TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – OCT 12
539 BC The army of Cyrus the Great of Persia takes Babylon
1492 Christopher Columbus’s expedition makes landfall on Caribbean island he names San Salvador (likely Watling Island, Bahamas). The explorer believes he has reached East Asia (OS 21 Oct)
1576 Rudolf II, the king of Hungary and Bohemia, succeeds his father, Maximillian II, as Holy Roman Emperor.
1792 The first monument honoring Christopher Columbus was dedicated in Baltimore, MD.
1810 Bavarian Crown Prince Ludwig married Princess Therese of Saxony-Hildburghausen. The royalty invited the public to attend the event which became an annual celebration that later became known as Oktoberfest.
1860 Gen. Robert E. Lee died in Lexington, Va., at age 63.
1872 Apache leader Cochise signs a peace treaty with General Howard in Arizona Territory.
1915 Former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt criticized U.S. citizens who identified themselves by dual nationalities.
1920 Construction of the Holland Tunnel began. It opened on November 13, 1927. The tunnel links Jersey City, NJ and New York City, NY
1933 Alcatraz Island is made a federal maximum security prison.
1937 Federal agents shoot and Kill Al Brady and members of the Brady Gang in a shootout at Bangor, Maine on Columbus Day in 1937
1942 During World War II, Attorney General Francis Biddle announced that Italian nationals in the United States would no longer be considered enemy aliens.
1945 The Nazi party is ordered to dissolve by The Allied Control Council and stated that any attempt at it’s revival in any guise would be considered a criminal offense.
1945 Private First Class Desmond T. Doss was presented with the Congressional Medal of Honor for outstanding bravery as a medical corpsman. He was the first conscientious objector in American history to win the award.
1960 Inejiro Asanuma, leaders of the Japan Socialist Party, is assassinated during a live TV broadcast.
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.
1978 Punk Rocker Sid Vicious arrested on suspicion of murder after the body of his girlfriend Nancy Spungen found in their New York hotel room
1983 Former Japanese prime minister Kakuei Tanaka is convicted of taking $2.2 million in bribes from American manufacturer Lockheed Aircraft Corp.
1984 IRA Terrorists carry out a bomb attack on the British Government at the Conservative party conference at Grand Hotel Brighton
1986 Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev have fail to reach agreement at disarmament talks in Reykjavik.
1988 Federal prosecutors announced that the Sundstrand Corp. would pay $115 million dollars to settle with the Pentagon for overbilling airplane parts over a five-year period.
1989 The U.S. House of Representatives approved a statutory federal ban on the destruction of the American flag
1998 The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Online Copyright Bill.
2000 Suicide bombers at Aden, Yemen, damage USS Cole; 17 crew members killed and over 35 wounded.
2001 A special episode of America’s Most Wanted was aired that focused on 22 wanted terrorists. The show was specifically requested by U.S. President George W. Bush.
2002 Terrorist bombers kill over 200 and wound over 300 more at the Sari Club in Kuta, Bali.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
