A Brief History This article presents a chronological list of notable events that happened on October 15th. For each date below, please click on the date to be taken to an article covering that date’s event. Digging Deeper On October 15, 1815, Emperor of the French, Napoleon I (Bonaparte) began his second and final exile on the island of St. Helena in the South Atlantic. On October 15, 1863, The H. L. Hunley, a Confederate (the South!) submarine, sank during a test, killing its inventor and namesake, Horace L. Hunley. On October 15, 1888, George Lusk, the chairman of the…
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A Brief History On October 15, 1989, Ukrainian-Canadian hockey legend Wayne Gretzky passed Gordie Howe to become the all-time leading scorer in the NHL. Not only does Gretzky have more goals and assists than any other player, his 2,857 regular season points remains the NHL record. Digging Deeper Some of the other all-time leading scorers include: Baseball: Rickey Henderson’s 2,295 runs scored edge Ty Cobb’s 2,245 for the MLB record. Basketball: LeBron James passed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in 2023 to become the NBA scoring champ with 38,652 points. College Basketball: Pistol Pete Maravich narrowly remains the all-time scorer, with 3,667 points,…
A Brief History On October 15, 1910, the non-rigid airship, America, set off from Atlantic City, New Jersey on the first attempt to cross the Atlantic Ocean by humans in a powered aircraft. After a flight of over 1300 miles, not all in the right direction, and after a harrowing 71 hours of flight, the crew of 5 managed to signal a ship passing below them and along with their cat, entered the lifeboat carried aboard the airship and abandoned the ill fated blimp, watching it drift away never to be seen again. Digging Deeper The “genius” behind the record…
A Brief History On October 15, 1888, George Lusk, the chairman of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee, received a letter purporting to be from the infamous mass murderer known as “Jack the Ripper.” Known through history as the “From Hell Letter,” this bit of mail remains one of the most famous letters of all time. Perhaps because the letter included a piece of human kidney from a murder victim? Today we look at 5 letters that remain of either great historical importance or of great human interest and/or amusement. As always, please nominate the fascinating letters you would include on such…
A Brief History On October 15, 2017, people all across the world celebrate Global Handwashing Day, a day to encourage sanitary hand washing behavior in an effort to cut respiratory (notably pneumonia) and diarrheal diseases. Getting people to wash their hands as prescribed can save an estimate half million lives of children per year, and of course, reducing the amount of people with diarrhea by 30+% is darn near worth the effort alone! Digging Deeper Global Handwashing Day was started in 2008 by a consortium of producers of soap products and medical associations. The Public Private Partnership for Handwashing initiated…