Reuters historical calendar - October 15

LONDON, Oct 8 (Reuters) Following are some of the major events to have occurred on October 15 since 1900: 1917 - World War One's most famous spy, Mata Hari, was executed by firing squad at Paris's Vincennes barracks.

1945 - Pierre Laval was executed for betraying his country during World War Two. As premier of Vichy France from 1942 to 1944, he pursued a policy of collaboration with Nazi Germany.

1946 - Hermann Goering, the highest ranking Nazi tried at Nuremberg, committed suicide by taking a cyanide capsule in his prison cell the night before he was to be hanged.

1964 - Nikita Khrushchev was deposed as First Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party and replaced by Leonid Brezhnev.

1964 - Cole Porter, American composer and lyricist, died. He wrote over 20 Broadway musicals including ''Kiss Me Kate''.

1969 - Somali President Abdirashid Ali Shermarke was assassinated.

1970 - Anwar Sadat was elected president of Egypt, succeeding Gamel Abdel Nasser.

1987 - Captain Thomas Sankara, president of Burkina Faso, was killed in a coup and replaced by Captain Blaise Compaore.

1993 - Nelson Mandela and President F.W. de Klerk were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their work to end apartheid and lay the foundations for a democratic South Africa.

1998 - Lebanon's parliament elected General Emile Lahoud to be the country's first president since the civil war.

1999 - Pakistani army chief General Pervez Musharraf declared himself the country's new ruler, suspended the constitution and imposed a state of emergency.

2000 - Lech Walesa, the founder of Poland's Solidarity trade union, said he was withdrawing from political life after a disastrous showing in presidential elections.

2003 - China became the third nation to launch a manned space rocket with a 21-hour orbital voyage around the earth.

2003 - The US-led Iraqi administration introduced newly printed bank notes replacing the old currency bills bearing the face of deposed dictator Saddam Hussein.'' 2005 - China announced the completion of the world's highest railway, the pan-Himalayan line 5,072 metres (16,640 feet) above sea level, across Tibet's snow-covered plateau, the roof of the world.

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