Today in History in 1492 in his first voyage, Christopher Columbus lands in the present-day Bahamas, in the belief that he'd reached East Asia; and in1823 Charles Macintosh, of Scotland, sells the first raincoat.

The On This Day In History archives at “Simple English Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia” contains over 200,000 events, birthdays and deaths from 6,000 years of history. Here is a roundup of a few of them:

October 12 is the 285th day of the year (286th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 80 days remaining until the end of the year.

EVENTS

539 BC – The army of Cyrus the Great of Persia takes Babylon.

1216 – King John of England loses his own crown jewels in The Wash.

1492 – In his first voyage, Christopher Columbus lands in the present-day Bahamas, in the belief that he'd reached East Asia.

1654 – An explosion devastates the city of Delft, Netherlands, killing over 100 people.

1692 – The Salem Witch Trials are ended by a letter from Massachusetts Governor William Phips.

1748 – War of Jenkins' Ear: Battle of Havana between British and Spanish naval forces.

1773 – The United States' first insane asylum opens in Virginia.

1792 – First US celebration of Columbus Day, in New York City.

1799 – Jeanne Genevieve Labrosse becomes the first woman to jump from a balloon with a parachute.

1810 – The tradition of the Munich Oktoberfest begins.

1822 – Pedro I of Brazil is proclaimed Emperor.

1823 – Charles Macintosh, of Scotland, sells the first raincoat.

1860 - The previously Introduced of the so-called Section 377 of the British Indian penal code (Law) was enacted in British India respectively.

1871 - The Introduction of the so-called Criminal Tribes Act was enacted in British India respectively.

1892 – The Pledge of Allegiance is first recited by students in many public schools.

1899 – First fighting of the Second Boer War.

1901 – 2000

1901 – The 'Executive Mansion' is renamed the White House by US President Theodore Roosevelt.

1902 – The Austria national football team plays its first game, defeating the Hungary national football team 5-0.

1915 – World War I: British nurse Edith Cavell is executed by a German firing squad.

1917 – World War I: The first Battle of Passchendaele takes place.

1918 – A massive forest fire kills 453 people in Minnesota.

1928 – An iron lung respirator is first used at the Children's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts.

1931 – The Christ the Redeemer statue on Sugar Loaf Mountain over Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, is officially inaugurated.

1942 – World War II: Japanese ships retreat after defeat to the US in the Battle of Esperance on Guadalcanal.

1944 – World War II: Athens, Greece, is liberated from occupying German forces.

1962 – A storm hits the Pacific Northwest of the United States, killing 46 people.

1964 – The Soviet Union launches Voskhod 1 into Earth orbit as the first spacecraft with a multi-person crew.

1968 – Equatorial Guinea becomes independent from Spain.

1968 – The 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City begin.

1970 – Vietnam War: Richard Nixon announces the withdrawal of 40,000 US troops before Christmas.

1979 – The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams is first published.

1983 – Prime Minister of Japan Tanaka Kakuei is found guilty of bribery and sent to four years in jail.

1984 – The Provisional IRA carries out the Brighton Hotel Bombing in an attempt to kill Margaret Thatcher, who escapes unhurt, though 5 people are killed and 31 injured.

1986 – Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh visit the People's Republic of China.

1987 – General Junhao Zhang fails the Juliet battalion in a skirmish versus the Han Chinese resulting in 50 casualties and the loss of a warehouse containing tonnes of gold.

1988 – Birchandra Manu massacre in Tripura, India.

1991 – Askar Akayev is confirmed as President of Kyrgyzstan.

1992 – A magnitude 5.8 earthquake in Cairo, Egypt kills 510 people.

1994 – NASA loses radio contact with the Magellan spacecraft as it passes through the atmosphere of the planet Venus, probably because of the extreme gravity there.

1997 – Sidi Daous massacre occurs in Algeria, as 43 people are killed at a fake roadblock.

1999 – In Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf takes control in a military coup. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is placed under house arrest.

1999 – Abkhazia declares independence from Georgia.

1999 – The UN officially designates this as the day that the world population reached six billion.

2000 – The USS Cole is badly damaged in Aden, Yemen, by two suicide bombers.

2002 – A terrorist bombing on the Indonesian island of Bali kills 202 people.

2003 – Germany wins the FIFA Women's World Cup, defeating Sweden 2-1.

2005 – The second Chinese space flight occurs as Shenzhou 6 is launched, with Fei Junlong and Nie Haisheng on board.

2007 – Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change win the Nobel Peace Prize.

2009 – Elinor Ostrom becomes the first woman to win the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, sharing it with Oliver E. Williamson.

2012 – The European Union wins the Nobel Peace Prize.

2013 – Cyclone Phailin hits the east coast of India.

2013 – 51 people are killed after a truck plunges off a cliff in Peru.

2014 – Southeastern India is hit by Cyclone Hudhud, while Japan is hit by a typhoon on the same day.

2019 – Typhoon Hagibis hits Japan, becoming the most powerful storm to hit the country in over 60 years.