April 12 - Events

Events

  • 238 – Gordian II loses the Battle of Carthage against the Numidian forces loyal to Maximinus Thrax and is killed. Gordian I, his father, commits suicide.
  • 467 – Anthemius is elevated to Emperor of the Western Roman Empire.
  • 1204 – The Crusaders of the Fourth Crusade breach the walls of Constantinople and enter the city, which they completely occupy the following day.
  • 1557 – Cuenca is founded in Ecuador.
  • 1606 – The Union Flag is adopted as the flag of Great Britain.
  • 1776 – American Revolution: With the Halifax Resolves, the North Carolina Provincial Congress authorizes its Congressional delegation to vote for independence from Britain.
  • 1820 – Alexander Ypsilantis is declared leader of Filiki Eteria, a secret organization to overthrow Ottoman rule over Greece.
  • 1831 – Soldiers marching on the Broughton Suspension Bridge in Manchester, England cause it to collapse.
  • 1861 – American Civil War: The war begins with Confederate forces firing on Fort Sumter, in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina.
  • 1862 – American Civil War: The Andrews Raid (the Great Locomotive Chase) occurred, starting from Big Shanty, Georgia (now Kennesaw).
  • 1864 – American Civil War: The Fort Pillow massacre: Confederate forces kill most of the African American soldiers that surrendered at Fort Pillow, Tennessee.
  • 1865 – American Civil War: Mobile, Alabama, falls to the Union Army.
  • 1877 – The United Kingdom annexes the Transvaal.
  • 1910 – The SMS Zrinyi, one of the last pre-dreadnoughts built by the Austro-Hungarian Navy, is launched.
  • 1917 – World War I: Canadian forces successfully complete the taking of Vimy Ridge from the Germans.
  • 1927 – April 12 Incident: Chiang Kai-shek orders the Communist Party of China members executed in Shanghai, ending the First United Front.
  • 1934 – The strongest surface wind gust in the world at 231 mph, is measured on the summit of Mount Washington, New Hampshire.
  • 1934 – The U.S. Auto-Lite Strike begins, culminating in a five-day melee between Ohio National Guard troops and 6,000 strikers and picketers.
  • 1935 – First flight of the Bristol Blenheim.
  • 1937 – Sir Frank Whittle ground-tests the first jet engine designed to power an aircraft, at Rugby, England.
  • 1945 – U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt dies while in office; vice-president Harry Truman is sworn in as the 33rd President.
  • 1955 – The polio vaccine, developed by Dr. Jonas Salk, is declared safe and effective.
  • 1961 – The Russian (Soviet) cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human to travel into outer space and perform the first manned orbital flight, in Vostok 3KA-2 (Vostok 1).
  • 1963 – The Soviet nuclear powered submarine K-33 collides with the Finnish merchant vessel M/S Finnclipper in the Danish straits.
  • 1968 – Nerve gas accident at Skull Valley, Utah.
  • 1970 – Soviet submarine K-8, carrying four nuclear torpedoes, sinks in the Bay of Biscay four days after a fire on board.
  • 1980 – Samuel Doe takes control of Liberia in a coup d'état, ending over 130 years of minority Americo-Liberian rule over the country.
  • 1980 – Terry Fox begins his "Marathon of Hope" at St. John's, Newfoundland.
  • 1981 – The first launch of a Space Shuttle (Columbia) takes place - the STS-1 mission.
  • 1990 – Jim Gary's "Twentieth Century Dinosaurs" exhibition opens at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.
  • 1992 – The Euro Disney Resort officially opens with its theme park Euro Disneyland. The resort and its park's name are subsequently changed to Disneyland Paris.
  • 1994 – Canter & Siegel post the first commercial mass Usenet spam.
  • 1998 – An earthquake in Slovenia, measuring 5.6 on the Richter scale occurs near the town of Bovec.
  • 1999 – US President Bill Clinton is cited for contempt of court for giving "intentionally false statements" in a sexual harassment civil lawsuit.
  • 2002 – A female suicide bomber detonated at the entrance to Jerusalem's Mahane Yehuda open-air market, killing 7 and wounding 104.
  • 2007 – A suicide bomber penetrates the Green Zone and detonates in a cafeteria within a parliament building, killing Iraqi MP Mohammed Awad and wounding more than twenty other people.
  • 2009 – Zimbabwe officially abandons the Zimbabwe Dollar as their official currency.
  • 2010 – A train derails near Merano, Italy, after running into a landslide, causing nine deaths and injuring 28 people.

Read more about this topic:  April 12

Famous quotes containing the word events:

    “It is the true office of history to represent the events themselves, together with the counsels, and to leave the observations and conclusions thereupon to the liberty and faculty of every man’s judgement.”
    —Francis Bacon (1561–1626)

    “The great events of life often leave one unmoved; they pass out of consciousness, and, when one thinks of them, become unreal. Even the scarlet flowers of passion seem to grow in the same meadow as the poppies of oblivion.”
    —Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

    “Reporters are not paid to operate in retrospect. Because when news begins to solidify into current events and finally harden into history, it is the stories we didn’t write, the questions we didn’t ask that prove far, far more damaging than the ones we did.”
    —Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)