Historical Events on Wednesday, 15th October

15/10/2018

13-year-old American girl, Jayme Closs, is kidnapped from her Barron, Wisconsin home after her parents were both murdered.

On October 15, 2018, 21-year-old Jake Thomas Patterson abducted 13-year-old Jayme Lynn Closs after fatally shooting her parents, James and Denise Closs, at their home just outside of Barron, Wisconsin, at 12:53 a.m. Patterson took Closs to a house 70 miles (110 km) away in rural Gordon, Wisconsin, and held her in captivity for 88 days until she escaped on January 10, 2019, seeking help from neighbors.

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15/10/2016

One hundred and ninety-seven nations amend the Montreal Protocol to include a phase-out of hydrofluorocarbons.

The Montreal Protocol, officially the Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer, is an international treaty designed to protect the ozone layer by phasing out the production of numerous substances that are responsible for ozone depletion. It was agreed on 16 September 1987, and entered into force on 1 January 1989. Since then it has undergone several amendments and adjustments, with revisions agreed to in 1990 (London), 1992 (Copenhagen), 1995 (Vienna), 1997 (Montreal), 1999 (Beijing), 2007 (Montreal), 2016 (Kigali) and 2018 (Quito).

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15/10/2013

The 7.2 Mw Bohol earthquake strikes the Philippines. At least 215 were killed.

Seismic magnitude scales are used to describe the overall strength or "size" of an earthquake. These are distinguished from seismic intensity scales that categorize the intensity or severity of ground shaking (quaking) caused by an earthquake at a given location. Magnitudes are usually determined from measurements of an earthquake's seismic waves as recorded on a seismogram. Magnitude scales vary based on what aspect of the seismic waves are measured and how they are measured. Different magnitude scales are necessary because of differences in earthquakes, the information available, and the purposes for which the magnitudes are used.

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15/10/2008

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes down 733.08 points, or 7.87%, the second worst percentage drop in the Dow's history.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), Dow Jones, or simply the Dow, is a stock market index of 30 prominent companies listed on stock exchanges in the United States.

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15/10/2007

Seventeen activists in New Zealand are arrested in the country's first post-9/11 anti-terrorism raids.

On 15 and 16 October 2007, the New Zealand Police conducted a series of armed raids in response to alleged paramilitary training camps in the Urewera mountain range near the town of Ruatoki. About 300 police, including members of the Armed Offenders Squad and Special Tactics Group, were involved in the raids, which involved the execution of search warrants at various addresses throughout New Zealand, and the establishment of roadblocks at Ruatoki and Tāneatua. The police seized four guns and 230 rounds of ammunition and arrested eighteen people. According to police, the raids were a culmination of more than a year of surveillance that uncovered and monitored the training camps.

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15/10/2006

The 6.7 Mw Kiholo Bay earthquake rocks Hawaii, causing property damage, injuries, landslides, power outages, and the closure of Honolulu International Airport.

Seismic magnitude scales are used to describe the overall strength or "size" of an earthquake. These are distinguished from seismic intensity scales that categorize the intensity or severity of ground shaking (quaking) caused by an earthquake at a given location. Magnitudes are usually determined from measurements of an earthquake's seismic waves as recorded on a seismogram. Magnitude scales vary based on what aspect of the seismic waves are measured and how they are measured. Different magnitude scales are necessary because of differences in earthquakes, the information available, and the purposes for which the magnitudes are used.

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15/10/2003

China launches Shenzhou 5, its first crewed space mission.

Shenzhou 5 was the first human spaceflight mission of the Chinese space program, launched on 15 October 2003. The Shenzhou spacecraft was launched on a Long March 2F launch vehicle. There had been four previous flights of uncrewed Shenzhou missions since 1999. China became the third country in the world to have independent human spaceflight capability after the Soviet Union/Russia and the United States. As of April 2026, this mission marks the last time an astronaut was launched alone to conduct an entirely solo orbital mission.

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15/10/2001

NASA's Galileo spacecraft passes within 112 miles (180 km) of Jupiter's moon Io.

Galileo was an American robotic space probe that studied the planet Jupiter and its moons, as well as the asteroids Gaspra and Ida. Named after the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei, it consisted of an orbiter and an entry probe. It was delivered into Earth orbit on October 18, 1989, by Space Shuttle Atlantis, during STS-34. Galileo arrived at Jupiter on December 7, 1995, after gravitational assist flybys of Venus and Earth, and became the first spacecraft to orbit an outer planet.

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15/10/1997

The Cassini probe launches from Cape Canaveral on its way to Saturn.

