On this day... October 15:

On this day...

October 15:  Shemini Atzeret begins at sunset (Judaism, 2014) 1764 – English historian Edward Gibbon (pictured)observed friars singing Vespers at Capitoline Hill inRome, inspiring him to write The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. 1864 – American Civil War: The Confederatescaptured Glasgow, Missouri, although it had little long-term benefit as Price's Missouri Expedition was defeated a week later. 1894 – Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish artillery officer in the French military, was wrongly arrested for treason. 1917 – Dutch exotic dancer Mata Hari was executed by a firing squad for spying for Germany. 1954 – Hurricane Hazel made landfall in the Carolinas in the United States before moving north to Toronto in Canada later the same day, killing a total of 176 people in both countries.