Today in HistoryToday is Thursday, October 12, the 285th day of 2006. There are 80 days left in the year.

ON THIS DATE<$>:

In 1492, (Old Style calendar; October 21 New Style), Christopher Columbus arrived with his expedition in the present-day Bahamas.

In 1870, Gen. Robert E. Lee died in Lexington, Virginia, at age 63.

In 1915, English nurse Edith Cavell was executed by the Germans in occupied Belgium during the First World War.

In 1960, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev disrupted a UN General Assembly session by pounding his desk with a shoe during a dispute.

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

“Everyone’s quick to blame the alien.” — Aeschylus, Greek poet and dramatist (524 B.C.?-456 B.C.?).