October 12

October 12 is the 285th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (286th in leap years). There are 80 days remaining.

Events

1492 - Christopher Columbus's expedition makes landfall in the Caribbean. The explorer believes he has reached East Asia

1582 - Due to the implementation of the Gregorian calendar this day does not exist in this year in Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain.

1609 - "Three Blind Mice" published by London teenage songwriter Thomas Ravenscroft

1681 - A London woman is publicly flogged for the crime of "involving herself in politics"

1773 - America's first insane asylum opens for 'Persons of Insane and Disordered Minds' in Virginia

1792 - First celebration of Columbus Day in the USA held in New York

1793 - The cornerstone of Old East, the oldest state university building in the United States, is laid on the campus of the University of North Carolina

1810 - First Oktoberfest: The Bavarian royalty invites the citizens of Munich to join the celebration of the marriage of Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria to Princess Therese von Sachsen-Hildburghausen

1822 - Brazil becomes formally independent of Portugal; Dom Pedro is proclaimed emperor

1847 - German inventor and industrialist Werner von Siemens founds Siemens AG & Halske

1859 - Self-described "Emperor of the United States" Joshua A. Norton 'orders' the U.S. Congress to dissolve

1892 - To mark 400 anniversary Columbus Day holiday, the Pledge of Allegiance was first recited in unison by students in US public schools

1915 - World War I: British nurse Edith Cavell is executed by a German firing squad for helping Allied soldiers escape from Belgium

1928 - An iron lung respirator is used for the first time at Children's Hospital, Boston

1933 - The United States Army Disciplinary Barracks on Alcatraz Island, is acquired by the United States Department of Justice

1938 - Filming starts on The Wizard of Oz

1953 - "The Caine Mutiny Court Martial" opens at Plymouth Theatre, New York

1960 - Cold War: Nikita Khrushchev pounds his shoe on a table at a General Assembly of the United Nations meeting to protest discussion of Soviet Union policy toward Eastern Europe

1962 - Infamous Columbus Day Storm strikes the U.S. Pacific Northwest with record wind velocities; 46 dead and at least U.S. $230 million in damages

1964 - The Soviet Union launches the Voskhod 1 into Earth orbit as the first spacecraft with a multi-person crew and the first flight without space suits

1967 - Vietnam War: US Secretary of State Dean Rusk states during a news conference that proposals by the U.S. Congress for peace initiatives were futile because of North Vietnam's opposition

1968 - 1968 Summer Olympics open in Mexico City, Mexico

1968 - Equatorial Guinea becomes independent from Spain

1970 - Vietnam War: US President Richard Nixon announces that the United States will withdraw 40,000 more troops before Christmas

1972 - En route to her station in the Gulf of Tonkin, a racial brawl involving more than 100 sailors breaks out aboard the United States Navy aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk

1976 - The People's Republic of China announces that Hua Guofeng is the successor to the late Mao Tse-tung as chairman of Communist Party of China

1983 - Japan's ex Prime Minister Tanaka Kakuei is found guilty of taking a $2 million bribe from Lockheed and is sentenced to 4 years in jail

1984 - Brighton hotel bombing: Margaret Thatcher survives an IRA bomb, which shredded her bathroom barely two minutes after she had left it

1988 - two officers of the Victoria Police are gunned down executional style in the Walsh Street police shootings, Australia

1991 - Askar Akayev, previously chosen President of Kyrgyzstan by republic's Supreme Soviet, is confirmed president in an uncontested poll

1994 - NASA loses radio contact with the Magellan spacecraft as the probe descends into the thick atmosphere of Venus (the spacecraft presumably burned up in the atmosphere either October 13 or October 14)

1997 - Sidi Daoud massacre in Algeria; 43 killed at a fake roadblock

1998 - U.S. Congress passes Digital Millennium Copyright Act

1999 - Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif tries to dismiss Army Chief General Pervez Musharraf, who is returning to Pakistan from abroad in a commercial airliner. Sharif orders the Karachi airport to not allow the plane to land. Army leaders refuse to accept the dismissal and, in a coup, oust Sharif's administration and take over the airport. The plane lands with only a few minutes of fuel to spare, and Musharraf assumes control of the country.

2000 - In Aden, Yemen, the USS Cole is badly damaged by two suicide bombers, killing 17 crewmembers and wounding at least 39

2001 - War on Terrorism: Prompted by a request by US President George W. Bush, an episode of America's Most Wanted aired featuring 22 most wanted terrorists

2002 - Bali bombing: In Bali, terrorists detonate bombs in two nightclubs in Kuta, killing 202 and wounding over 300

2003 - Belarus mental hospital fire: Thirty patients die in a mental hospital fire in Randilovshchina, Belarus

2003 - Michael Schumacher clinches his 6th Formula One championship, an all-time record