On October 12th...

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Independence Day (Equatorial Guinea)

1459 Richard of York was defeated at the Batlle of Ludford Bridge.

1492 Christopher Columbus landed in America.
1492 Flemish rebel leader Philip van Kleef surrendered.

1509 Emperor Maximilian left Italy.

1537 King Edward VI of England was born.

1549 John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, forced the Duke of Somerset out of his office as Lord Protector.

1576 Rudolf II succeeded Maximilian II as Holy Roman Emperor.

1609 The children's rhyme "Three Blind Mice" was published in London.

1654 A gunpowder explosion devastated the city of Delft, Netherlands, and killed more than 100 persons.

1711 Karel VI Habsburg was crowned Roman Catholic Emperor.

1729 Willem K.H. Friso was installed as Viceroy of Gelderland.

1730 Christian VI succeeded Frederik IV as King of Denmark.

1773 America's first asylum for 'Persons of Insane and Disordered Minds' opened in Virginia.

1775 Presbyterian preacher Lyman Beecher was born.

1792 Columbus Day was celebrated for the first time in New York City, New York.

1815 Ex-King Joachim Murat of Naples was sentenced to death.

1840 Actress Helena Modjeska was born.

1850 The first women's medical school, the Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania, opened.

1854 Lincoln University was founded in Pennsylvania, as Ashmun Institute.

1859 Joshua Abraham Norton, self-proclaimed Emperor of the UnitedStates, issued an edict abolishing the U.S. Congress.
1859 Robert Stephenson, builder of railroad bridges, died.

1860 Inventor Elmer Sperry was born.

1864 Roger Brooke Taney, Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, died.

1866 British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald was born.

1870 Confederate General Robert E. Lee died.

1872 Composer Ralph Vaughan Williams was born.

1875 Occultist Aleister Crowley was born.

1891 The Astronomical Society of France was inaugurated.

1892 The U.S. Pledge of Allegiance was first recited in public schools.

1899 The South Africa Boer Republic declared war on Great Britain.

1900 The USS Holland was commissioned as the first modern U.S. Navy submarine.

1901 President Theodore Roosevelt renamed the Executive Mansion the White House.

1914 The First Battle of Ypres began.

1920 Construction of the Holland Tunnel, connecting New York and New Jersey, began.

1920 Man O'War ran and won his last race.

1921 American politician Philander Knox died.

1928 An iron lung was used for the first time by the Coston (Massachusetts) Children's Hospital.

1932 U.S. Senator Jake Garn was born.
1932 Civil rights activist Dick Gregory was born.

1933 John Dillinger escaped from the Allen County, Ohio, jail.
1933 George Francis Barnes, aka "Machine Gun Kelly," was sentenced to life imprisonment.

1935 Operatic tenor Luciano Paarotti was born.

1940 Actor Tom Mix died.

1945 Wrestler Dusty Rhodes was born.

1946 Joseph Stilwell, leader of U.S. and Chinese forces in China during World War II, died.

1950 Singer Susan Anton was born.

1955 Physical fitness "guru" Bernarr Macfadden died.

1958 A bomb explosion damaged a Reform Jewish temple in Atlanta, Georgia.
1958 An overloaded motor launch sank in heavy seas off the Philippines; 75 persons drowned.

1959 The U.S. Supreme Court refused to review a January 16 ruling by the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals voiding the murder conviction of Robert Lee Goldsby.

1960 Inejiro Asanuma, chairman of the Japanese Socialist Party, was assassinated by a fanatic rightist student in Tokyo.

1962 An Iberia Airline plane crashed into a hill near Carmona, Washington, killing all 18 persons aboard.

1964 Voskhod 1, the first 3-man space craft, was launched.

1966 The Jimi Hendrix Experience formed.

1968 The Portuguese colonies of Fernando Po and Rio Muni became independent as the nation of Equatorial Guinea.
1968 The Summer Olympic Games opened in Mexico City, Mexico.
1968 Actor Hugh Jackman was born.
1968 Actor Adam Rich was born.

1969 Figure skater Sonja Henie died.

1970 Actor Kirk Cameron was born.

1971 Jesus Christ Superstar opened at the Mark Helllinger Theater in New York City, New York.
1971 Dean Acheson, former U.S. Secretary of State, died.
1971 Singer Gene Vincent died.

1973 The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that President Richard Nixon must turn over all White House tape recordings related to Watergate.

1980 Seven people were stabbed ata Blood, Sweat and Tears concert in Los Angeles, California.

1984The Irish Republican Army bombed the Grand Hotel in Brighton, where British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was staying, killing 5 persons.

1985 Game show announcer Johnny Olson died.

1987 George Harrison released "Got My Mind Set On You."
1987 Alfred Landon, Governor of Kansas and 1936 presidential candidate, died.

1988 Protestant leader Ian Paisley heckled Pope John Paul II at a European Parliament meeting in Strasbourgh, France.

1992 A 5.8 earthquake killed at least510 persons in Cairo, Egypt.
1992 The Microwave Observing Project began searching for extraterrestrial life.

1994 An Iranian Fokker F28 exploded in mid-air between Isfahan and Tehran, killing 66 persons.

1997 Singer John Denver was killed in a plane crash.

1999 The six billionth living human in the world was born.
1999 Hockey player Pat LaFontaine retired.
1999 Basketball player Wilt Chamberlain died.

2000 The U.S. Navy destroyer Cole was badly damaged by two suicide bombers in Aden, Yemen; 17 crew members were killed and at least 39 injured.

2002 Terrorists exploded two bombs in Bali, Indonesia's, nightclub district, killing 202 and injuring 209 persons, most of them foreign tourists.

2003 Michael Schumacher won the Formula One World Driver Championship.
2003 Jockey Willie Shoemaker died.

2013 A truck veered off a cliff in La Convencion Province, Peru, killing 50 persons.

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This page was last updated on October 12, 2018.