Born on This Day Comedian and activist who broke out in the 1960s, delivering caustic routines about racial prejudice to mostly white audiences. Luciano Pavarotti Italian tenor and one of the 20th century’s best opera singers, renowned for his pure tone and buoyant personality. Australian actor who can move from beefy superhero in the Wolverine series to song-and-dance man in The Greatest Showman . To honor the first inhabitants of the Americas, South Dakota becomes the first state to rename Columbus Day ‘Native American Day.’ Two years later, the city of Berkeley, California, is the first to dub it Indigenous People’s Day. Also on This Day in History Discover more of the major events, famous births, notable deaths and everything else history-making that happened on October 12th Thomas Jefferson composes an extraordinary romantic letter On October 12, 1786, a lovesick Thomas Jefferson composes a romantic and introspective letter to a woman named Maria Cosway. Early in 1786, widower Thomas Jefferson met Maria Cosway in Paris while he was serving as the U.S. minister to France. Cosway was born to English parents in Italy and, by the time she met […] The origin of Oktoberfest: a Bavarian royal wedding The traditional German festival known as Oktoberfest begins on October 12, 1810, when Bavarian Crown Prince Louis, later King Louis I of Bavaria, marries Princess Therese von Sachsen-Hildburghausen. Robert E. Lee dies General Robert Edward Lee, the commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, dies at his home in Lexington, Virginia. He was 63 years old. Lee was born to Henry Lee and Ann Carter Lee at Stratford Hall, Virginia, in 1807. His father served in the American Revolution under George Washington and was later a […] British nurse Edith Cavell executed On the morning of October 12, 1915, the 49-year-old British nurse Edith Cavell is executed by a German firing squad in Brussels, Belgium. Before World War I began in 1914, Cavell served for a number of years as the matron of a nurse training school in Brussels. After the city was captured and occupied by […] Fire rages in Minnesota A massive forest fire rages through Minnesota on October 12, 1918, killing hundreds of people and leaving thousands homeless. The fire burned at least 1,500 square miles. The fire, known as the Cloquet-Moose Lake fire because that is where the damage was worst, began at rail lines near Sturgeon Lake. This region of Minnesota, southwest […] Silent-film star Tom Mix dies in Arizona car wreck On October 12, 1940, cowboy-movie star Tom Mix is killed when he loses control of his speeding Cord Phaeton convertible and rolls into a dry wash (now called the Tom Mix Wash) near Florence, Arizona. He was 60 years old. Today, visitors to the site of the accident can see a 2-foot–tall iron statue of […]

Conscientious objector awarded Medal of Honor Private First Class Desmond T. Doss of Lynchburg, Virginia, is presented the Medal of Honor for outstanding bravery as a combat medic, the first conscientious objector in American history to receive the nation’s highest military award. When called on by his country to fight in World War II, Doss, a dedicated pacifist, registered as a […] Nikita Khrushchev allegedly brandishes his shoe at the United Nations In one of the most surreal moments in the history of the Cold War, Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev pounds his fist on the table, and according to some reports, removes his shoe and threatens to pound a table with it in protest against a speech critical of Soviet policy in Eastern Europe. During a debate over […] USSR leads the space race The Soviet Union launches Voskhod 1 into orbit around Earth, with cosmonauts Vladamir Komarov, Konstantin Feoktistov, and Boris Yegorov aboard. Voskhod 1 was the first spacecraft to carry a multi-person crew, and the two-day mission was also the first flight performed without space suits. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the U.S. space program […] Racial violence breaks out aboard U.S. Navy ships Racial violence flares aboard U.S. Navy ships on October 12, 1972. Forty six sailors are injured in a race riot involving more than 100 sailors on the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk en route to her station in the Gulf of Tonkin off Vietnam. The incident broke out when a Black sailor was summoned for […] Soviet-U.S. arms control talks break down over President Reagan’s “Star Wars” initiative Following up on their successful November 1985 summit meeting in Geneva, President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev meet in Reykjavik, Iceland, to continue discussions about curbing their intermediate missile arsenals in Europe. Just when it appears that agreement might be reached, the talks fall apart amid accusations and recriminations, and U.S.-Soviet relations take […] John Denver dies in an aircraft accident On October 12, 1997, songwriter, actor and humanitarian John Denver dies when his experimental amateur aircraft crashes into Monterey Bay on the California coast. To those who bought records like “Rocky Mountain High” and “Take Me Home, Country Roads” by the millions in the 1970s, John Denver was much more than just a great songwriter […] Matthew Shepard, victim of anti-gay hate crime, dies University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard dies after a vicious anti-gay attack. After meeting Shepard in a Laramie, Wyoming, gay bar, The Fireside Lounge, Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney lured him to the parking lot, where he was beaten and robbed. The two attackers then took Shepard, 21 years old and weighing just over 100 […] USS Cole attacked by terrorists At 12:15 p.m. local time, a motorized rubber dinghy loaded with explosives blows a 40-by-40-foot hole in the port side of the USS Cole, a U.S. Navy destroyer that was refueling at Aden, Yemen. Seventeen sailors were killed and 38 wounded in the attack, which was carried out by two suicide terrorists alleged to be […] Terrorists kill 202 in Bali On October 12, 2002, three bombings shatter the peace in the town of Kuta on the Indonesian island of Bali. The blasts, the work of militant Islamist terrorists, left 202 people dead and more than 200 others injured, many with severe burns. The attacks shocked residents and those familiar with the mostly Hindu island, long […] Al Gore wins Nobel Prize in the wake of ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ On October 12, 2007, former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and a United Nation’s panel are awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to increase public knowledge about man-made climate change.