GMT 10/12/2017

1492 Christopher Columbus and his crew land in the Bahamas.

1576 Rudolf II, the king of Hungary and Bohemia, succeeds his father, Maximillian II, as Holy Roman Emperor.

1609 The song "Three Blind Mice" is published in London, believed to be the earliest printed secular song.

1702 Admiral Sir George Rooke defeats the French fleet off Vigo.

1722 Shah Sultan Husayn surrenders the Persian capital of Isfahan to Afgan rebels after a seven month siege.

1809 Meriwether Lewis, of the Lewis and Clark expedition, dies under mysterious circumstances in Tennessee.

1899 The Anglo-Boer War begins.

1872 Apache leader Cochise signs a peace treaty with General Howard in Arizona Territory.

1915 Despite international protests, Edith Cavell, an English nurse in Belgium, is executed by Germans for aiding the escape of Allied prisoners.

1933 Alcatraz Island is made a federal maximum security prison.

1943 The U.S. Fifth Army begins an assault crossing of the Volturno River in Italy.

1949 Eugenie Anderson becomes the first woman U.S. ambassador.

1960 Inejiro Asanuma, leaders of the Japan Socialist Party, is assassinated during a live TV broadcast.

1964 1964 USSR launches Voskhod I, first spacecraft with multi-person crew; it is also the first mission in which the crew did not wear space suits.

1970 President Richard Nixon announces the pullout of 40,000 more American troops in Vietnam by Christmas.

1971 The House of Representatives passes the Equal Rights Amendment 354-23.

1984 The Provisional Irish Republican Army detonates at bomb at the Grand Hotel in Brighton, England, in an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher; 5 others are killed and 31 wounded.

1994 NASA loses contact with the Magellan probe spacecraft in the thick atmosphere of Venus.

1999 Chief of Army Staff Perez Musharraf seizes power in Pakistan through a bloodless military coup.

2000 Suicide bombers at Aden, Yemen, damage USS Cole; 17 crew members killed and over 35 wounded.

2002 Terrorist bombers kill over 200 and wound over 300 more at the Sari Club in Kuta, Bali.


Born on October 12


1968 Hugh Jackman, actor; well known for his recurring role as Wolverine in the X-Men films, his many awards include a Golden Globe (Les Miserables, 2013) and a Tony Award Special Award for Extraordinary Contribution to the Theatre Community (2012