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.
1815, Emperor of the French, Napoleon I (Bonaparte) began his second and final exile on the island of St. Helena.
1863, The H. L. Hunley, a Confederate submarine, sank during a test, killing its inventor , Horace L. Hunley.
1888: Jack the Ripper Sends The ‘From Hell’ Letter Serial killer Jack the Ripper sends his “From Hell” letter with half of a human kidney enclosed.
Though police had received other letters from people who claimed to be the killer, the “From Hell” letter was believed to be authentic because Jack the Ripper’s latest victim, Catherine Eddowes, was found with a kidney removed. Jack the Ripper went on to kill at least once more, but his identity has never been proven.
1917: Mata Hari is executed by firing squad outside of Paris at 41. However, it’s unclear if Hari did pass on Allied secrets to the Germans or if she was merely a scapegoat.
1946: Hermann Göring dies by suicide at the age of 53 after swallowing a cyanide tablet.
Göring, a high-ranking Nazi leader who was the commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe, established the Gestapo, and helped create concentration camps, surrendered to American forces after Adolf Hitler’s suicide. He was found guilty at the Nuremberg Trials on September 30, 1946, and sentenced to hang, but he took his own life before his execution.
1966: The Black Panther Party for Self Defense is founded in Oakland, California by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale. The group aimed to confront politicians, challenge police, and protect African Americans after civil rights efforts in the American South failed to secure fair treatment of African Americans. The group believed that progress and freedom could not come from peaceful protest. The party disbanded in 1982.
1970: Leonarda Cianciulli dies at the women’s criminal asylum in Pozzuoli, Italy. Cianciulli was sentenced to 30 years for the murders of three women. After her son joined the Italian Army in WWII, Cianciulli grew increasingly superstitious and put her energy into murdering and turning women into soap and baked goods between 1939 and 1940 as a form of human sacrifice to protect her son.