vietnam War draft lottery ran from 1969 to 1972. If you were born on May 15, would your number have been called?

  • Vietnam War 1969 Lottery
    CalledDrafted
    130
  • Vietnam War 1970 Lottery
    Not CalledNot drafted
    344
  • Vietnam War 1971 Lottery
    Not CalledNot drafted
    162
  • Vietnam War 1972 Lottery
    Not CalledNot drafted
    165

Read on to learn more about the Vietnam war draft lottery.





more events on May 15

  • 1988

    Soviets forces begin their withdrawal from Afghanistan.

  • 1975

    The merchant ship Mayaguez is recaptured from Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge.

  • 1972

    Gov. George Wallace is shot by Arthur Bremer in Laurel, Maryland.

  • 1968

    U.S. Marines relieve army troops in Nhi Ha, South Vietnam after a fourteen-day battle.

  • 1963

    The last Project Mercury space flight, carrying Gordon Cooper, is launched.

  • 1958

    Sputnik III is launched by the Soviet Union.

  • 1942

    The United States begins rationing gasoline.

  • 1930

    Jasper Johns, Jr., painter, leader of the Pop Art movement.

  • Ellen Church becomes the first airline stewardess.

  • 1926

    Peter Shaffer, English playwright (Equus, Amadeus), twin brother of Anthony Shaffer.

  • Anthony Shaffer, English playwright (Sleuth), twin brother of Peter Shaffer.

  • 1923

    Richard Avedon, photographer.

  • 1918

    Pfc. Henry Johnson and Pfc. Needham Roberts receive the Croix de Guerre for their services in World War I. They are the first Americans to win France’s highest military medal.

  • 1916

    U.S. Marines land in Santo Domingo to quell civil disorder.

  • 1902

    Richard Daley, mayor of Chicago through the 1960s and early 1970’s.

  • 1891

    Mikhail Bulgakov, Russian novelist (Notes of a Dead Man, Heart of a Dog).

  • 1890

    Katherine Anne Porter, novelist (Ship of Fools).

  • 1886

    Emily Dickinson dies in Amherst, Mass., where she had lived in seclusion for the previous 24 years.

  • 1864

    At the Battle of New Market, Virginia Military Institute cadets repel a Union attack.

  • 1862

    The Union ironclad Monitor and the gunboat Galena fire on Confederate troops at the Battle of Drewry’s Bluff, Virginia.

  • 1860

    Ellen Louise Axson Wilson, first wife of President Woodrow Wilson.

  • 1859

    Pierre Curie, physicist.

  • 1858

    Emily Folger, Shakespeare scholar.

  • 1856

    Lyman Frank Baum, author (The Wonderful Wizard of Oz).

  • 1849

    Neapolitan troops enter Palermo, Sicily.

  • 1820

    The U.S. Congress designates the slave trade a form of piracy.

  • 1795

    Napoleon enters the Lombardian capital of Milan in triumph.

  • 1773

    Prince Klemens Von Metternich, Chancellor of Austria.

  • 1768

    By the Treaty of Versailles, France purchases Corsica from Genoa.

  • 1730

    Following the resignation of Lord Townshend, Robert Walpole becomes the sole minister in the English cabinet.

  • 1702

    The War of Spanish Succession begins.

  • 1618

    Johannes Kepler discovers his harmonics law.

  • 1614

    An aristocratic uprising in France ends with the Treaty of St. Menehould.

  • 1602

    English navigator Bartholomew Gosnold discovers Cape Cod.

  • 1213

    King John submits to the Pope, offering to make England and Ireland papal fiefs. Pope Innocent III lifts the interdict of 1208.

  • 756

    Abd-al-Rahman is proclaimed emir of Cordoba, Spain.