Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/October 15
October 15: Ramadan begins on the Islamic calendar of most Islamic countries (2004)
- 1582 - Pope Gregory XIII implemented the Gregorian Calendar. In Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain, October 4 of this year was followed immediately by October 15, skipping over 10 calendar days. Other countries followed at various later dates.
- 1815 - Napoleon I of France began his exile on St. Helena, a remote island in the Atlantic Ocean.
- 1894 - The Dreyfus affair: Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish artillery officer in the French military, was wrongly arrested for treason in a political scandal later exposed by Émile Zola.
- 1917 - Dutch exotic dancer Mata Hari, also a courtesan who might have had affairs with many military officers and politicians in France, was executed by a firing squad for spying for Germany.
- 2003 - China launched Shenzhou 5, their first manned space mission, with Lt. Col. Yang Liwei aboard as the republic's first astronaut.
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