Events on October 15 48
Year 1066
Edgar the Ætheling is proclaimed King of England, but is never crowned. He reigns until 10 December 1066.
Year 1211
Battle of the Rhyndacus: The Latin emperor Henry of Flanders defeats the Nicaean emperor Theodore I Laskaris.
Year 1529
The Siege of Vienna ends as the Austrians rout the invading Turks, turning the tide against almost a century of unchecked conquest throughout eastern and central Europe by the Ottoman Empire.
Year 1582
Pope Gregory XIII implements the Gregorian calendar. In Italy, Poland, Portugal, and Spain, October 4 of this year is followed directly by October 15.
Year 1764
Edward Gibbon observes a group of friars singing in the ruined Temple of Jupiter in Rome, which inspires him to begin work on The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
Year 1783
The Montgolfier brothers' hot air balloon (tethered) makes the first human ascent, piloted by Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier.
Year 1793
Queen Marie Antoinette of France is tried and convicted in a swift, pre-determined trial in the Palais de Justice, Paris, and condemned to death the following day.
Year 1863
American Civil War: The H. L. Hunley, the first submarine to sink a ship, sinks during a test, killing its inventor, Horace L. Hunley.
Year 1864
American Civil War: The Battle of Glasgow is fought, resulting in the surrender of Glasgow, Missouri and its Union garrison, to the Confederacy.
Year 1888
The "From Hell" letter allegedly sent by Jack the Ripper is received by investigators.
Year 1904
The Russian Baltic Fleet leaves Reval, Estonia for Port Arthur during the Russo-Japanese War.
Year 1910
Airship America is launched from New Jersey in the first attempt to cross the Atlantic by a powered aircraft.
Year 1917
World War I: At Vincennes outside Paris, Dutch dancer Mata Hari is executed by firing squad for spying for the German Empire.
Year 1923
The German Rentenmark is introduced in Germany to counter hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic.
Year 1928
The airship, Graf Zeppelin completes its first trans-Atlantic flight, landing at Lakehurst, New Jersey, United States.
Year 1934
The Soviet Republic of China collapses when Chiang Kai-shek's National Revolutionary Army successfully encircles Ruijin, forcing the fleeing Communists to begin the Long March.
Year 1940
The President of Catalonia, Lluís Companys, is executed by the Spanish dictatorship of Francisco Franco, making him the only European president to have been executed.
Year 1944
The Arrow Cross Party (very similar to Hitler's NSDAP (Nazi party)) takes power in Hungary.
Year 1945
World War II: The former premier of Vichy France Pierre Laval is shot by a firing squad for treason.
Year 1951
Mexican chemist Luis E. Miramontes conducts the very last step of the first synthesis of norethisterone, the progestin that would later be used in one of the first three oral contraceptives.
Year 1951
The first episode of I Love Lucy, an American television sitcom starring Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance, and William Frawley, airs on the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS).
Year 1954
Hurricane Hazel devastates the eastern seaboard of North America, killing 95 and causing massive floods as far north as Toronto. As a Category 4 upon landfall, it is the strongest storm on record to strike as far north as North Carolina.
Year 1956
Fortran, the first modern computer language, is shared with the coding community for the first time.
Year 1965
Vietnam War: The Catholic Worker Movement stages an anti-war rally in Manhattan including a public burning of a draft card; the first such act to result in arrest under a new amendment to the Selective Service Act.
Year 1969
Vietnam War; The Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam is held in Washington D.C. and across the US. Over two million demonstrate nationally; about 250,000 in Washington D.C..
Year 1970
Thirty-five construction workers are killed when a section of the new West Gate Bridge in Melbourne collapses.
Year 1979
Black Monday in Malta. The building of the Times of Malta, the residence of the opposition leader Eddie Fenech Adami and several Nationalist Party clubs are ransacked and destroyed by supporters of the Malta Labour Party.
Year 1990
Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to lessen Cold War tensions and open up his nation.
Year 1991
The "Oh-My-God particle", an ultra-high-energy cosmic ray measured at 40,000,000 times that of the highest energy protons produced in a particle accelerator is observed at the University of Utah HiRes observatory in Dugway Proving Ground, Utah.
Year 1995
Marco Campos is killed in an accident in an International Formula 3000 race at the Circuit de Nevers Magny-Cours circuit, making him the only driver ever killed in the International Formula 3000 series.
Year 1997
The first supersonic land speed record is set by Andy Green in ThrustSSC (United Kingdom), 50 years and one day after Chuck Yeager first broke the sound barrier in the Earth's atmosphere.
Year 2005
A riot in Toledo, Ohio breaks out during a National Socialist/Neo-Nazi protest; over 100 are arrested.
Year 2006
Kiholo Bay earthquake: A magnitude 6.7 earthquake rocks Hawaii, causing property damage, injuries, landslides, power outages, and the closure of Honolulu International Airport.
Year 2007
Seventeen activists in New Zealand are arrested in the country's first post-9/11 anti-terrorism raids.
Year 2008
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes down 733.08 points, or 7.87%, the second worst day in the Dow's history based on a percentage drop.
Year 2013
A 7.2-magnitude earthquake strikes the Philippines, resulting in more than 215 deaths.