Today is Wednesday, Oct. 15, the 288th day of 2025
with 77 to follow.
The moon is waning. Morning stars are Jupiter, Mercury, Neptune, Saturn, Uranus and Venus. Evening stars are Mars, Mercury, Neptune and Saturn.
On this date in history:
In 1912, John Schrank, a former New York saloonkeeper, said he was sorry his bullet did not kill former President Theodore Roosevelt.
In 1914, Karl H. Von Wiegand, United Press correspondent, is the first newspaper correspondent to reach the battle front in Russian Poland.
In 1917, the most famous spy of World War I, Gertrude Zelle, better known as Mata Hari, was executed by a firing squad outside Paris. Zelle was an exotic dancer who admitted to giving the Germans information but insisted it was only to learn secrets to slip to the French.
In 1946, Nazi Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering, sentenced to death as a war criminal at the Nuremberg Trials, killed himself in his prison cell on the eve of his scheduled execution.
In 1951, I Love Lucy, TV's first long-running sitcom, made its debut. In 2012, it was named the greatest U.S. television show of all time according to an ABC News/People Magazine poll.
In 1966, Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party (originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense) with the goal of harnessing anger within the Black community and channeling it into a political force.
In 1984, astronomers in Pasadena, Calif., displayed the first photographic evidence of another solar system 293 trillion miles from Earth.
In 1989, the Los Angeles Kings' Wayne Gretzky, playing against his former team, the Edmonton Oilers, in the Canadian city, broke Gordie Howe's all-time NHL scoring record with a late-game goal that raised his career regular season points total to 1,851, including 1,669 when he was with the Oilers. Gretzky retired a decade later with 2,857 regular-season points, one of his many NHL records.
In 1990, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Muscovites shrugged indifferently and even reacted with hostility over Gorbachev's award, noting the empty store shelves and warning he may face a popular uprising.
In 1991, the Senate confirmed Clarence Thomas as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court by a vote of 52-48, the closest confirmation vote in court history.
In 1992, a man who terrorized the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don for more than a decade with a series of more than 50 grisly killings was sentenced to death.
In 1993, the Pentagon censured three U.S. Navy admirals who organized the 1991 Tailhook Association convention during which many women had been subjected to abuse and indignities by junior officers.
In 1993, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the Peace Prize to South African leaders Nelson Mandela and Frederik de Klerk for their work to end apartheid in the country.
In 1994, Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide returned to Haiti three years after being driven into exile by a military coup.
In 1999, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the international group Doctors Without Borders.
In 2003, 11 people were killed and dozens injured when a New York ferry, transporting passengers from Manhattan, slammed into a pier on Staten Island.
In 2017, actor Alyssa Milano launched the #MeToo social media campaign, encouraging victims of sexual assault to break their silence and share their stories in the wake of accusations against Harvey Weinstein.
In 2024, a crashed fuel tanker exploded in northern Nigeria, killing 147 people and injuring many others who had gathered around the overturned vehicle to gather leaking gasoline.
