October 12
After sailing across the Atlantic Ocean, Italian explorer Christopher Columbus sees a Bahamian island, and thinks he has reached East Asia. His expedition went ashore the same day and claimed the land for Isabella and Ferdinand of Spain, who sponsored his attempt to find a western ocean route to China, India, and the fabled gold and spice islands of Asia. -1492.
Bavarian Crown Prince Louis, later King Louis I of Bavaria, marries Princess Therese von Sachsen-Hildburghausen. The Bavarian royalty invited the citizens of Munich to attend the festivities, and the decision to repeat the festivities in the subsequent year gave rise to the tradition of the annual Oktoberfest, – 1810.
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 dead and more than 200 injured, many with severe burns. – 2002.
October 13
The cornerstone is laid for a presidential residence in the newly-designated capital city of Washington. In 1800, president John Adams became the first president to reside in the executive mansion, which soon became known as the White House because its white-gray Virginia freestone contrasted strikingly with the red brick of nearby buildings. – 1792.
October 14
Prior to a campaign speech in Milwaukee, Wis., Theodore Roosevelt, the presidential candidate for the Progressive Party, is shot at close range. The bullet failed to mortally wound him and Roosevelt went on to deliver his scheduled speech with the bullet still in his body. – 1912.
U.S. Air Force Captain Chuck Yeager becomes the first person to fly faster than the speed of sound. – 1947.
The Cuban Missile Crisis begins and brings the United States and the Soviet Union to the brink of nuclear conflict. Photographs taken by a high-altitude U-2 spy plane offered incontrovertible evidence that Soviet-made medium-range missiles in Cuba, capable of carrying nuclear warheads, were stationed 90 miles off the American coastline. – 1962.
October 15
President Woodrow Wilson signs the Clayton Antitrust Act, often referred to as “Labor’s Magna Carta,” which established that unions are not conspiracies under the law. It, for the first time freed unions to strike, picket, and boycott employers. In the years that followed, however, numerous state measures and court interpretations weakened the law. – 1914.
October 16
Civil war in China between the nationalists and the communists breaks out in 1927. The embattled Chinese communists break through nationalist enemy lines and begin an epic flight from their encircled headquarters in southwest China. Known as Ch’ang Cheng, the Long March, the communist forces’ retreat lasts for 368 days and covers 6,000 miles, approximately twice the distance from New York to San Francisco. – 1934.
October 17
Gangster Al Capone is sentenced to 11 years in prison for tax evasion and fined $80,000 to signal the downfall of one of the most notorious criminals of the 1920s and 1930s. – 1931.
Paris police kill more than 200 Algerians who were marching in the city in support of peace talks to end their country’s war of independence against France. Tensions were running high in Paris at the time, with Algerian terrorists setting off bombs in the French capital and randomly killing Paris policemen. – 1961.
Olympic Gold Medal winner Tommie Smith and Bronze Medal winner John Carlos are forced to return their awards because they raised their fists in a black-power salute during the medal ceremony at the Summer Olympics. – 1968.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) prohibits any nation that had supported Israel in its Yom Kippur War from buying any of the oil it sells. The ensuing energy crisis marked the end of the era of cheap gasoline, which went from 38¢ per gallon to 84¢ per gallon in the U.S. by March 1974, and caused the share value of the New York Stock Exchange to drop by $97 billion. In turn, it ushered in a bad recession in the United States. – 1973.
October 18
The U.S. formally takes possession of Alaska after purchasing the territory from Russia for $7.2 million, or less than 2¢ an acre. The Alaska purchase comprised 586,412 square miles, about twice the size of Texas. – 1867.
Only one year after Spain granted Puerto Rico self-rule, American troops raise the U.S. flag over the Caribbean nation to formalize U.S. authority over the island’s one million inhabitants. – 1898.
New York City agrees to pay women school teachers a rate equal to that of men. – 1911.