Saturday 15th of January 1622

Playwright and actor Molière known for Le Misanthrope is born as Jean-Baptiste Poquelin in 1 Rue Sauval, Paris, Ier, Île-de-France, France.

Monday 15th of January 1906

Shipping magnate and businessman Aristotelis Socrates Onassis is born in Smyrna, İzmir, Turkey.

Tuesday 15th of January 1918

Murderer Frederick Small is executed by hanging at the age of 51 in State Prison for Men, Concord, New Hampshire, United States.

Tuesday 15th of January 1918

2nd President of Egypt Gamal Abdel Hussein Nasser is born in Alexandria, Bakos, Alexandria, Egypt.

Wednesday 15th of January 1919

Revolutionary socialist and founder of the Spartacist Rote Fahne Karl Liebknecht is shot in the back by members of the Freikorps' Garde-Kavallerie-Schützendivision 43-year-old Otto Runge, 30-year-old Kurt Vogel and 25-year-old Hermann Souchon at the age of 48 in Berlin, Tiergarten, Berlin, Germany.

Official declarations said Liebknecht had been shot in an attempt to escape.

Wednesday 15th of January 1919

Revolutionary socialist and founder of the Spartacist Rote Fahne Rosa Luxemburg aka Rote Rosa is shot in the back of the head and thrown in the Landwehr Canal by members of the Freikorps' Garde-Kavallerie-Schützendivision 43-year-old Otto Runge, 30-year-old Kurt Vogel and 25-year-old Hermann Souchon at the age of 48 in Landwehrkanal, Berlin, Berlin, Germany.

Luxemburg's body was not found until 1 June 1919.

Tuesday 15th of January 1924

21-year-old Heinrich Koch is killed and his meat sold by serial killer Fritz Haarmann aka Der Hannover Werwolf in Das Mordhaus, Rote Reihe 4, Hannover, Niedersachsen, Germany.

Tuesday 15th of January 1929

Activist and African-American Civil Rights Movement leader Martin Luther King is born as Michael King in Atlanta, Georgia, United States.

Friday 15th of January 1932

Murderer Guy Fairley is executed by hanging at the age of 44 in Covington County Jail, 203 First Street, Collins, Mississippi, United States.

The hanging of Fairley was so badly handled that it created a public outcry against hanging in Mississippi.

Tuesday 15th of January 1935

Double murderer Robert Alton Harris is born in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, United States.

Wednesday 15th of January 1941

Singer-songwriter, musician and artist Don Van Vliet aka Captain Beefheart is born as Don Glen Vliet in Glendale, California, United States.

Saturday 15th of January 1944

A plaster cast is made from the torso of 36-year-old Serial killer Bruno Lüdke as an example of a 'born criminal' in Kriminalmedizinisches Zentralinstitut der Sicherheitspolizei, Sensengasse 2, Wien, Wien, Austria.

Lüdke's plaster bust is still kept in the Museum für Gerichtsmedizin in Wien.

Monday 15th of January 1945

Murderer Henry William Merten is executed by the gas chamber at the age of 32 in Oregon State Penitentiary, Salem, Oregon, United States.

Monday 15th of January 1945

Murderer Walter Lorne Wilson aka Walter Higgins is executed by the gas chamber at the age of 35 in Oregon State Penitentiary, Salem, Oregon, United States.

Wednesday 15th of January 1947

Murder victim Elizabeth Short aka The Black Dahlia is found severely tortured, murdered, drained of all her blood and sliced in half at the waist at the age of 23 in Leimert Park, Los Angeles, California, United States.

Short's unsolved murder has been the source of widespread speculation leading to many suspects along with several books and film adaptations of the story. Short's murder is one of the oldest unsolved murder cases in Los Angeles history.

Monday 15th of January 1951

45-year-old Wife of camp commandant and human-skin-handywoman Ilse Koch aka Die Hexe von Buchenwald aka Die Buchenwälder Schlampe is sentenced to life imprisonment in Augsburg, Bayern, Germany.

At least four separate witnesses for the prosecution testified that they had seen Koch choose tattooed prisoners, who were then killed, or had seen or been involved in the process of making human-skin lampshades from tattooed skin. However, this charge was dropped by the prosecution when they could not prove lampshades or any other items were actually made from human skin.

Friday 15th of January 1960

Murderer Homer Bunckley is executed by Old Sparky at the age of 26 in Georgia State Prison, Georgia Highway 147, Reidsville, Georgia, United States.

