June 12

Events

• 1099 - Crusade leaders visit the Mount of Olives, where they meet a hermit who urges them to assault Jerusalem
• 1381 - Peasants' Revolt, England - rebels arrive at Blackheath
• 1442 - Alfonso V of Aragon is crowned King of Naples
• 1653 - Battle of the Gabbard (lasted until June 13), during the First Anglo-Dutch War
• 1665 - England installs a municipal government in New York City. This was the former Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam
• 1667 - The first human blood transfusion is administered by Dr. Jean Baptiste. He successfully transfuses the blood of a sheep to a 15-year old boy.
• 1758 - James Wolfe's attack at Louisbourg, Nova Scotia commences
• 1812 - Napoleonic Wars: Napoleon's invasion of Russia begins
• 1838 - The Iowa Territory is organized.
• 1839 - Abner Doubleday creates the game of baseball, according to legend. However, evidence has surfaced that indicates that the game of baseball was played before 1800.
• 1849 - The gas mask is patented by L.P. Haslett
• 1864 - American Civil War: Battle of Cold Harbor: - General Ulysses S. Grant pulls his troops from their positions at Cold Harbor, Virginia and moves south
• 1889 - Armagh rail disaster
• 1897 - Carl Elsener patentes his penknife. The object later became known as the Swiss army knife.
• 1898 - Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo declares the Philippines' independence from Spain.
• 1900 - The Reichstag approves a second law that allows the expansion of the German navy
• 1901 - Cuba agrees to become an American protectorate by accepting the Platt Amendment
• 1912 - Lillian Russell retires from the stage and marries for the fourth time
• 1918 - World War I: The first airplane bombing raid by an American unit occurrs on the Western Front in France
• 1926 - Brazil quits the League of Nations in protest over plans to admit Germany
• 1931 - Al Capone and 68 of his henchmen are indicted for violating United States Prohibition laws
• 1935 - Senator Huey Long of Louisiana makes the longest speech on Senate record. The speech took 15 1/2 hours and was filled by 150,000 words.
• 1935 - The Chaco War is ended with a truce. Bolivia and Paraguay had been fighting since 1932.
• 1937 - The Soviet Union executes eight army leaders under Joseph Stalin
• 1939 - The Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is dedicated in Cooperstown, New York. This is exactly one hundred years to the day on which the game was supposedly invented by Abner Doubleday.
• 1940 - World War II: 54,000 British and French troops surrender to Field Marshal Erwin Rommel at St. Valery-en-Caux
• 1942 - Anne Frank receives a diary for her thirteenth birthday
• 1944 - Chinese Communist leader Mao Tse-tung announces that he will support Kuomintang leader Chiang Kai-shek in the war against Japan
• 1948 - Ben Hogan wins his first U.S. Open golf tournament
• 1957 - Maurice Bourgès-Maunoury becomes Prime Minister of France
• 1963 - Cleopatra starring Elizabeth Taylor, Rex Harrison and Richard Burton premieres at the Rivoli Theatre in New York City.
• 1963 - Civil rights leader Medgar Evers is fatally shot in front of his home in Jackson, Mississippi
• 1964 - South Africa sentences Nelson Mandela to life in prison
• 1967 - State laws which prohibit interracial marriages are ruled unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court.
• 1967 - Venera 4 is launched and becomes the first space probe to enter another planet's atmosphere and successfully return data
• 1975 - Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi is found guilty of corrupt election practices in 1971
• 1978 - David Berkowitz, the "Son of Sam" killer in New York City, is sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for six killings
• 1979 - Bryan Allen flies the Gossamer Albatross, man powered, across the English Channel.
• 1981 - Major League Baseball players begin a 49 day strike over the issue of free-agent compensation.
• 1982 - 750,000 people rally against nuclear weapons in New York City's Central Park. Jackson Browne, James Taylor, Bruce Springsteen, and Linda Ronstadt are in attendance.
• 1985 - The United States House of Representatives approves $27 million in aid to the Nicaraguan Contras
• 1986 - South Africa declares a national state of emergency. Virtually unlimited power is given to security forces and restrictions are put on news coverage of the unrest.
• 1987 - The Central African Republic's former Emperor Jean-Bedel Bokassa is sentenced to death for crimes he had committed during his 13-year rule
• 1987 - President Ronald Reagan publicly challenges Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall
• 1990 - The parliament of the Russian Federation formally declares its sovereignty (see Russia Day below)
• 1991 - Russians elect Boris Yeltsin as the president of their republic
• 1991 - NAFTA talks open in Toronto, Ontario.
• 1991 - The Chicago Bulls win their first National Basketball Association championship. The Bulls beat the Los Angeles Lakers four games to one.
• 1992 - In a letter to the United States Senate, Russian President Boris Yeltsin states that in the early 1950s the Soviet Union had shot down nine U.S. planes and held 12 American survivors
• 1994 - Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman are murdered outside her home in Los Angeles, California. O. J. Simpson is later acquitted of the killings, but is held liable in a civil suit.
• 1996 - In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a panel of federal judges blocks a law against indecency on the internet. The panel says that the 1996 Communications Decency Act would infringe upon the free speech rights of adults.
• 1997 - Interleague play begins in baseball, ending a 126-year tradition of separating the major leagues until the World Series.
• 1997 - The United States Department of the Treasury unveils a new $50 bill meant to be more counterfeit-resistant
• 1998 - Compaq Computer pays $9 billion for Digital Equipment Corporation in largest high-tech acquisition
• 1998 - A jury in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, convicts 17-year-old Luke Woodham of killing two students and wounding seven others at Pearl High School.
• 1999 - NATO peacekeeping forces enter the province of Kosovo in Yugoslavia
• 2003 - Robert Angleton goes missing while on bond, five days before he was to be tried for conspiring to commit the 1997 murder of wife Doris Angleton, as well as weapons charges. He was arrested at Schipol Airport in Amsterdam for passport fraud, and was sent back to Houston the same day.

