What Happened on October 12th in History
30 historical events on this date
A bomb explodes on board Cyprus Airways Flight 284 while flying over the Mediterranean Sea, killing 66.
Cyprus Airways Flight 284 was a de Havilland Comet that exploded during a flight to Nicosia International Airport on 12 October 1967 after a bomb was detonated in the cabin. The airliner crashed in...
Equatorial Guinea becomes independent from Spain.
Equatorial Guinea, officially the Republic of Equatorial Guinea, is a country on the west coast of Central Africa. It has an area of 28,000 square kilometres (11,000 sq mi). Formerly the colony of...
Vietnam War: Vietnamization continues as President Richard Nixon announces that the United States will withdraw 40,000 more troops before Christmas.
Vietnamization was a policy enacted in early 1969 by the Richard Nixon administration aimed at ending U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War by expanding, equipping, and training the South Vietnamese...
The 2,500 year celebration of the Persian Empire begins.
The 2,500-year celebration of the Persian Empire, officially known as the 2,500-year celebration of the Empire of Iran, was hosted by the Pahlavi dynasty in the Imperial State of Iran in October...
President Nixon nominates House Minority Leader Gerald R. Ford as the successor to Vice President Spiro T. Agnew.
Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. was the 38th president of the United States, serving from 1974 to 1977. He assumed the presidency after the resignation of Richard Nixon, under whom he served as the 40th...
Indian Airlines Flight 171 crashes at Santacruz Airport in Bombay, India, killing 95.
Indian Airlines Flight 171 was a scheduled domestic passenger flight operated by a Sud Aviation Caravelle that crashed while attempting an emergency landing at Bombay Airport on 12 October 1976...
Hua Guofeng succeeds Mao Zedong as paramount leader of China.
Hua Guofeng was a Chinese politician who served as chairman of the Chinese Communist Party and the 2nd premier of China. As the successor of Mao Zedong, Hua held the top offices of the government,...
Typhoon Tip becomes the largest and most intense tropical cyclone ever recorded.
Typhoon Tip was the largest and most intense tropical cyclone ever recorded worldwide. The forty-third tropical depression, nineteenth tropical storm, twelfth typhoon, and third super typhoon of the...
Japan's former Prime Minister Tanaka Kakuei is found guilty of taking a $2 million bribe from the Lockheed Corporation, and is sentenced to four years in jail.
Kakuei Tanaka was a Japanese politician who served as prime minister of Japan from 1972 to 1974. Known for his background in construction and earthy and tenacious political style, Tanaka is the...
The Provisional Irish Republican Army fail to assassinate Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her cabinet. The bomb kills five people and wounds at least 31 others.
The Provisional Irish Republican Army, officially known as the Irish Republican Army and informally known as the Provos, was an Irish republican paramilitary force that sought to end British rule in...
Two officers of the Victoria Police are gunned down execution-style in the Walsh Street police shootings, Australia.
Victoria Police is the primary law enforcement agency of the Australian state of Victoria. It was formed in 1853 and currently operates under the Victoria Police Act 2013.
A 5.8 earthquake occurred in Cairo, Egypt. At least 510 died.
The 1992 Cairo earthquake, also known as the Dahshur earthquake, occurred at 15:09 local time on 12 October, with an epicenter in the Western Desert near Dahshur, Giza, 35 km (22 mi) south of...
The Magellan spacecraft burns up in the atmosphere of Venus.
The Magellan spacecraft was a 1,035-kilogram (2,282 lb) robotic space probe launched by NASA on May 4, 1989. Its mission objectives were to map the surface of Venus by using synthetic-aperture radar...
Iran Aseman Airlines Flight 746 crashes near Natanz, Iran, killing all 66 people on board.
Iran Aseman Airlines Flight 746 was a Fokker F-28 flight of Iran Aseman Airlines operating on the Isfahan–Tehran route in Iran. The flight crashed near the town of Natanz on October 12, 1994,...
New Zealand holds its first general election under the new mixed-member proportional representation system, which led to Jim Bolger's National Party forming a coalition government with Winston Peters's New Zealand First.
New Zealand is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island and the South Island —and over 600 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest...
The Sidi Daoud massacre in Algeria kills 43 people at a fake roadblock.
