Christopher Columbus

General Robert E. Lee poses on the back porch of the Lee house in Richmond, Virginia (AP Photo-Mathew B. Brady)

Today in History: October 12

Today in History: October 12: In 1870, General Robert E. Lee died in Lexington, Virginia; In 1492, Christopher Columbus’s first expedition made landfall on San Salvador Island; In 1968, Mexican track and field athlete Enriqueta Basilio became the first woman to light the Olympic flame; In 1984, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher escaped an attempt on her life when a bomb exploded at a hotel in Brighton; In 2000, 17 sailors were killed in a suicide bomb attack on the destroyer USS Cole; In 2002, bombs blamed on al-Qaida-linked militants destroyed two nightclubs on the Indonesian island of Bali; In 2019, Eliud Kipchoge became the first person to run a marathon in less than two hours

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