October 12 Birthday
October 12, 1492: Christopher Columbus, sailing under the Spanish flag, made landfall on an island in the Bahamas. He called the indigenous people "Indians" because he believed he had reached the East Indies. He never set foot on the North American mainland. The "discovery" led to European colonization, the transatlantic slave trade, and the deaths of tens of millions of indigenous people from disease, violence, and displacement. Columbus died in 1506 still insisting he had reached Asia. The holiday named for him is increasingly controversial. People born on October 12 fall under the zodiac sign of Libra. The birthstone is Opal and the birth flower is Marigold. Historical events on October 12 include 1492: Columbus reaches the Americas (Bahamas), 1960: Khrushchev shoe-banging at UN, 2000: USS Cole attacked in Yemen. Famous people born on October 12 include Luciano Pavarotti (1935), Susan Anton (1950), Hugh Jackman (1968).