Cassini–Huygens, commonly called Cassini, was a joint space-research mission by NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Italian Space Agency (ASI) to send a space probe to study the planet Saturn and its system, including its rings and natural satellites. The Flagship-class robotic spacecraft comprised both NASA's Cassini space probe and ESA's Huygens lander, which landed on Saturn's largest moon, Titan. Cassini was the fourth space probe to visit Saturn and the first to enter its orbit, where it stayed from 2004 to 2017. The two craft took their names from the astronomers Giovanni Cassini and Christiaan Huygens.

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15/10/1994

The United States, under the Clinton administration, returns Haiti's first democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, to the island.

Bill Clinton's tenure as the 42nd president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 1993, and ended on January 20, 2001. Clinton, a Democrat from Arkansas, took office after defeating the Republican incumbent president George H. W. Bush and independent businessman Ross Perot in the 1992 presidential election. Four years later, he won re-election in the 1996 presidential election, after defeating the Republican nominee Bob Dole, and also Perot again. Alongside Clinton's presidency, the Democratic Party also held their majorities in the House of Representatives and the Senate during the 103rd U.S. Congress following the 1992 elections, thereby attained an overall federal government trifecta. Clinton was constitutionally limited to two terms and was succeeded by Republican George W. Bush, who won the 2000 presidential election against Clinton's preferred successor, vice president Al Gore.

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15/10/1991

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.

The Oh-My-God particle (as physicists dubbed it) was an ultra-high-energy cosmic ray detected on 15 October 1991 by the Fly's Eye camera in Dugway Proving Ground, Utah, United States. As of 2026, it is the highest-energy cosmic ray ever observed. Its energy was estimated as (3.2±0.9)×1020 eV (320 exaelectronvolt). The particle's energy was unexpected and called into question prevailing theories about the origin and propagation of cosmic rays.

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The leaders of the Baltic States, Arnold Rüütel of Estonia, Anatolijs Gorbunovs of Latvia and Vytautas Landsbergis of Lithuania, signed the OSCE Final Act in Helsinki, Finland.

The Baltic states or the Baltic countries is a geopolitical term encompassing Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. All three countries are members of NATO, the European Union, the Eurozone, the Baltic Assembly, and the OECD. The three sovereign states on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea are sometimes referred to as the "Baltic nations", less often and in historical circumstances also as the "Baltic republics", the "Baltic lands", or simply the Baltics.

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15/10/1990

Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to lessen Cold War tensions and open up his nation.

Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev was a Soviet and Russian politician who was the last leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 until the country's dissolution in 1991. He served as General Secretary of the Communist Party from 1985, and additionally as head of state from 1988. Ideologically, he initially adhered to Marxism–Leninism, but moved towards social democracy by the early 1990s.

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15/10/1989

Wayne Gretzky becomes the all-time leading points scorer in the NHL.

Wayne Douglas Gretzky is a Canadian former professional ice hockey player and former head coach. He played 20 seasons in the National Hockey League (NHL) for four teams from 1979 to 1999. Nicknamed "the Great One", he has been called the greatest ice hockey player ever by the NHL based on surveys of hockey writers, ex-players, general managers and coaches. Gretzky is the leading career point scorer and assist producer in NHL history and has more assists than any other player has total career points. He is the only NHL player to total over 200 points in one season, a feat he accomplished four times. In addition, Gretzky scored more than 100 points in 15 professional seasons. At the time of his retirement in 1999, he held 61 NHL records: 40 regular season records, 15 playoff records, and six All-Star records.

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15/10/1987

Aero Trasporti Italiani Flight 460 crashes near Conca di Crezzo, Italy, killing all 37 people on board.

Aero Trasporti Italiani Flight 460 was a scheduled passenger flight between Milan Linate Airport in Milan, Italy and Cologne Bonn Airport in Cologne, Germany on 15 October 1987. The flight was operated by Aero Trasporti Italiani (ATI), a subsidiary of Alitalia, using an ATR-42 turboprop aircraft.

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A coup d'état in Burkina Faso overthrows and kills then President Thomas Sankara.

The 1987 Burkina Faso coup d'état was a violent military coup in Burkina Faso, which took place on 15 October 1987. The coup was organized by Captain Blaise Compaoré against incumbent far-left President Captain Thomas Sankara, his former friend, bandmate, and associate during the 1983 upheaval.

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15/10/1979

Supporters of the Malta Labour Party ransack and destroy the Times of Malta building and other locations associated with the Nationalist Party.

Black Monday in Malta refers to 15 October 1979 when the Progress Press and the home of Eddie Fenech Adami, then Leader of the Opposition, were ransacked following a rally by the Labour Party.