Saturday 15th of January 1972

32-year-old Performance artist Vito Hannibal Acconci starts his performance series 'Seedbed' in Sonnabend Gallery, 420 W. Broadway, New York, Soho, New York, United States.

In the gallery there was a low wooden ramp merging with the floor. The ramp extended across the width of the room, beginning two feet up the side of one wall and slanting down to the middle of the floor. Acconci lay hidden underneath the ramp, masturbating. The artist's spoken fantasies about the visitors walking above him were heard through loudspeakers in the gallery. The performance lasted until 29 January.

Thursday 15th of January 1976

46-year-old Attempted assassin of President Gerald Ford Sara Jane Kahn Moore is sentenced to life imprisonment in San Francisco, California, United States.

"Am I sorry I tried? Yes and no. Yes, because it accomplished little except to throw away the rest of my life. And, no, I'm not sorry I tried, because at the time it seemed a correct expression of my anger."

Sunday 15th of January 1978

21-year-old Margaret Bowman is bludgeoned with a piece of oak firewood and garroted with a nylon stocking by serial killer Ted Bundy aka The Only Living Witness in Florida State University Chi Omega sorority house, 655 W Jefferson St, Tallahassee, Florida, United States.

Sunday 15th of January 1978

21-year-old Lisa Levy is beaten and strangled by serial killer Ted Bundy aka The Only Living Witness in Florida State University Chi Omega sorority house, 655 W Jefferson St, Tallahassee, Florida, United States.

Bundy tore one of Levy's nipples, bit deeply into her left buttock and sexually assaulted her with a hair mist bottle. During his trial in 1979 incriminating physical evidence included impressions of the bite wounds Bundy had inflicted on Levy's buttock matched to castings of Bundy's teeth.

Sunday 15th of January 1978

32-year-old Serial killer Ted Theodore Robert Bundy aka The Only Living Witness attacks 20-year-old Kathy Kleiner, 21-year-old Karen Chandler and 21-year-old Cheryl Thomas as they were sleeping in their rooms in Florida State University Chi Omega sorority house, 655 W Jefferson St, Tallahassee, Florida, United States.

All three survived Bundy's attack with permanent damage.

Thursday 15th of January 1981

Mobster Meyer Lansky aka The Mob's Accountant dies of lung cancer at the age of 79 in Miami Beach, Florida, United States.

Tuesday 15th of January 1985

Thirteenth bomb attack by Terrorist organisation Les Cellules Communistes Combattantes aka CCC in Nato Cultural Centre, 13 Chaussée de Louvain, Brussel, Woluwe-Saint-Etienne, Brabant, Belgium.

It was the eight action in their First Anti-Imperialist October Campaign.

Wednesday 15th of January 1986

77-year-old Yvonne Schaible is tortured and killed by serial killer Thierry Paulin aka Le Tueur de la Pleine Lune in 20 Rue Censier, Paris, Ve, Île-de-France, France.

Sunday 15th of January 1989

Over 150 die in Chittagong bound express train and Dhaka bound mail train head-on collision in Tongi station, Maizdi Khan, Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Friday 15th of January 1999

40-year-old Performance artist Danny Devos aka DDV performs 'Pain' in an abandoned Landrover in Tharin Village, Taling Chan, Central Thailand, Thailand.

HANOI - A 32-year-old man spoke for the first time in his life after undergoing an operation on his abcessed foot, doctors from a southern provincial hospital said yesterday. A doctor from the casualty department of Binh Dinh Provincial Hospital said that Truong Van Xa uttered his first words to describe his pain on Dec 31. Although Xa had been injected with local anaesthetic, when the operating doctor made the first incision on his infected wound, he screamed. “Oh my gosh, it’s so painful,” Xa exclaimed, according to his doctor, Truong Thi Thom who performed the operation. Xa, who until that moment had lived his life as a deaf mute, astonished the doctor by then saying “thank you doctor.”In an abandoned LandRover I took off my shoes and made an incision in my foot. The above newspaper article I left behind.

Friday 15th of January 1999

A streetsleeper in Silpakorn University, Bangkok, Central Thailand, Thailand.

Monday 15th of January 2001

Wikipedia goes online in the Whole Wide World.

Wednesday 15th of January 2003

Murderer John Richard Baltazar is executed by lethal injection at the age of 31 in Huntsville Prison, 815 12th Street, Huntsville, Texas, United States.

Baltazar requested 'Cool Whip' and cherries but did not receive the food because the prison does not stock it.

Tuesday 15th of January 2013

A layer of snow on our rooftop terrace in Antwerpen, Antwerpen, Belgium.