THIS DAY IN HISTORY ― OCTOBER 15

October 15 is the 288th day of the year (289th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 77 days remaining until the end of the year. This date is slightly more likely to fall on a Monday, Thursday or Saturday (58 in 400 years each) than on Tuesday or Wednesday (57), and slightly less likely to occur on a Friday or Sunday (56). 

NATIONAL GROUCH DAY  

 

1655 – At least two thousand Jews of Lublin, Poland were massacred when the city was captured by Cossacks and their Russian allies as part of the decade-long Ukrainian uprising against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Lublin had already banned Jews from living within the city walls, resulting in the growth of a separate Jewish colony, Podzamcze, which was burned down by the invaders. Lublin then served as “headquarters” of the Jewish Council of the Four Lands, an autonomous Jewish governing council that was founded in 1580 and endured until 1764. 

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.

1863 – The C.S.S. Hunley, the world's first successful combat submarine, sinks during a test run, killing its inventor and seven crew members. Horace Lawson Hunley developed the 40-foot submarine from a cylinder boiler. It was operated by a crew of eight—one person steered while the other seven turned a crank that drove the ship's propeller. 

1880 – The warrior Victorio, one of the greatest Apache military strategists of all time, dies this day, in 1880, in the Tres Castillos Mountains south of El Paso, Texas.

Born in New Mexico around 1809, Victorio grew up during a period of intense hostility between the native Apache Indians of the southwest and encroaching Mexican and American settlers. Determined to resist the loss of his homeland, Victorio began leading his small band of warriors on a long series of devastating raids against Mexican and American settlers and their communities in the 1850s.

1917 – Mata Hari, the archetype of the seductive female spy, is executed for espionage by a French firing squad at Vincennes outside of Paris.

1933 – The 20th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution moved the beginning and ending of the terms of the President and Vice President from March 4 to January 20, and of members of Congress from March 4 to January 3. It also has provisions that determine what is to be done when there is no President-elect. The Twentieth Amendment was ratified on January 23, 1933.

1945 – Pierre Laval, the puppet leader of Nazi-occupied Vichy France, is executed by firing squad for treason against France.

1945 – Major League Baseball total attendance sets a record of 10.28 million (the Detroit Tigers lead with 1.28 million).

1954 – Hurricane Hazel, the fourth major hurricane of 1954, hammers southern Ontario, Canada, on this day in 1954. Hazel hit hard from Jamaica to Canada, killing more than 400 people and causing over $1 billion in damages.

1966 – The Black Panther Party was created by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale.

Initially, the Black Panther Party's core practice was its armed citizens' patrols to monitor the behavior of police officers and challenge police brutality. In 1969, community social programs became a core activity of party members. The Black Panther Party instituted a variety of community social programs, most extensively the Free Breakfast for Children Programs, and community health clinics.

1983 – Columbia beats Yale 21-18 in football, and will go on to lose it's next 44 games. The streak began with a tie game to Bucknell in the 6th game of its 1983 season, followed by a loss to Holy Cross, and a tie with Dartmouth. After their 35th loss, they set the record for the longest Division I losing streak in history (beating Northwestern's 34 game losing streak from 1979-1982). After this game, Larry McElreavy, the then coach of the team said in an interview with The New York Times, "I'm realistic; there's not a lot of talent here." To be fair though, the team didn't just lose – they lost in some of the most odd, unbelievable, and heartbreaking ways imaginable along the way, blowing leads and suffering clock-expiring defeats. ESPN rated the 1983-1988 Lions team at 4th in its list of the top 10 worst college football teams of all time. 

1990 – Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev wins the Nobel Peace Prize [INSTEAD OF RONALD REAGAN] for his work in ending Cold War tensions. Since coming to power in 1988, Gorbachev had undertaken to concentrate more effort and funds on his domestic reform plans by going to extraordinary lengths to reach foreign policy understandings with the non-communist world.

1997 – The U.S. launches nuclear powered Cassini to Saturn. It has studied the planet and its many natural satellites since arriving there in 2004, also observing Jupiter and the heliosphere, and testing the theory of relativity. Launched in 1997 after nearly two decades of development, it includes a Saturn orbiter and an atmospheric probe/lander for the moon Titan called Huygens, which entered and landed on Titan in 2005. Cassini is the fourth space probe to visit Saturn and the first to enter orbit, and its mission is ongoing as of 2014. The two-part spacecraft is named after astronomers Giovanni Cassini and Christiaan Huygens.

2001 – NASA's Galileo spacecraft passes within 112 miles of Jupiter's moon Io. Galileo was an unmanned NASA spacecraft which studied the planet Jupiter and its moons, as well as several other solar system bodies. Named after the astronomer Galileo Galilei, it consisted of an orbiter and entry probe. It was launched on October 18, 1989, carried by Space Shuttle Atlantis, on the STS-34 mission. Galileo arrived at Jupiter on December 7, 1995, after gravitational assist flybys of Venus and Earth, and became the first spacecraft to orbit Jupiter. 


2005 – A riot in Toledo, Ohio breaks out during a National Socialist/Neo-Nazi protest; over 100 are arrested.

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.

TODAY'S BIRTHS

70 BC – Virgil, Roman poet (d. 19 BC)

1844 – Friedrich Nietzsche, German composer, poet, and philosopher, Existentialist  (d. 1900)

1917 – Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., American historian and critic (d. 2007)

From Wikipedia and Google, except as noted.