On This Day, Oct. 15: Alyssa Milano sparks #MeToo movement

1 of 7 | Alyssa Milano speaks during a protest sponsored by The League of Women Voters, People for the American Way and Declaration for American Democracy Coalition outside the White House in Washington, D.C., on October 19. On October 15, 2017, Milano launched the unrelated #MeToo movement. File Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo

Oct. 15 (UPI) — On this date in history:

In 1894, Alfred Dreyfus was arrested for treason. He was accused of passing sensitive information regarding new advances in military technology to the Germans.

In 1912, John Schrank, a former New York saloonkeeper, said he was sorry his bullet did not kill former President Theodore Roosevelt.

In 1914, Karl H. Von Wiegand, United Press correspondent, is the first newspaper correspondent to reach the battle front in Russian Poland.

In 1917, the most famous spy of World War I, Gertrude Zelle, better known as Mata Hari, was executed by a firing squad outside Paris. Zelle was an exotic dancer who admitted to giving the Germans information but insisted it was only to learn secrets to slip to the French.

In 1946, Nazi Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering, sentenced to death as a war criminal at the Nuremberg Trials, killed himself in his prison cell on the eve of his scheduled execution.

In 1951, I Love Lucy, TV’s first long-running sitcom, made its debut. In 2012, it was named the greatest U.S. television show of all time according to an ABC News/People Magazine poll.

File Photo by Vince Mannino/UPI

In 1966, Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party (originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense) with the goal of harnessing anger within the Black community and channeling it into a political force.

In 1984, astronomers in Pasadena, Calif., displayed the first photographic evidence of another solar system 293 trillion miles from Earth.

In 1989, the Los Angeles Kings’ Wayne Gretzky, playing against his former team, the Edmonton Oilers, in the Canadian city, broke Gordie Howe’s all-time NHL scoring record with a late-game goal that raised his career regular season points total to 1,851, including 1,669 when he was with the Oilers. Gretzky retired a decade later with 2,857 regular-season points, one of his many NHL records.

In 1990, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Muscovites shrugged indifferently and even reacted with hostility over Gorbachev’s award, noting the empty store shelves and warning he may face a popular uprising.

In 1991, the Senate confirmed Clarence Thomas as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court by a vote of 52-48, the closest confirmation vote in court history.

File Photo by Olivier Douliery/UPI

In 1992, a man who terrorized the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don for more than a decade with a series of more than 50 grisly killings was sentenced to death.

In 1993, the Pentagon censured three U.S. Navy admirals who organized the 1991 Tailhook Association convention during which many women had been subjected to abuse and indignities by junior officers.

In 1994, Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide returned to Haiti three years after being driven into exile by a military coup.

In 1999, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the international group Doctors Without Borders.

In 2003, 11 people were killed and dozens injured when a New York ferry, transporting passengers from Manhattan, slammed into a pier on Staten Island.

In 2017, actor Alyssa Milano launched the #MeToo social media campaign, encouraging victims of sexual assault to break their silence and share their stories in the wake of accusations against Harvey Weinstein.

In 2021, British MP David Amess died after he was stabbed several times while meeting with constituents at a church in Leigh-on-Sea. His attacker, Islamic State sympathizer Ali Harbi Ali, was sentenced to life in prison for the crime.