The following is a list of massacres that have occurred in Algeria. This is an incomplete list; the total number of massacres reported is far more numerous.
Pervez Musharraf takes power in Pakistan from Nawaz Sharif through a bloodless coup.
Pervez Musharraf was a Pakistani politician and military officer who served as the tenth president of Pakistan from 2001 to 2008. He overthrew Nawaz Sharif's government in the 1999 coup d'état and...
The former Autonomous Soviet Republic of Abkhazia declares its independence from Georgia.
Abkhazia, officially the Republic of Abkhazia, is a partially recognised state in the South Caucasus. It sits on the eastern coast of the Black Sea, at the intersection of Eastern Europe and West...
The USS Cole, a US Navy destroyer, is badly damaged by two al-Qaeda suicide bombers, killing 17 crew members and wounding at least 39.
USS Cole (DDG-67) is an Arleigh Burke-class Aegis guided missile destroyer home-ported in Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia. Cole is named in honor of Marine Sergeant Darrell S. Cole, a machine-gunner...
Terrorists detonate bombs in two nightclubs in Kuta, Bali, Indonesia, killing 202 and wounding over 200.
On 12th October 2002, terrorist attacks took place in the tourist district of Kuta on the Indonesian island of Bali. Bombings killed 202 people— 151 Westerners, 38 local Indonesians, 10 people from...
The second Chinese human spaceflight, Shenzhou 6, is launched, carrying two cosmonauts in orbit for five days.
Shenzhou 6 was the second human spaceflight of the Chinese space program, launched on October 12, 2005, on a Long March 2F rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. The Shenzhou spacecraft...
The Finnish Yle TV2 channel's Ajankohtainen kakkonen current affairs program airs controversial Homoilta episode (literally "gay night"), which leads to the resignation of almost 50,000 Finns from the Evangelical Lutheran Church.
Yle TV2 is a Finnish television channel owned and operated by Yle. TV2 was launched in 1965 as the successor to the former television channels TES-TV (Tesvisio) and Tamvisio and broadcasts public...
The European Union wins the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize.
The European Union (EU) is a political and economic union of 27 member states that are located primarily in Europe. A supranational union with a total area of 4,233,255 km2 (1,634,469 sq mi) and an...
An apartment building collapse in Medellín, Colombia results in the deaths of twelve people.
The collapse of the Space Building occurred on the night of October 12, 2013, when Tower 6 of the Space Building, a residential apartment complex, collapsed in Medellín, Colombia, killing 12 people....
The United States announces its decision to withdraw from UNESCO. Israel immediately follows.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and security through international...
Princess Eugenie marries Jack Brooksbank at St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle.
Princess Eugenie, Mrs Jack Brooksbank, is a member of the British royal family. She is the younger daughter of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Sarah Ferguson, and a niece of King Charles III. At...
Typhoon Hagibis makes landfall in Japan, killing 10 and forcing the evacuation of one million people.
Typhoon Hagibis, known in Japan as Typhoon No.19 or the Reiwa 1 East Japan Typhoon , was a large, extremely powerful and costly tropical cyclone that caused widespread destruction in Japan and is...
Eliud Kipchoge from Kenya becomes the first person to run a marathon in less than two hours with a time of 1:59:40 in Vienna.
Eliud Kipchoge is a Kenyan long-distance runner who competes in the marathon and formerly specialized in the 5000 metres. Kipchoge is the 2016 and 2020 Olympic marathon champion, and was the world...
The Hard Rock Hotel in New Orleans, which is under construction, collapses, killing three workers and injuring 30 others.
1031 Canal Street was a partially collapsed 190-foot-tall (58 m) multi-use high-rise building in New Orleans, Louisiana, located at 1031 Canal Street in the Central Business District. If completed,...
2022 Bratislava shooting, killing 3 (including the perpetrator) and injuring one. The shooting occurred outside of a gay bar in Bratislava known as Tepláreň. Two people (excluding the perpetrator) died as a result of the shooting: Juraj Vankulič, a non-binary person, and Matúš Horváth, a bisexual man. The perpetrator (Juraj Krajčík) was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot the morning after the attack.
The 2022 Bratislava shooting was an attack that occurred on 12 October 2022 outside Tepláreň, a gay bar in Bratislava, Slovakia. A 19-year-old perpetrator shot and killed two people and wounded a...