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Historical events on October 12

OCTOBER 12, 1798
The Peasants' War began in Overmere, Southern Netherlands, with peasants taking up arms against the French occupiers.
The Peasants' War was a peasant revolt in 1798 against the French occupiers of the Southern Netherlands, a region which now includes Read More
OCTOBER 12, 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 her cabinet.
The Provisional Irish Republican Army, officially known as the Irish Republican Army and informally known as the Provos, was an Irish republican Read More
OCTOBER 12, 1928
The iron lung (example pictured), a type of medical ventilator, was used for the first time at the Boston Children's Hospital to treat an eight-year-old girl paralyzed by polio.
An iron lung is a type of negative pressure ventilator, a mechanical respirator which encloses most of a person's body and varies Read More
OCTOBER 12, 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.
Vytautas the Great was a ruler of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. He was also the prince of Grodno (1370–1382), prince of Read More
OCTOBER 12, 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.
The East Indies is a term used in historical narratives of the Age of Discovery. The Indies broadly referred to various lands Read More
OCTOBER 12, 1960
Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev reportedly pounded his shoe on a desk during a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in protest at a speech by Philippine delegate Lorenzo Sumulong.
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and the Chairman Read More
OCTOBER 12, 1992
An earthquake with a magnitude of 5.8 or 5.9 struck south of Cairo, Egypt, killing 545 people.
Seismic magnitude scales are used to describe the overall strength or "size" of an earthquake. These are distinguished from seismic intensity scales Read More
OCTOBER 12, 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.
Typhoon Tip, known in the Philippines as Super Typhoon Warling, was the largest and most intense tropical cyclone ever recorded. The forty-third Read More
OCTOBER 12, 1946
Il Canto degli Italiani is adopted as national anthem by the newly formed Italian Republic.
"Il Canto degli Italiani" is a patriotic song written by Goffredo Mameli and set to music by Michele Novaro in 1847, currently Read More
OCTOBER 12, 1917
First World War: New Zealand troops suffered more than 2,000 casualties, including more than 800 deaths, in the First Battle of Passchendaele (pictured), making it the nation's largest loss of life in one day.
World War I or the First World War, also known as the Great War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Read More
OCTOBER 12, 1799
Jeanne Geneviève Garnerin became the first woman to make a parachute descent, falling 900 metres (3,000 ft) in the gondola of a hot air balloon.
Jeanne Geneviève Garnerin was a French balloonist and parachutist. She was the first to ascend solo and the first woman to make Read More
OCTOBER 12, 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.
The Pledge of Allegiance is a patriotic recited verse that promises allegiance to the flag of the United States and the republic Read More
OCTOBER 12, 1406
Chen Yanxiang, the only person from Indonesia known to have visited dynastic Korea, reached Seoul after having set out from Java four months before.
Chen Yanxiang was a merchant of Chinese origin, probably based on the Indonesian island of Java, who visited Joseon Korea and Muromachi Read More
OCTOBER 12, 1890
The Uddevalla Suffrage Association was founded in Uddevalla, Sweden, with the purpose of bringing about universal suffrage.
The Uddevalla Suffrage Association was a late-19th-century political movement founded in Uddevalla, Sweden. Local historians and the Swedish Social Democratic Party consider Read More
OCTOBER 12, 2013
Twelve people were killed in an apartment-building collapse in Medellín, leading to new construction laws being passed in Colombia.
The collapse of the Space Building occurred on the night of October 12, 2013, when Tower 6 of the Space Building, a Read More
OCTOBER 12, 1933
The United States Department of Justice acquired a military prison on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay, to be transformed into the last-resort Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary.
The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the U.S. government Read More

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