From ScienceDaily:
Today is Thursday, Oct. 12, the 285h day of 2006 with 80 to follow. The moon is waning. The morning stars are Venus and Saturn. Those born on this date are under the sign of Libra. 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 believed he had reached India.
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 1973, U.S. President Richard Nixon nominated House Minority Leader Gerald Ford 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 1993, New Delhi announced that more than 9,700 people had died in an earthquake the previous month in southern India.
In 1995, a cease-fire took effect in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
In 1998, University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard died, five days after the 21-year-old gay man was beaten, robbed and left tied to a fence.
In 1999, the elected government of Pakistan was overthrown in an apparently bloodless military coup. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and several other leaders were arrested.
More here.