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- 0539 BC - The army of Cyrus the Great of Persia takes Babylon.
- 0638 Honorius I ends his reign as Catholic Pope
- 0642 John IV ends his reign as Catholic Pope
- 1216 King John of England loses his crown jewels in The Wash, probably near Fosdyke, perhaps near Sutton Bridge
- 1285 180 Jews refuse baptism in Munich Germany, they are set on fire
- 1492 Christopher Columbus's expedition makes landfall in the Caribbean, specifically in The Bahamas. The explorer believes he has reached East Asia
- 1654 The Delft Explosion devastates the city in the Netherlands, killing more than 100.
- 1692 The Salem Witch Trials were ended by a letter from Massachusetts Governor William Phips.
- 1773 America's first insane asylum opens for 'Persons of Insane and Disordered Minds' in Virginia
- 1776 British Brigade begins guarding Throgg Necks Road in the Bronx
- 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 2nd eruption of Galunggung (Java) destroys summit of mountain
- 1822 Peter I of Brazil is proclaimed the emperor of the Brazilian Empire.
- 1823 Charles Macintosh of Scotland begins selling raincoats (Macs)
- 1850 The first women's medical college opens, in Pennsylvania.
- 1853 John Morrissey wins boxing title, when Yankee Sullivan leaves ring after 36th round to slug Morrissey's fans
- 1860 British and French troops capture Peking
- 1861 Confederate ironclad Manassas attacks Union's Richmond on Mississippi
- 1862 Maj Gen Earl Van Dorn assumes command of Conf troops in Missisippi
- 1886 Hurricane and sea surge kills 250 at Indianola Texas
- 1892 The Pledge of Allegiance is first recited in unison by students in US public schools.
- 1899 Boer republic of South Africa declares war with England.
- 1915 English nurse Edith Cavell executed by Germans in Belgium (WW II)
- 1915 Theodore Roosevelt criticizes US citzens with dual nationalities
- 1915 World War I: British nurse Edith Cavell is executed by a German firing squad for helping Allied soldiers escape from Belgium
- 1917 The First Battle of Passchendaele, now Passendale
- 1918 A massive forest fire kills 453 people in Minnesota.
- 1918 Cloquet Minn and 25 other communities destroyed by forest fire, 559 die
- 1918 First use of iron lung (Boston's Children Hospital)
- 1924 Sokolnicheskaya Radio begins broadcasting from Moscow
- 1928 An iron lung respirator is used for the first time at Children's Hospital, Boston
- 1933 Alcatraz becomes a federal prison (unofficially)
- 1933 John Dillinger escapes from the Allen County, OH, jail
- 1939 First deportation of Austrian / Moravian Jews to Poland.
- 1941 Germans approach Moscow, partial evacuation of the city.
- 1941 This and the next day, German Nazis kill 11,000 Jews in Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine. Einsatzkommando 6 massacres most of the remaining Jews of the city, marching them to a ravine where they were killed.
- 1942 US navy defeats Japanese in WW II Battle of Cape Esperance
- 1944 700 Riot Police are called in to restore order at Frank Sinatra Columbus Day appearance in New York City's Paramount Theater.
- 1953 "The Caine Mutiny Court Martial" opens at Plymouth Theatre, New York
- 1955 Visitor posting - The Great Kevin Goodwin was born - USA [email protected]
- 1956 Visitor posting - on this date John Hall of the North New Portland Halls was born - USA
- 1959 At the national congress of APRA in Peru a group of leftist radicals are expelled from the party. They will later form APRA Rebelde.
- 1960 Cold War: Nikita Khrushchev pounds his shoe on a desk at United Nations General Assembly meeting to protest a Philippine assertion of Soviet Union colonialist policy being conducted in Eastern Europe
- 1960 Inejiro Asanuma is assassinated in Japan by Otoya Yamaguchi, a 17-year-old. The camera was rolling at that time.
- 1960 Nikita Khrushchev pounds his shoe at UN General Assembly session
- 1961 Number one hit on UK music charts - The Highwaymen - Michael
- 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
- 1962 US/USSR sign joint space effort in telecommunications and meteorology
- 1963 Archaeological digs begin at Masada, Israel
- 1964 Launch of Voskhod 1, First 3 man crew (Komarov, Feokistov, Yegorov)
- 1965 Visitor posting - Mary Jane Palmer was born. - USA
- 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 19th modern Olympic games opens in Mexico City
- 1968 Equatorial Guinea becomes independent from Spain
- 1968 Norma Enriqueta Basilio Satelo is First woman to light Olympic flame
- 1968 Visitor posting - Chris Anderson was born on this day and soon became the favorite child to his parents! - USA
- 1969 Soyuz 7 is launched
- 1969 Yoko Ono suffers another miscarriage
- 1972 46 sailors injured in race riot on aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk
- 1972 En route to the Gulf of Tonkin, a racial brawl involving more than 100 sailors breaks out aboard the United States Navy aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk
- 1972 Mariner 9 takes pictures of Martian north pole
- 1973 Nixon nominates Gerald Ford to replace Spiro Agnew as VP
- 1974 Number one hit on UK music charts - John Denver - Annie's Song
- 1976 4th Space Shuttle Enterprise, approach and land test (ALT) flight
- 1976 Hua Guo-feng succeeds Mao Tse-tung as chairman of Communist Party
- 1977 4th test of the space shuttle Enterprise
- 1977 US Supreme Court heard arguments in "reverse discrimination" case of Allan Bakke, white student denied admission to U of Calif Med School
- 1977 Visitor posting - Clark (Pete) Carroll Jr and Laura Jane Roos were married on this day in Rexburg, Idaho - USA
- 1978 Representatives of Israel and Egypt open talks in Washington
- 1979 The lowest recorded non-tornadic atmospheric pressure, 87.0 kPa (870 mbar or 25.69 inHg), occurred in the Western Pacific during Typhoon Tip.
