This Day in History for October 12 – First Oktoberfest Occurs and More

Here’s a look at some interesting events that took place on this day in history:

1492 – Christopher Columbus’s expedition makes landfall in the Caribbean (More info)

1810 – The first Oktoberfest occurs when Bavarian royalty invites the citizens of Munich to celebrate the marriage of Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria to Princess Therese von Sachsen-Hildburghausen (More info)

1960 – Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev bizarrely removes his shoe at a UN meeting and pounds a table with it in protest of a speech critical of Soviet policy in Eastern Europe (More info)

1997 – Singer John Denver dies when his experimental amateur aircraft crashes into Monterey Bay on the California coast (More info)

2000 – Two suicide bombers attack the USS Cole in Aden, Yemen, killing 17 crew members and wounding at least 39 (More info)