Conscientious objector awarded Medal of Honor

On October 12, 1786, a lovesick Thomas Jefferson composes a romantic and introspective letter to a woman named Maria Cosway. Early in 1786, widower Thomas Jefferson met Maria Cosway in Paris while he was serving as the U.S. minister to France. Cosway was born to English parents in Italy and, by the time she met […]

General Robert Edward Lee, the commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, dies at his home in Lexington, Virginia. He was 63 years old. Lee was born to Henry Lee and Ann Carter Lee at Stratford Hall, Virginia, in 1807. His father served in the American Revolution under George Washington and was later a […]

A massive forest fire rages through Minnesota on October 12, 1918, killing hundreds of people and leaving thousands homeless. The fire burned at least 1,500 square miles. The fire, known as the Cloquet-Moose Lake fire because that is where the damage was worst, began at rail lines near Sturgeon Lake. This region of Minnesota, southwest […]

In one of the most surreal moments in the history of the Cold War, Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev pounds his fist on the table, and according to some reports, removes his shoe and threatens to pound a table with it in protest against a speech critical of Soviet policy in Eastern Europe.  During a debate over […]

Racial violence flares aboard U.S. Navy ships on October 12, 1972. Forty six sailors are injured in a race riot involving more than 100 sailors on the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk en route to her station in the Gulf of Tonkin off Vietnam. The incident broke out when a Black sailor was summoned for […]

On October 12, 1997, songwriter, actor and humanitarian John Denver dies when his experimental amateur aircraft crashes into Monterey Bay on the California coast. To those who bought records like “Rocky Mountain High” and “Take Me Home, Country Roads” by the millions in the 1970s, John Denver was much more than just a great songwriter […]

At 12:15 p.m. local time, a motorized rubber dinghy loaded with explosives blows a 40-by-40-foot hole in the port side of the USS Cole, a U.S. Navy destroyer that was refueling at Aden, Yemen. Seventeen sailors were killed and 38 wounded in the attack, which was carried out by two suicide terrorists alleged to be […]

On October 12, 2007, former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and a United Nation’s panel are awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to increase public knowledge about man-made climate change.