On This Day in History - October 12th - Almanac

Today is Saturday, Oct. 12, the 285th day of 2019 with 80 to follow.

The moon is waxing. Morning stars are Neptune and Uranus. Evening stars are Jupiter, Mercury, Neptune, Saturn, Uranus and Venus.

Those born on this date are under the sign of Libra. They include baseball Hall of Fame member Joe Cronin in 1906; Doris Miller, awarded the Navy Cross for actions in Pearl Harbor attack, in 1919; comedian/activist Dick Gregory in 1932; opera tenor Luciano Pavarotti in 1935; R&B singer Sam Moore in 1935 (age 84); Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member Melvin Franklin of the Temptations in 1942; TV correspondent Chris Wallace in 1947 (age 72); singer/actor Susan Anton in 1950 (age 69); bull rider Lane Frost in 1963; actor Hugh Jackman in 1968 (age 51); actor Adam Rich in 1968 (age 51); country music musician Martie Maguire in 1969 (age 50); actor Kirk Cameron in 1970 (age 49); track star Marion Jones in 1975 (age 44); Olympic gold medal-winning skier Bode Miller in 1977 (age 42); actor Tyler Blackburn in 1986 (age 33); actor Josh Hutcherson in 1992 (age 27); actor Ferdia Walsh-Peelo in 1999 (age 20); actor Iris Apatow in 2002 (age 17).

On this date in history:

In 1492, Christopher Columbus reached America, making his first landing in the New World on one of the Bahamas Islands. Columbus thought he had reached India.

In 1810, the citizens of Munich were invited to join in celebrating the marriage of Crown Prince Ludwig or Bavaria to Princess Therese von Sachsen-Hildburghausen in what would become the first Oktoberfest.

In 1915, British nurse Edith Cavell, 49, was executed by a German firing squad in Brussels for helping Allied soldiers escape from Belgium in World War I.

In 1933, the United States Army Disciplinary Barracks on Alcatraz Island, otherwise known as The Rock, was acquired by the United States Department of Justice. Less than a year later, the prison would become home to some of the country's most notorious criminals.

In 1945, President Harry Truman awarded the Medal of Honor to Desmond T. Doss, the first conscientious objector to receive the honor. Doss was the subject of Hacksaw Ridge, a 2016 movie starring Andrew Garfield.

In 1960, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev removed one of his shoes and pounded it on his desk during a speech before the United Nations.

In 1964, the Soviet Union launched Voskhod 1 into orbit around Earth, with three cosmonauts aboard. It was the first spacecraft to carry a multi-person crew and the two-day mission was also the first orbital flight performed without spacesuits.

In 1973, U.S. President Richard Nixon nominated House Minority Leader Gerald Ford of Michigan for the vice presidency to replace Spiro Agnew, who had resigned two days earlier.

In 1984, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher escaped injury in the bombing of a hotel in Brighton, England. Four people were killed in the attack, blamed on the Irish Republican Army.

In 1992, an earthquake near Cairo killed more than 500 people and injured thousands.

In 1998, University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old gay man, died six days after he was beaten, robbed and left tied to a fence. The U.S. Hate Crimes Prevention Act is often called the "Matthew Shepard Act."

In 2000, 17 sailors were killed and 39 injured in an explosion on the USS Cole as it refueled in Yemen. U.S. President Bill Clinton blamed the attack on al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

In 2002, terrorist bombings near two crowded nightclubs on the Indonesian island of Bali killed more than 200 people.

In 2010, the U.S. government lifted a ban on deep-water oil and natural gas drilling for companies that obey stricter rules aimed at avoiding a repeat of the massive BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

In 2016, CoverGirl announces its first male model, James Charles. The 17-year-old high school senior caught the attention of the makeup brand through his popular Instagram account.

In 2018, a U.S. airstrike near the city of Harardere, Somalia, killed 60 al-Shabab militants.

A thought for the day: "Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently." -- American automaker Henry Ford