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A coup d'état in El Salvador overthrows President Carlos Humberto Romero and begins the 12 year-long Salvadoran Civil War.

The 1979 Salvadoran coup d'état occurred on 15 October when junior officers of the Armed Forces of El Salvador's Military Youth Movement (MJM) bloodlessly overthrew General Carlos Humberto Romero, the president of El Salvador. The coup leaders established the Revolutionary Government Junta (JRG) that ruled El Salvador until 1982.

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15/10/1970

During the construction of Australia's West Gate Bridge, a span of the bridge falls and kills 35 workers. The incident is the country's worst industrial accident to this day.

The West Gate Bridge is a steel, box girder, cable-stayed bridge in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, spanning the Yarra River just north of its mouth into Port Phillip. It carries the West Gate Freeway and is a vital link between the Melbourne central business district (CBD) and western suburbs, with the industrial suburbs in the west, and with the city of Geelong 80 kilometres (50 mi) to the south-west. It is part of one of the busiest road corridors in Australia. The high span bridge was built to allow large cargo ships to access the docks in the Yarra River.

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15/10/1966

The Black Panther Party is created by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale.

The Black Panther Party was an American Marxist–Leninist and black power political and militant organization founded by college students Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton in October 1966 in Oakland, California and active in that area until 1982. Between 1968 and 1971, it was also a nationwide organization with chapters in many major American cities, including San Francisco, New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle, and Philadelphia. Members were active in many prisons and had international chapters in the United Kingdom and Algeria. The party first drew attention for openly carrying firearms in Oakland while monitoring police activity. Its earliest goal was to challenge the excessive force and misconduct of the Oakland Police Department that affected the African American community during the civil rights movement. It advocated for decent housing, community control of education and police, exemption from military service, and free breakfast for children. Party members were involved in many fatal firefights with police.

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15/10/1965

Vietnam War: A draft card is burned during an anti-war rally by the Catholic Worker Movement, resulting in the first arrest under a new law.

The Vietnam War was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam and their allies. North Vietnam was supported by the Soviet Union and China, while South Vietnam was supported by the United States and other anti-communist nations. The conflict was the second of the Indochina wars and a proxy war of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and US. The Vietnam War was one of the postcolonial wars of national liberation, a theater in the Cold War, and a civil war, with civil warfare a defining feature from the outset. Direct US military involvement escalated from 1965 until US forces were withdrawn in 1973. The fighting spilled into the Laotian and Cambodian civil wars, which ended with all three countries becoming communist in 1975.

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15/10/1956

FORTRAN, the first modern computer language, is first shared with the coding community.

Fortran is a third-generation, compiled, imperative programming language designed for numeric computation and scientific computing.

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15/10/1954

Hurricane Hazel devastates the eastern seaboard of North America, killing 95 and causing massive floods as far north as Toronto.

Hurricane Hazel was the deadliest, second-costliest, and most intense hurricane of the 1954 Atlantic hurricane season. The storm killed at least 469 people in Haiti before it struck the United States near the border between North and South Carolina as a Category 4 hurricane. After causing 95 fatalities in the US, Hazel struck Canada as an extratropical storm, which raised the death toll by 81 people, mostly in Toronto. As a result of the high death toll and the damage caused by Hazel, its name was retired from use for North Atlantic hurricanes.

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15/10/1951

Mexican chemist Luis E. Miramontes completes the synthesis of norethisterone, the basis of an early oral contraceptive.

Luis Ernesto Miramontes Cárdenas was a Mexican chemist known as co-inventor and the first to synthesize an oral contraceptive, progestin norethisterone.

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15/10/1944

World War II: Germany replaces the Hungarian government after Hungary announces an armistice with the Soviet Union.

World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated. Tanks and aircraft played major roles, the latter enabling the strategic bombing of cities and delivery of the only nuclear weapons used in war. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the death of 60 to 75 million people. Millions died as a result of massacres, starvation, disease, and genocides including the Holocaust. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes.

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15/10/1940

President Lluís Companys of Catalonia is executed by the Francoist government.

Lluís Companys i Jover was a Catalan politician from Spain who served as president of Catalonia from 1934 and during the Spanish Civil War.

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15/10/1939

The New York Municipal Airport (later renamed LaGuardia Airport) is dedicated.

LaGuardia Airport, colloquially known as LaGuardia or LGA, is a civil airport in the East Elmhurst neighborhood of Queens in New York City, United States, situated on the northwestern shore of Long Island, bordering Flushing Bay. Covering 680 acres as of January 1, 2026, the facility was established in 1929, and began operating as a public airport in 1939. It is named after Fiorello H. La Guardia, a former mayor of New York City.

