Columbus Lands in Bahamas: Europe Enters the Americas
Rodrigo de Triana's shout on the Pinta triggered a chain of events that launched centuries of European colonization in the Americas. Columbus immediately seized the moment to claim the promised pension for himself, while his journal entries revealing plans to enslave the Lucayan people and convert them by force set a brutal precedent for future interactions with Indigenous populations.
October 12, 1492
534 years ago
Key Figures & Places
What Else Happened on October 12
Cyrus the Great marched his Persian forces into Babylon, ending the Neo-Babylonian Empire without a major battle. By allowing the city’s captive populations, in…
Cyrus the Great's forces marched into Babylon on October 12, 539 BC, toppling a millennia-old empire without a battle. This conquest immediately freed Jewish ca…
Edwin of Northumbria died at Hatfield Chase with most of his army. He'd united northern England and converted to Christianity. Penda of Mercia and Cadwallon of …
King Ladislaus I established the fortress of Varadinum, formally documenting the site now known as Oradea in a papal bull. This administrative recognition trans…
King John lost the English Crown Jewels in The Wash in 1216 when his baggage train tried to cross the estuary at low tide and misjudged the timing. The tide cam…
Nichiren inscribed the Dai-Gohonzon, a mandala he considered the supreme object of devotion for his branch of Buddhism. He'd been exiled, nearly executed, and p…
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