ON THIS DAY OCTOBER 12

1216 King John of England loses his crown jewels in The Wash as the flood tide swamps his wagons.

1285 For refusing baptism in Munich, Germany, 180 Jews are set on fire.

1492 Christopher Columbus makes landfall in the Bahamas, believing he has reached the Indies.

1799 Jeanne Geneviève Labrosse becomes the first woman to jump from a balloon with a parachute.

1810 The first Oktoberfest is held when the citizens of Munich are invited to join the celebration of a royal marriage.

1823 Charles Macintosh sells his first raincoat.

1860 Former Cape governor Sir Harry Smith dies in London. A veteran of the Napoleonic Wars, including the Battle of Waterloo, he is also remembered for his role in the 1846 Battle of Aliwal, in India and as the husband of Lady Smith – Juana Maria de Los Dolores de León, who he married during the Spanish Peninsula Campaign. The towns of Ladysmith, Ladismith, Harrismith, Aliwal North and Smithfield owe their names to the Smiths.

1899 The first shots of the Anglo-Boer War are fired at Kraaipan, south of Mafeking.

1945 Desmond Doss is the first conscientious objector to receive the US Medal of Honour, as depicted in the movie Hacksaw Ridge.

1960 Viewers in Japan see Inejiro Asanuma, leader of the Japan Socialist Party, stabbed to death live on TV.

1964 The world’s first crewed spaceflight is made by three Soviet cosmonauts on the Voskhod 1 spacecraft.

1984 The IRA bombs the Grand Hotel in Brighton, where British prime minister Margaret Thatcher is staying; five die.

2000 The destroyer USS Cole is badly damaged in Aden, Yemen, by suicide bombers; 17 crewmen die.

2002 Terrorists bombs in Bali’s nightclub district kill 202 people and injure 209.

2005 The second Chinese crewed spaceflight, Shenzhou 6, carries Fei Junlong and Nie Haisheng for five days in orbit.

2012 The UN orders that an African-led force oust Islamist militants in northern Mali.

2013 50 people are killed when a truck veers of a cliff in La Convencion Province, Peru.

2017 A plague outbreak in Madagascar kills 57 people.

2018 The Banksy work Girl With Balloon automatically shreds moments after being sold for £1 million in London. | THE HISTORIAN