Births

• 1827 - Johanna Spyri, author (+ 1901)
• 1875 - Sam De Grasse, actor (+ 1953)
• 1890 - Egon Schiele, painter and graphic artist (+ 1918)
• 1892 - Djuna Barnes, author (+ 1982)
• 1897 - Anthony Eden, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (+ 1977)
• 1915 - David Rockefeller, banker
• 1916 - Ivan Tors, movie producer (+ 1983)
• 1916 - Irwin Allen, movie producer (+ 1991)
• 1918 - Samuel Z. Arkoff, movie producer (+ 2001)
• 1919 - Uta Hagen, actress
• 1920 - Dave Berg, cartoonist for Mad Magazine (+ 2002)
• 1921 (some sources say 1919) - Vera Ralston, actress
• 1921 - James Houston, artist
• 1924 - George H.W. Bush, 41st President of the United States
• 1928 - Vic Damone, singer
• 1929 - Anne Frank, Nazi victim known for her diary (+ 1945)
• 1929 - Brigid Brophy, British writer
• 1930 - Otto Schenk, actor and director
• 1930 - Jim Nabors, actor and musician
• 1932 - Rona Jaffe, novelist
• 1935 - Christoph Meckel, writer
• 1941 - Chick Corea, musician
• 1941 - Marv Albert, sportscaster
• 1957 - Javed Miandad, great cricketer and coach, Pakistan national cricket team
• 1974 - Jason Mewes, actor

Deaths

• 1675 - Duke Charles Emmanuel II of Savoy
• 1957 - Jimmy Dorsey, musician
• 1963 - Medgar Evers, civil rights activist
• 1980 - Milburn Stone, actor
• 1983 - Norma Shearer, actress
• 2002 - Bill Blass, fashion designer
• 2003 - Gregory Peck, actor

Holidays and observances

• Roman Empire - sixth day of the Vestalia in honor of Vesta
• Philippines - Araw ng Kalayaan (Independence Day) 1898
• Russian Federation - Russia Day (Independence Day) 1990

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Referenced By