●Oct 15 in History

1520 — King Henry VIII of England orders bowling (lawn bowls) lanes at Whitehall.

1860 — Grace Bedell, 11, of Westfield, New York, writes a letter to “Hon A B Lincoln” (presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln), suggesting he could improve his appearance by growing a beard. “I have yet got four brothers and part of them will vote for you any way and if you let your whiskers grow I will try and get the rest of them to vote for you you would look a great deal better for your face is so thin. All the ladies like whiskers and they would tease their husbands to vote for you and then you would be President.” Lincoln replies four days later … and soon allows his beard to grow.

1917 — Mata Hari, 41, whose name is synonymous with a seductive female spy, is executed by a French firing squad outside Paris on charges of spying for the Germans during World War 1. Margaretha Geertruida Zelle, born in Leeuwarden on August 7 1876, married Dutch army Captain Rudolf MacLeod in 1895. They lived in Java and Sumatra for five years before the marriage failed. By 1905, she was calling herself Mata Hari — from Malay: mata = eye, hari = day; as a compound meaning “sun” — and creating a sensation in Europe as an exotic East Indian dancer.

1920 — Mario Puzo, novelist and screenwriter (“The Godfather”), is born in New York City.

1946 — Nazi war criminal Hermann Göring, 53, poisons himself hours before he is to be hanged.

1959 — Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, aka “Fergie”, is born in London.

1989 — South African officials release eight prominent political prisoners — Rivonia trialists Walter Sisulu, Ahmed Kathrada, Andrew Mlangeni, Elias Motsoaledi, Raymond Mhlaba and Wilton Mkwayi (after 26 years in prison), along with Oscar Mpetha, veteran ANC and SACP Cape leader, and Japhta Masemola, a PAC leader.

1990 — South Africa’s Separate Amenities Act, which barred blacks from public facilities for decades, is formally scrapped.

1993 — Nelson Mandela and FW de Klerk are named winners of the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to end apartheid.

1999 — Irish tenor Josef Locke (“Hear My Song, Violetta” — 1947), whose life inspired the 1991 film “Hear My Song”, dies in County Kildare, aged 82.

2011 — Egypt’s transitional military rulers issue a decree prohibiting all forms of discrimination based on religion, race, language or creed.

2012 — Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma takes charge of the African Union, the first woman in that position.