Do you know what happened on this day?
One of the most famous of 'spies' meets her end for crimes she might never have committed. She was an unmarried mother trying to make ends meet but got thrown under the bus by politicians.
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Did you know
We actually produce enough food to feed everyone on the planet; the problem is distribution.
On this day in history: October 15
1793 The unpopular Queen Marie Antoinette of France is tried for conspiring with foreign powers, the depletion of the state treasury, and high treason. She is swiftly convicted.1815 Napoleon Bonaparte arrives on the island of St Helena to begin his exile.
1889 Queen Victoria issues a charter for the formation of the British South Africa Company to further the influence of the British Empire on the African continent.
1899 The Siege of Kimberley begins.
1917 Mata Hari – one of the most famous spies of the 20th century – is shaken awake in her prison cell. Her time had come. ‘I am ready’, she says as she is led to face the firing squad, staring at them until the last after refusing a blindfold. Recently published family letters paint her as a mother who escaped an abusive marriage, and became a scapegoat for a war-torn France looking to distract the public from heavy casualties on the front lines.
1927 DF Malan is the first SA cabinet minister to travel by air. He leaves Cape Town at 6.30am and arrives in Jozi, 10 hours later.
1932 Tata Airlines (Air India) has its first flight.
1951 A South African Airways air liner, Paardeberg, crashes on Ingeli Mountain near Kokstad, killing all 17 occupants.
1990 Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for easing Cold War tensions and opening up his nation.
1993 Nelson Mandela and FW de Klerk share the Nobel Peace Prize for ending apartheid and ushering in a non-racial democracy.
2017 About 500 wildfires occur in Portugal and Northern Spain fanned by winds from Hurricane Ophelia, killing at least 35 people.
2019 A gunfight between Mexican security forces and armed civilians leaves 15 dead in Guerrero state, a day after 13 police killed in a drug cartel ambush in Michoacán state.
2021 British MP Sir David Amess is stabbed to death at a meeting of constituents in Essex.
2024 More than a quarter of Lebanon is now under Israeli evacuation orders with 1.2 million displaced as Israeli strikes on Beirut continue.
2024 An overturned oil tanker explodes in Jigawa state, Nigeria, killing at least 170 people who were collecting oil, in one of country’s worst oil tanker tragedies.