On Oct. 12, 1492 (according to the Old Style calendar), Christopher Columbus arrived with his expedition in the present-day Bahamas.

Ten years ago

The United States introduced a draft resolution in the U.N. Security Council to punish North Korea for its nuclear test. Suspected Shiite militiamen broke into an Iraqi television station and gunned down 11 executives, producers and other staffers. Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk won the Nobel prize in literature. Madonna and Guy Ritchie took custody of David Banda, a 1-year-old boy from Malawi, and received preliminary approval from a judge to adopt him.

Five years ago

A Nigerian al-Qaida operative pleaded guilty to trying to bring down a jetliner with a bomb in his underwear; Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab defiantly told a federal judge in Detroit that he had acted in retaliation for the killing of Muslims worldwide. Eight people were killed in a shooting at a hair salon in Seal Beach, California. (Scott Dekraai, whose ex-wife, Michelle Fournier, was among the victims, pleaded guilty to murder in 2014, but has yet to be sentenced.)

One year ago

Princeton University’s Angus Deaton won the Nobel prize in economics for work that helped redefine the way poverty was measured around the world, notably in India. Actress Joan Leslie, 90, died in Los Angeles. Jamie Zimmerman, a doctor and reporter with ABC News’ medical unit, drowned while on vacation in Hawaii; she was 31.

— By The Associated Press