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15/10/1932

Tata Airlines (later to become Air India) makes its first flight.

Air India is the flag carrier of India, headquartered in Gurugram, Haryana. Its primary hub is located at Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi, with secondary hubs at Kempegowda International Airport and Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport. The airline is owned by Air India Limited, which is owned by the Tata Group (74.9%) and Singapore Airlines (25.1%). As of November 2025, the airline serves 87 domestic and international destinations, operates a variety of Airbus and Boeing aircraft, and is the second-largest airline in India by passenger volume, after IndiGo. Air India became the 27th member of Star Alliance on 11 July 2014.

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15/10/1928

The airship Graf Zeppelin completes its first trans-Atlantic flight, landing at Lakehurst, New Jersey, United States.

LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin was a German passenger-carrying hydrogen-filled rigid airship that flew from 1928 to 1937. It offered the first commercial transatlantic passenger flight service. The ship was named after the German airship pioneer Ferdinand von Zeppelin, a count in the German nobility. It was conceived and operated by Hugo Eckener, the chairman of Luftschiffbau Zeppelin.

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15/10/1923

The German Rentenmark is introduced in Germany to counter hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic.

The Rentenmark was a currency issued on 15 November 1923 to stop the hyperinflation of 1922 and 1923 in Weimar Germany, after the previously used Papiermark had become almost worthless. It was subdivided into 100 Rentenpfennig and was replaced in 1924 by the Reichsmark.

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15/10/1910

Airship America is launched from New Jersey in the first attempt to cross the Atlantic by a powered aircraft.

The America was a non-rigid airship built by Louis Mutin Godard in France in 1906 for the journalist Walter Wellman's attempt to reach the North Pole by air. Wellman first conceived of using a balloon to fly to the pole during a failed polar attempt by boat and sledge from Svalbard in 1894. He then visited Paris to review the state of balloon technology but left disappointed by the lack of acceptable steering and propulsion capability. A decade later while at the 1905 Portsmouth Peace Conference he learned of recent innovations in French dirigible design and believed a solution might be at hand for his Arctic aerial plan. After receiving the backing of newspaper publisher Victor F. Lawson, the Wellman Chicago Record-Herald Polar Expedition was announced, and Wellman traveled to Paris in search of a suitable design and manufacturer. In the meantime a public company was established to raise the $US 250,000 required for the expedition and airship.

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15/10/1888

The "From Hell" letter allegedly sent by Jack the Ripper is received by investigators.

The "From Hell" letter was a letter sent with half of a preserved human kidney to George Lusk, the chairman of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee, in October 1888. The author of this letter claimed to be the unidentified serial killer known as Jack the Ripper, who had murdered and mutilated at least four women in the Whitechapel and Spitalfields districts of London in the two months prior to Lusk receiving this letter, and whose vigilance committee Lusk led in civilian efforts to assist the police in identifying and apprehending the perpetrator.

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15/10/1864

American Civil War: The Union garrison of Glasgow, Missouri surrenders to Confederate forces.

The American Civil War was a civil war in the United States between the Union and the Confederacy, which was formed in 1861 by states that had seceded from the Union to preserve slavery in the United States, which they saw as threatened because of the election of Abraham Lincoln and the growing abolitionist movement in the North. The war lasted a little over four years, ending with Union victory, the dissolution of the Confederacy and the abolition of slavery, freeing four million African Americans.

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15/10/1815

Napoleon begins his exile on Saint Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean.

Napoleon Bonaparte, later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was Emperor of the French from 18 May 1804 until his first abdication in 1814, with a brief restoration during the Hundred Days in 1815. He rose to prominence as a general during the French Revolution and led a series of military campaigns across Europe and North Africa during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. As a statesman, he implemented numerous legal and administrative reforms in France and Europe.

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15/10/1793

Queen Marie Antoinette of France is tried and convicted of treason.

Marie Antoinette was Queen of France as the wife of Louis XVI from 10 May 1774 until the abolition of the monarchy in 1792. She was beheaded during the Reign of Terror, a period of political violence in the French Revolution.

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15/10/1783

The Montgolfier brothers' hot air balloon makes the first human ascent, piloted by Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier.

The Montgolfier brothers – Joseph-Michel Montgolfier and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier – were aviation pioneers, balloonists and paper manufacturers from the commune Annonay in Ardèche, France. They invented the Montgolfière-style hot air balloon, globe aérostatique, which launched the first confirmed piloted ascent by humans in 1783, carrying Jacques-Étienne.