- 1980 Ships of the Amphibious Force, Sixth Fleet, including Guadalcanal, began assisting the victims of the massive earthquake which devastated the Algerian city of Al Asnam.
- 1981 Visitor posting - Lesego Matlala was born - South Africa
- 1982 38.6 cm (15.2") of rainfall, Angoon, Alaska (state record)
- 1983 Japan's former 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.
- 1984 IRA bombs hotel where Margaret Thatcher is staying
- 1985 Intl Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War receives Nobel Prize
- 1985 Number one hit on UK music charts - Jennifer Rush - The Power Of Love
- 1985 Visitor posting - Kenneth henderson lll born - USA [email protected]
- 1986 Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh visit the People's Republic of China
- 1986 Visitor posting - Navneet Lal Chaudhary was born - Fiji Islands
- 1986 Visitor posting - Oct 12 1986 Carmel was born
- 1988 Two officers of the Victoria Police are gunned down executional style in the Walsh Street police shootings, Australia.
- 1988 Visitor posting - whitney nelson was born! - USA
- 1989 Visitor posting - Jessica graced us with her presence on this earth! - USA
- 1989 Visitor posting - October 12 1989 Kelsey Roe was born
- 1990 Visitor posting - Hunter Comiskey was born - USA
- 1990 Visitor posting - Jessica MacMillan was born on this day - USA
- 1991 Askar Akayev, previously chosen President of Kyrgyzstan by republic's Supreme Soviet, is confirmed president in an uncontested poll.
- 1992 Expo '92 closes in Seville Spain
- 1992 Visitor posting - Jordan was born on 500th anniversary of Columbos - USA
- 1992 Visitor posting - Ellie Jones born. Pets - My dog is called wembley - United Kingdom
- 1993 Visitor posting - Danny Perski was born.
- 1993 Visitor posting - October 12 1993 The wonderful Shannon Roulet is born.
- 1994 Visitor posting - Danielle Weiler (world famous speaker) is born-USA
- 1994 Visitor posting - Jason T is born - USA
- 1995 Visitor posting - Caleb Vogt's Birthday - USA
- 1995 Visitor posting - October 12 1995 Kendra Highlands is born! :)
- 1996 Visitor posting - Alice Gregory was born! - Australia
- 1996 Visitor posting - Linda Juster is married in Placentia California
- 1997 Sidi Daoud massacre in Algeria; 43 killed at a fake roadblock.
- 1999 Pervez Musharraf takes power in Pakistan from Nawaz Sharif through a bloodless coup.
- 1999 The Day of Six Billion: The proclaimed 6 billionth living human in the world is born.
- 2000 The USS Cole is badly damaged in Aden, Yemen, by two suicide bombers, killing 17 crew members and wounding at least 39
- 2000 USS Cole (Destroyer) was bombed while refuling in Aden, Yemen 17 sailors lost their lives
- 2002 Terrorists detonate bombs in Paddy's Pub and the Sari Club in Kuta, Bali, killing 202 and wounding over 300.
- 2005 The second Chinese human spaceflight Shenzhou 6 launched carrying Fi Jnlng and Ni Hishng for five days in orbit.
- 2005 Visitor posting - Handsom baby boy Isiah Gabriel Chacon was born - USA
- 2006 A law is passed in France that makes denying the Armenian Genocide a crime.
- 2006 An enormous lake effect snow storm drops about 2 feet of heavy, water-laden snow on Western New York knocking out power for up to 10 days in some cases, and destroying or damaging tens of thousands of trees. The storm caused more than 1 billion dollars worth of damage.
- 2008 Visitor posting - October 12 2008 Yuji Hirayama and Hans Florine climb The Nose route of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park, CA in a record time of 2hrs:37mins:05secs
- 2009 A large fire sweeps through a shanty town in Sao Paulo, Brazil, leaving at least 200 families without homes.
- 2009 Edgar Allan Poe receives a funeral in Baltimore, USA, 160 years after his death and 200 after his birth.
- 2009 Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson win the Nobel Prize for Economics.
- 2009 Guineans observe an opposition strike to commemorate those who died at an opposition rally last month.
- 2009 India test fires two medium range Prithvi II missiles in the eastern state of Orissa.
- 2009 Kai Eide of Norway, the top United Nations official in Afghanistan, acknowledges "widespread fraud" took place during the recent presidential election in the country.
- 2009 North Korea fires five short range missiles into the Sea of Japan, after issuing a "no sail zone" for waters off its east and west coasts until October 20.
- 2009 Six Uyghurs are sentenced to death over riots in the western region of Xinjiang, China in July.
- 2009 The body of two-year-old Aisling Symes, who disappeared last week in New Zealand, is located in a drain in Henderson, Auckland, near the place where she was last sighted. oct132009 The planned 200 million US$ rebuilding and expansion of Stockholm's central library, built by architect Gunnar Asplund, is cancelled.
- 2009 The death toll from a blast in Pakistan's Shangla District has reached at least 41, with a further 45 injured.
- 2009 The government in East Timor faces a motion of no confidence after releasing an Indonesian militia member, Martenus Bere, accused of crimes against humanity a decade ago.
- 2009 The pro-Kremlin United Russia party wins around 80% of regional and local seats in elections held in 76 regions in Russia. Opposition alleges vote rigging
- 2009 Two people are injured in a bomb attack in Milan, Italy, after a Libyan man explodes a device at the entrance of an army barracks.
- 2009 Visitor posting - Jacob Stanley is born - USA
- 2009 Visitor posting - maurice and manuela get married - New Zealand
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