This Day in History on 12 October

The historical events hold a lot of value for aspirants who are sitting for UPSC competitive exams including the IAS Exam.

On this page, we will list all historical events that occurred on 12 October. The students can refer to them while preparing for all competitive exams and banking exams.

Important Days

International Day Against DRM

Important Events

1492: Christopher Columbus arrived in the Bahamas in the West Indies. He understood that we had reached India.

1823: Charles McIntosh of Scotland sold the first raincoat.

1847: Werner von Siemens and Johann Georg Halske started Siemens AG Company.

1850: America’s first women’s medical college opened.

1871: In India, the British government criminalized 161 castes and tribes under the Criminal Tribes Act.

1901: US President Theodore Roosevelt officially renamed the executive mansion the White House.

1960: Soviet President Nikita Khrushchev knocked on the table to make his point while addressing the United Nations.

1964: For the first time in the world, the Soviet Union sent astronauts into space on this day without wearing a spacesuit.

1967: National Conference, the Working Committee of Jammu and Kashmir, unanimously passed the proposal to a permanent merger of the state with India.

1968: The 19th Olympic Games began in Mexico City, Mexico.

1983: Japanese Prime Minister Tanaka Kakuei was sentenced to four years in prison for accepting a bribe of 200, 000 US dollars from Lockheed Corporation.

1988: Guerrillas attacked an Indian Peace Corps convoy at the University of Jaffna to capture an LTTE leader. The heavy loss of the Indian squad.

1998: Pallavi Shah of Kolhapur, India, won the 33rd Chess Olympiad and gets the title of International Woman Master.

1993: National Environment Council with PM as chairperson set up.

1993: RBI liberalises credit and monetary policy.

1999: Pakistan’s military general Parvesh Musharraf took over power of the country by overthrowing then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

2000: The Millennium World Food Prize was awarded to Indian plant geneticist Dr. Surinder K. Vasal and Mexican botanist Dr. Evangelina Villegas for developing a protein-rich maize variety.

2001: Kofi Annan, UN Secretary-General, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

2019: Eliud Kipchoge from Kenya became the first person to run a marathon in less than two hours with a time of 1:59:40 in Vienna. 

Birth/Birth Anniversary

1537: Edward VI of England, King of England, Tudor dynasty.

Vijay Merchant
Vijay Merchant

1860: Elmer Ambrose Sperry, American inventor, the founder of Gyro Compass.

1866: Ramsay MacDonald, British statesman, prime minister of the United Kingdom.

1868: August Horch, founder of the Audi Motor Company.

1875: Aleister Crowley, English poet, mountaineer, and occultist.

1907: Durgaprasad Mandelia, famous merchant and industrialist, was born.

Shivraj Patil,  politician
Shivraj Patil, politician

1911: Vijay Merchant, Indian cricketer, cricket critic, businessman and social activist.

1918: MA Chidambaram, Indian Industrialist, cricket administrator, and BCCI President. 

1919: Vijaya Raje Scindia, Indian politician.

1921: Jayant Sridhar and Jayantrao Tilak, an Indian leader of the United Maharashtra Movement.

Ashok Mankad, Indian cricketer
Ashok Mankad, Indian cricketer

1922: Shanta Shelke, Indian poet and lyricist.

1935: Shivraj Patil, Indian lawyer and politician, Indian Minister of Defence

1938: Nida Fazli, a prominent Indian Hindi and Urdu poet, lyricist and dialogue writer.

1946: Ashok Mankad, Indian cricketer (d. 2008)

1968: Hugh Jackman, Australian actor, and producer.

Death/ Death Anniversary

1860: Sir Henry G W Smith, leader of British-Indian forces, passed away at the age of 73.

Ram Manohar Lohia, Indian activist and politician
Ram Manohar Lohia, Indian activist and politician

1967: Ram Manohar Lohia, Indian Socialist leader, eminent parliamentarian, and writer. He had founded the ‘Praja Socialist Party’ in 1952.

1976: Kumarnath Bagchi, famous Indian chemist, died.

1979: Katharine Burr Blodgett, American physicist, and chemist.

1996: Rene Lacoste, French lawn tennis player, and father of polo t-shirts.

Sukhdev Singh Kang, Indian judge and politician
Sukhdev Singh Kang, Indian judge and politician

1997: John Denver, an American singer-songwriter, record producer, actor, activist, and humanitarian, whose greatest commercial success was as a solo singer.

2011: Dennis Ritchie, creator of C programming language.

2012: Sukhdev Singh Kang, Indian judge and politician, 14th Governor of Kerala (b. 1931)

Further Reading

Month-wise This Day in History