TODAY IN HISTORY

Wednesday, October  12, 2011 AP Highlight in History:  On Oct. 12, 1492 (Old Style calendar; Oct. 21st New Style), Christopher Columbus arrived with his expedition in the present-day Bahamas.
On this date in: 1810 The German festival Oktoberfest was first held in Munich to celebrate the wedding of Bavarian Crown Prince Ludwig and Princess Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen. 1935 Opera singer Luciano Pavarotti was born in Modena, Italy. 1960 Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev disrupted a U.N. General Assembly session by pounding a shoe on his desk. Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev AP Photo/Urbano Medici 1971 "Jesus Christ Superstar," a rock opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, opened on Broadway. 1973 President Richard Nixon nominated House Minority Leader Gerald R. Ford, R-Mich., to succeed Spiro T. Agnew as vice president. 1984 British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher escaped an attempt on her life when an Irish Republican Army bomb exploded at a hotel in Brighton, England, killing five people. 1986 Superpower talks between President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev in Reykjavik, Iceland, ended in stalemate. 1998 Matthew Shepard, a gay student at University of Wyoming, died five days after he was beaten, robbed and left tied to a wooden fence post outside of Laramie. 1999 Pakistan's military overthrew the democratically-elected government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. 2000 Two al-Qaida suicide bombers in an explosives-laden boat rammed into the destroyer the USS Cole in Yemen, killing 17 sailors. 2002 A bomb destroyed a nightclub on the Indonesian island of Bali, killing 202 people. Islamic militants linked to al-Qaida were blamed. 2007 Former Vice President Al Gore and the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change won the Nobel Peace Prize for sounding the alarm over global warming.		Video Highlights of This Day in History Today's Birthdays: U.S. Olympic skiier Bode Miller turns 34 years old today. AP Photo/Sergey Ponomarev Name Profession Age Jake Garn Former U.S. senator, R-Utah 65 Dick Gregory Comedian, activist 79 Sam Moore R&B singer (Sam and Dave) 76 Chris Wallace Broadcast journalist 64 John Engler Former governor of Michigan 63 Susan Anton Actress 61 Hugh Jackman Actor 43 Adam Rich Actor ("Eight is Enough") 43 Martie Maguire Country musician (Dixie Chicks) 42 Kirk Cameron Actor ("Growing Pains") 41 Golfer Cristie Kerr turns 34 years old today. AP Photo/Gene Puskar