Guy Môquet, French militant (born 1924)

Guy Prosper Eustache Môquet was a young French Communist activist. During the German occupation of France in World War II, he was taken hostage by the Nazis and executed by firing squad in Châteaubriant in retaliation for attacks on Germans by the French Resistance; Môquet went down in history as one of its symbols. The farewell letter he wrote to his family at age 17 is now a mandatory reading in all French high schools.

October 22 is the 295th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar; 70 days remain until the end of the year.