October 15:

1917 : Mata Hari executed

Mata Hari, the archetype of the seductive female spy, is executed for
espionage by a French firing squad at Vincennes outside of Paris.

She first came to Paris in 1905 and found fame as a performer of
exotic Asian-inspired dances. She soon began touring all over Europe,
telling the story of how she was born in a sacred Indian temple and
taught ancient dances by a priestess who gave her the name Mata Hari,
meaning "eye of the day" in Malay. In reality, Mata Hari was born in a
small town in northern Holland in 1876, and her real name was
Margaretha Geertruida Zelle. She acquired her superficial knowledge of
Indian and Javanese dances when she lived for several years in
Malaysia with her former husband, who was a Scot in the Dutch colonial
army. Regardless of her authenticity, she packed dance halls and opera
houses from Russia to France, mostly because her show consisted of her
slowly stripping nude.

She became a famous courtesan, and with the outbreak of World War I
her catalog of lovers began to include high-ranking military officers
of various nationalities. In February 1917, French authorities
arrested her for espionage and imprisoned her at St. Lazare Prison in
Paris. In a military trial conducted in July, she was accused of
revealing details of the Allies' new weapon, the tank, resulting in
the deaths of thousands of soldiers. She was convicted and sentenced
to death, and on October 15 she refused a blindfold and was shot to
death by a firing squad at Vincennes.

There is some evidence that Mata Hari acted as a German spy, and for a
time as a double agent for the French, but the Germans had written her
off as an ineffective agent whose pillow talk had produced little
intelligence of value. Her military trial was riddled with bias and
circumstantial evidence, and it is probable that French authorities
trumped her up as "the greatest woman spy of the century" as a
distraction for the huge losses the French army was suffering on the
western front. Her only real crimes may have been an elaborate stage
fallacy and a weakness for men in uniform.

history.com/tdih.do


1945 : Vichy leader executed for treason
history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=5438

1989 : Gretzky breaks scoring record
history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=5439

1991 : Thomas confirmed to the Supreme Court
history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=5440

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