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Today in History 10/12 (Christopher Columbus)

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Engraving from 1876 depicting Christopher Columbus approaching San Salvador in 1492 (© Universal History Archive/Getty Images)(1492) Columbus, having sailed the ocean blue, arrives in North America
Rodrigo de Triana shouts from his lookout atop his ship the ‘Pinta’ that he’s spotted land after five weeks of an open-ocean crossing. The Italian leader of this Spanish-funded voyage, Christopher Columbus, will name the area of their first North American landfall ‘San Salvador.’
Christopher Columbus was an Italian explorer, navigator, and colonist who completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain. He led the first European expeditions to the Caribbean, Central America, and South America, initiating the permanent European colonization of the Americas.
Lived: Oct 31, 1451 – May 20, 1506 (age 54)
Height: 6′ 0″
Spouse: Filipa Moniz Perestrelo (m. 1479)
Partner: Beatriz Enríquez de Arana (1487 – 1506)
Children: Ferdinand Columbus (Son) · Diego Columbus (Son)
Buried: Seville Cathedral
Highlights
  • 1479: Christopher Columbus married Filipa Moniz Perestrelo in 1479.

  • 1492: During his first voyage in 1492, the brisk trade winds from the east, commonly called “easterlies”, propelled Columbus’s fleet for five weeks, from the Canary Islands to The Bahamas.

  • 1493: On 13 January 1493, Columbus made his last stop of this voyage in the New World, in the Bay of Rincón at the eastern end of the Samaná Peninsula in northeast Hispaniola.

  • 1500: Columbus’s strained relationship with the Spanish crown and its appointed colonial administrators in America led to his arrest and removal from Hispaniola in 1500, and later to protracted litigation over the benefits that he and his heirs claimed were owed to them by the crown.

  • 1502: Accompanied by his brother Bartolomeo and his 13-year-old son Fernando, he left Cádiz on 11 May 1502, with his flagship Santa María and the vessels Gallega, Vizcaína, and Santiago de Palos.

  • 1506: On 20 May 1506, aged probably 54, Columbus died in Valladolid, Spain.

Christopher Colombus map. Lisbon, workshop of Bartolomeo and Christopher Colombus, c.1490
“Columbus map”, drawn c. 1490 in the Lisbon workshop of Bartolomeo and Christopher Columbus
wiki/Christopher_Columbus
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(1492) Columbus, having sailed the ocean blue, arrives in North America.
Also on this day,

1810 | 1st Oktoberfest as wedding party in Munich launches a Bavarian beer fest
Crown Prince Ludwig I of Bavaria and Princess Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen throw a wedding party, and all of Munich, Germany is invited. The party is a hit, and festivities will be repeated a year later, starting an annual tradition of suds, song, and sauerkraut called Oktoberfest.
1979 | ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide’ answers the ultimate question…
Douglas Adams’ novel based on his radio show spoofs the sci-fi genre with a humorous, surreal travelogue. Adams will publish four more books in the ‘increasingly inaccurately named Hitchhiker’s Trilogy.’ The franchise will also include stage shows , comic books, a TV series, computer game, and movie.
2000 | Terrorists attack an American navy ship, USS Cole, docked in Yemen
Upwards of 700 pounds of explosives blast a 40-by-60-foot hole into the port side of the USS Cole as it’s docked in Aden, Yemen. Seventeen sailors will die and 40 are wounded in the bombing of the US Navy vessel, and authorities will suspect the terrorist group al-Qaeda is behind the attack.

Today in History 10/12/17

Experts examine the USS Cole on October 13, 2000, after a powerful explosion ripped a hole in the US Navy destroyer (© Dimitri Messinis/AP)(2000) Terrorists attack an American navy ship docked in Yemen
Upwards of 700 pounds of explosives blast a 40-by-60-foot hole into the port side of the USS Cole as it's docked in Aden, Yemen. Seventeen sailors will die and 40 are wounded in the bombing of the US Navy vessel, and authorities will suspect the terrorist group al-Qaeda is behind the attack.
The USS Cole bombing was a terrorist attack against the United States Navy guided-missile destroyer USS Cole on 12 October 2000, while it was being refueled in Yemen's Aden harbor. Seventeen American sailors were killed and 39 injured in the deadliest attack against a United States naval vessel since 1987.
Date: Oct 12, 2000
USS Cole after attack
USS Cole after the attack

wiki/USS_Cole_bombing
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Today in History 09/11 (Chilean coup d’état)

Chilean President Salvador Allende speaks during a news conference in Santiago, Chile on July 5, 1973 (© AP)(1973) Allende overthrown in Chile as a dictator waits in the wings
His presidential palace bombarded by his own air force, the world’s first democratically elected Marxist head of state, Salvador Allende, dies as a military coup ousts him from power in Chile. The South American country will then fall under the dictatorial rule of General Augusto Pinochet.
The 1973 Chilean coup d’état was a watershed moment in both the history of Chile and the Cold War. Following an extended period of social unrest and political tension between the opposition-controlled Congress of Chile and the socialist President Salvador Allende, as well as economic warfare ordered by US President Richard Nixon, Allende was overthrown by the armed forces and national police.
Date: Sep 11, 1973

Coup of September 11, 1973. Bombing of La Moneda (presidential palace)
Coup of September 11, 1973. Bombing of La Moneda (presidential palace)
wiki/1973_Chilean_coup_d’état
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(1973) Allende overthrown in Chile as a dictator waits in the wings.
Also on this day,

1792 | King Louis XIV’s 68-carat ‘French Blue’ diamond is stolen
Looters take advantage of the French Revolution’s chaos by breaking into the Royal Storehouse and nabbing the Crown Jewels, among them a steel-blue diamond of enormous size. The ‘French Blue’ will vanish for 20 years before one recut piece surfaces in London as the Hope Diamond.
1850 | ‘Swedish Nightingale’ makes her US debut to rapturous acclaim
American showman extraordinaire P.T. Barnum has secured the Swedish singing sensation, soprano Jenny Lind, for a US concert tour and tonight’s premiere in New York is met with a thunderous ovation. The press will dub the hubbub surrounding the singer’s American debut, ‘Lind mania.’
2001 | Al-Qaeda attacks US cities in coordinated attack
Four passenger jets are hijacked in a terrorist suicide plot, with two planes slamming into New York’s World Trade Center twin towers, one hitting the Pentagon outside Washington, DC, and another crashing in Pennsylvania. The death toll from the worst terrorist attack on American soil will reach nearly 3,000.

Today in History 09/11/17

A jet airliner nears one of the World Trade Center towers in New York, just before impact, on Sept 11, 2001 (© Carmen Taylor/AP)(2001) Terrorists hit major US cities in coordinated attack
Four passenger jets are hijacked in a terrorist suicide plot, with two planes slamming into New York's World Trade Center twin towers, one hitting the Pentagon outside Washington, DC, and another crashing in Pennsylvania. The death toll from the worst terrorist attack on American soil will reach nearly 3,000.
The September 11 attacks were a series of four coordinated terrorist attacks by the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda on the United States on the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001. The attacks killed 2,996 people, injured over 6,000 others, and caused at least $10 billion in infrastructure and property damage.
Date: Sep 11, 2001
Fatalities: 2,996
World Trade Center, NY - 2001-09-11 - Debris Impact Areas
Diagram showing the attacks on the World Trade Center

wiki/September_11_attacks
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