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15/10/1781

The Battle of Raft Swamp marks the last battle fought in North Carolina during the American Revolutionary War with a Patriot victory. It occurred four days before the British surrender at Yorktown.

The Battle of Raft Swamp was fought near Red Springs, North Carolina in Robeson County, on October 15, 1781 during the American War of Independence. Raft Swamp was well known for being a refuge for Loyalists during the American Revolution. On October 15, 1781, in the course of Gen. Griffith Rutherford's expedition against Wilmington, the Patriot cavalry vanguard commanded by Maj. Joseph Graham briefly engaged with some mounted Loyalists of Col. Hector "One-Eyed Hector" McNeill on Rockfish Creek. Major Graham's cavalry charged and broke the Loyalist cavalry and led to fierce combat on the narrow causeway, as well as another clash on a second causeway. A series of charges and confused engagements resulted in the Loyalist forces scattering when darkness brought the action to a conclusion with the Patriots occupying the area. This would be the last battle fought in North Carolina. It took place four days before the British surrender at Yorktown. Today, a state historic marker entitled with the name of the swamp denotes the site of the engagement. It reads as follows: "After the Tory victory at McPhaul's Mill, the Whigs routed the Tories near here on Oct. 15, 1781 and broke their resistance in the area."

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15/10/1651

Qing forces capture the island of Zhoushan. Zhu Yihai, Prince of Lu, resident of the island and regent of the Southern Ming, flees to Kinmen.

The Qing dynasty, officially the Great Qing, also known as the Qing Empire or Qing China, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and an early modern empire in East Asia which existed from 1636/1644 to 1912. The last imperial dynasty in Chinese history, the Qing dynasty was preceded by the Ming dynasty and succeeded by the Republic of China. At its height of power, the empire stretched from the Sea of Japan in the east to the Pamir Mountains in the west, and from the Mongolian Plateau in the north to the South China Sea in the south. Originally emerging from the Later Jin dynasty founded in 1616 and proclaimed in Shenyang in 1636, the dynasty seized control of the Ming capital Beijing and North China in 1644, traditionally considered the start of the dynasty's rule. The dynasty lasted until the Xinhai Revolution of October 1911 led to the abdication of the last emperor in February 1912. The multi-ethnic Qing dynasty assembled the territorial base for modern China. The Qing controlled the most territory of any dynasty in Chinese history, and in 1790 was the fourth-largest empire in world history to that point. It was also the most populous state at the time, with over 426 million citizens in 1907.

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15/10/1582

Adoption of the Gregorian calendar begins, eventually leading to near-universal adoption.

The adoption of the Gregorian Calendar has taken place in the history of most cultures and societies around the world, marking a change from one of various traditional dating systems to the contemporary system – the Gregorian Calendar – which is widely used around the world today. Some polities adopted the new calendar in 1582, others not before the early twentieth century, and others at various dates between. A few have yet to do so, but except for these, the Gregorian Calendar is now the universal civil calendar, yet old style calendars remain in use in religious or traditional contexts. During – and for some time after – the transition between systems, it has been common to use the terms "Old Style" and "New Style" in dating to indicate which calendar was used to reckon them.

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15/10/1529

The Siege of Vienna ends when Austria routs the invading Ottoman forces, ending its European expansion.

The siege of Vienna, in 1529, was the first attempt by the Ottoman Empire to capture the city of Vienna in the Archduchy of Austria, part of the Holy Roman Empire. Suleiman the Magnificent, sultan of the Ottomans, attacked the city with over 100,000 men, while the defenders, led by Niklas Graf Salm, numbered no more than 21,000. Nevertheless, Vienna was able to survive the siege, which ultimately lasted just over two weeks, from 27 September to 15 October 1529.

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15/10/1211

Battle of the Rhyndacus: The Latin emperor Henry of Flanders defeats the Nicaean emperor Theodore I Laskaris.

The Battle of the Rhyndacus was fought on 15 October 1211 between the forces of the Latin Empire and the Byzantine Greek Empire of Nicaea, established following the fragmentation of the Byzantine state after the Fourth Crusade.

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15/10/1066

Following the death of Harold II at the Battle of Hastings, Edgar the Ætheling is proclaimed King of England by the Witan; he is never crowned, and concedes power to William the Conqueror two months later.

The Battle of Hastings was fought on 14 October 1066 between the Norman-French army of William, Duke of Normandy, and an English army under the Anglo-Saxon King Harold Godwinson, beginning the Norman Conquest of England. It took place approximately 7 mi (11 km) northwest of Hastings, close to the present-day town of Battle, East Sussex, and was a decisive Norman victory.

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