October 12
[[pl:12 pa%BCdziernika]] October 12 is the 285th day of the year (286th in Leap years). There are 80 days remaining.
Events:
- 1492 - Christopher Columbus's expedition makes landfall in the Caribbean
- 1810 - First Oktoberfest, in celebration of the marriage of Crown Prince Louis of Bavaria to Princess Therese von Sachsen-Hildburghausen
- 1847 - Siemens & Halske founded
- 1859 - Emperor Norton I of the United States orders that country's congress dissolved.
- 1860 - British and French capture Peking, China
- 1933 - Alcatraz becomes a federal prison
- 1960 - Nikita Khrushchev pounds his shoe on a table at the United Nations to protest discussion of Soviet Union policy towards Eastern Europe
- 1968 - 1968 Summer Olympics open in Mexico City, Mexico
- 1976 - Hua Guo-feng succeeds Mao Tse-tung as chairman of Chinese Communist Party
- 1998 - United States Congress passes Digital Millennium Copyright Act
- 1999 - Military coup in Pakistan
- 2000 - USS Cole (DDG 67) badly damaged by an attack in Aden, Yemen
Births:
- 1537 - King Edward VI of England
- 1860 - Elmer Sperry, inventor
- 1866 - Ramsay MacDonald, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (+ 1937)
- 1875 - Aleister Crowley, occultist, author (+ 1947)
- 1906 - Joe Cronin, Baseball Hall of Famer
- 1912 - Alice Childress, novelist (+ 1994)
- 1918 - P.S. Ramakrishna Rao, film director (+ 1986)
- 1923 - Jean Nidetch, founder of Weight Watchers
- 1932 - Dick Gregory, comedian, activist
- 1935 - Luciano Pavarotti, opera singer
- 1935 - Joan Rivers, comedienne, television host
- 1968 - Hugh Jackman, actor, singer
- 1975 - Marion Jones, track and field star
Deaths:
- 638 - Pope Honorius I
- 642 - Pope John IV
- 1870 - Robert E. Lee, United States Civil War general (Confederate)
- 1915 - Edith Cavell, nurse
- 1924 - Anatole France, author, Nobel Prize winner
- 1940 - Tom Mix, actor
- 1946 - General Joseph Stillwell
- 1969 - Sonja Henie, figure skater
- 1971 - Dean Acheson, United States Secretary of State
- 1984 - Sir Anthony Berry, British politician, along with three of the other victims of the Brighton bombing
- 1993 - Leon Ames, actor
- 1997 - John Denver, singer
- 1998 - Matthew Shepard, gay college student and gay-bashing victim
- 1999 - Wilt Chamberlain, basketball player
- 2002 - Ray Conniff, band leader, musician
Holidays:
- National day of Spain.
- Columbus Day (traditionally) - United States
- El Dia de la Raza - Latin America
See Also: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December
October 11 - October 13 - September 12 - November 12 - more historical anniversaries