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In 70 BC, the Roman poet Virgil, author of the Aeneid, was born.
In 1582, in Italy and Spain, this day became the first day of
the Gregorian Calendar after it was adopted by Pope Gregory
XIII. Ten days would be eliminated, thus October 5, 1582, became October 15.
In 1608, the Italian physicist and mathematician Evangelista Torricelli was born.
In 1815, deposed French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte landed on
the Island of St. Helena, where he had been sent into exile by the British after his defeat at the Battle of Waterloo.
In 1844, the German philosopher and poet Friedrich Nietzsche was born.
In 1878, Paul Reynaud, the French statesman, was born.
In 1880, birth control advocate Marie Stopes was born in Edinburgh, Scotland.
In 1881, the British author and humorist P.G. Wodehouse was born.
In 1900, American film director Mervyn Leroy was born.
In 1917, historian and Pulitzer Prize winner Arthur M. Schlesinger was born.
In 1917, World War I's most famous spy, Mata Hari, was
executed by firing squad at Vincennes Barracks outside Paris.
In 1945, Pierre Laval was executed for betraying his country
during World War II. As premier of Vichy France (1942-1944), he pursued a policy of collaboration with Nazi Germany.
In 1946, Hermann Goering, the Nazi leader and one of Hitler's most loyal supporters, committed suicide in his prison cell just before he was due to be executed.
In 1964, Nikita Khrushchev was deposed as First Secretary of
the Soviet Communist Party and replaced by Leonid Brezhnev.
In 1964, Cole Porter, the U.S. composer and lyricist, died.
In 1970, Australia's West Gate Bridge, being built over
Melbourne's Yarra River, collapsed, killing 34 workmen.
In 1990, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev won the Nobel
Prize for Peace.
In 1994, President Jean-Bertrand Aristide stepped back onto
Haitian soil to a joyous welcome, ending three years of exile
that began when he was deposed in 1991.
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