We should have had today off.

October 12, 1492 -
Happy Beginning of European Colonization Day in the New World



Christopher Columbus, not the brightest bulb in the explorers club, reached America, making his first landing in the New World on one of the Bahamas Islands.



Columbus believed he had reached India.


Today in History -
October 12, 1915 -

British nurse Edith Cavell, 49, was executed by a German firing squad in Brussels for helping Allied soldiers escape from German-occupied Belgium during World War I. The night before her execution she told the Anglican chaplain, Rev. Gahan, who had been allowed to see her, "Patriotism is not enough, I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone." These words are inscribed on her statue in St. Martin's Place, near Trafalgar Square in London.

Her final words to the German pastor, Le Saur were recorded as 'Ask Mr. Gahan to tell my loved ones later on that my soul, as I believe, is safe, and that I am glad to die for my country.'

Pretty tough cookie.


October 12, 1960 -
Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev disrupted a U.N. General Assembly session by pounding his desk with a shoe during a dispute.

This resulted in the popular stereotype of the Soviet Dictator who pounds his desk with his shoe.

In fact, many Soviet Dictators did not pound their desks with their shoes. They had their deputies do it for them.


October 12, 1966 -
This was a particularly busy date in history. Sammy Davis, Jr. makes a cameo appearance on the ABC television series Batman, during one of their legendary Batclimbs.





October 12, 1970 -
During his court martial for the My Lai Massacre, Lt. William Calley testifies that Cpt. Ernest Medina had ordered that anybody they couldn't move would be "wasted."

Which is why Calley said he and his men killed 350 Vietnamese, including more than 100 civilian men, women, and children.


October 12, 1973 -
U.S. President Richard Nixon nominated House Minority Leader Gerald Ford for the vice presidency, under the 25th Amendment, to replace Spiro Agnew, who had resigned two days earlier.

Interestingly, Ford was on the Warren Commission investigating the Kennedy assassination. When Nixon resigned, Ford became president. One of his first acts was to pardon Richard Nixon.

I'm not saying that there is a connection but it gives you pause.


October 12, 1997 -
Folk singer John Denver dies when the small plane he was piloting crashed into Monterey Bay on the California coast.

Divers later recover most of the body, but not the head. Denver is ultimately identified by his fingerprints.

I guess you really didn't want to know that part.


October 12, 2000 -
In the port of Aden in Yemen, a large bomb, carried by two suicide terrorists on a rubber raft, caused heavy damage to the USS Cole, killing 17 sailors and injuring another 39.



This event was the deadliest attack against a U.S. Naval vessel since 1987.



And so it goes