This is a list of selected October 12 anniversaries that appear in the "On this day" section of the Main Page. To suggest a new item, in most cases, you can be bold and edit this page. Please read the selected anniversaries guidelines before making your edit. However, if your addition might be controversial or on a day that is or will soon be on the Main Page, please post your suggestion on the talk page instead.
Please note that the events listed on the Main Page are chosen based more on relative article quality and to maintain a mix of topics, not based solely on how important or significant their subjects are. Only four to five events are posted at a time and thus not everything that is "most important and significant" can be listed. In addition, an event is generally not posted this year if it is also the subject of the scheduled featured article or picture of the day.
To report an error when this appears on the Main Page, see Main Page errors. Please remember that this list defers to the supporting articles, so it is best to achieve consensus and make any necessary changes there first.
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Images
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Christopher Columbus -
An Emerson iron lung -
Jeanne Geneviève Labrosse in her balloon, before her parachute descent -
Jeanne Geneviève Garnerin (née Labrosse) -
Werner von Siemens -
Nikita Khrushchev
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Ineligible
| Blurb | Reason |
|---|---|
| Our Lady Aparecida's Day and Children's Day in Brazil | Our Lady: unreferenced section; Children's Day: cleanup required, refimprove section |
| Feast day of Our Lady of the Pillar in the Philippines and Spain; | Refimprove section |
| Independence Day in Equatorial Guinea (1968); | Refimprove section |
| 1492 – Believing he had reached the East Indies, Christopher Columbus made landfall on an island in the Caribbean, sparking a series of events that led to the European colonization of the Americas. | Refimprove section |
| 1859 – Self-described "Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico" Emperor Norton "ordered" the United States Congress to dissolve. | Moved to 17 September, date of his proclamation |
| 1915 – A German firing squad executed British nurse Edith Cavell for helping Allied soldiers to escape occupied Belgium. | Refimprove section |
| 1928 – An "iron lung" medical ventilator, designed by Philip Drinker and colleagues at Boston Children's Hospital, was used for the first time to treat poliomyelitis. | lead too short, unreferenced section |
| 1964 – The Soviet Voskhod 1 mission became the first multi-person space flight as well as the first without spacesuits. | unreferenced section |
| 1987 – Sri Lankan Civil War: Indian troops mounted a failed assault on the University of Jaffna, which served as the Tamil Tigers' military headquarters. | unreferenced section |
| 2000 – Two suicide bombers attacked the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Cole while it was at anchor in Aden, Yemen, killing 17 of its crew members and injuring 39 others. | unreferenced section |
| 2002 – A series of bombs planted by Islamist militant group Jemaah Islamiyah exploded in Bali, Indonesia, killing 202 people and injuring 209 others. | refimprove |
| Ricky Wilson (d. 1985) | refimprove section |
Eligible
- 1398 – The Grand Duke of Lithuania Vytautas the Great and the Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights Konrad von Jungingen signed the Treaty of Salynas, the third attempt to cede Samogitia to the Knights.
- 1798 – The Peasants' War began in Overmere, Southern Netherlands, with peasants taking up arms against the French occupiers.
- 1799 – Jeanne Geneviève Labrosse became the first woman to make a parachute descent, falling 900 m (3,000 ft) in a hot-air balloon gondola.
- 1847 – Werner von Siemens, a German inventor, founded Siemens & Halske, which later became Siemens, the largest engineering company in Europe.
- 1892 – The Pledge of Allegiance of the United States was first used in public schools to coincide with the opening of the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago.
- 1960 – Japan Socialist Party leader Inejiro Asanuma was assassinated during a live television recording by a man using a samurai sword.
- 1960 – Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev reportedly pounded his shoe on a desk during the Plenary Meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in response to Filipino delegate Lorenzo Sumulong's assertion of Soviet colonial policy being conducted in Eastern Europe.
- 1984 – The Provisional Irish Republican Army detonated a bomb at the Grand Hotel in Brighton, England, in a failed attempt to assassinate British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and most of her cabinet.
- 1992 – A 5.8 MB earthquake struck south of Cairo, Egypt, killing 545 people.
- Born/died: Demosthenes (d. 322 BC) · Thomas Dudley (b. 1576) · Richard Molesworth, 3rd Viscount Molesworth (d. 1758) · Sheila Florance (d. 1991) · Gilbert Parkhouse (d. 2000)
Notes
- 1492 light sighting appears on October 11, so Christopher Columbus should not appear in the same year.
- Operation Pawan appears on October 11, so Jaffna University Helidrop should not appear in the same year.
October 12: National Day in Spain (1492)
- 1871 – The Criminal Tribes Act entered into force in British India, giving law enforcement sweeping powers to arrest, control, and monitor the movements of the members of ethnic or social communities that were defined as "habitually criminal".
- 1890 – The Uddevalla Suffrage Association was founded in Uddevalla, Sweden, with the purpose of bringing about universal suffrage.
- 1917 – First World War: New Zealand troops suffered more than 2,000 casualties, including more than 800 deaths, in the First Battle of Passchendaele, making it the nation's largest loss of life in one day.
- 1979 – Typhoon Tip, the largest and most intense tropical cyclone ever recorded, reached a worldwide record-low sea-level pressure of 870 mbar (25.69 inHg) in the western Pacific Ocean.
- 1999 – Pakistani general Pervez Musharraf (pictured) led a military coup against the government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
Nicholas Brend (d. 1601) · Kamini Roy (b. 1864) · Wilt Chamberlain (d. 1999)