Today in History ~ April 12
Events
1065 - Pilgrims under bishop Gunther of Bamberg reach Jerusalem
1204 - 4th Crusade occupies & plunders Constantinople
1385 - Willem van Oostervant weds Philip the Stout's daughter Margaretha (10)
1545 - French king Francis I orders Protestants of Vaudois killed
1606 - James I of England introduced the Union Flag (commonly known as the "Union Jack" which became the national flag of the United Kingdom. The Union Jack was originally composed by the red cross of St. George and the white cross of St. Andrew, symbolizing the union of England and Scotland. Later on, the flag incorporated Ireland's red cross of St. Patrick.
1633 - Galileo is convicted of heresy
1654 - England, Ireland & Scotland united
1709 - 1st edition of Tattler magazine in England
1776 - North Carolina became the first colony to call for independence against Great Britain.when it adopted the Halifax resolution.
1782 - Battle at Les Saintes. Wes Indies: British fleet beats French
1787 - Philadelphia's Free African Society forms
1811 - 1st US colonists on Pacific coast arrive at Cape Disappointment, WA
1826 - Karl Maria von Weber's opera "Oberon," premieres in London
1844 - Texas became a US territory
1857 - Gustave Flaubert's "Madame Bovary" published
1861 - The Civil War begins when Confederate forces bombard Fort Sumter, South Carolina
1862 - Great Locomotive Chase: James Andrews steals Confederate train (The General) at Kennesaw, GA
1862 - Union troops occupy Fort Pulaski, Georgia
1863 - -14] Gunboat battle at Bayou Teche, Louisiana
1864 - Engagement at Blair's Landing, Louisiana (Red River Expedition)
1864 - Confederate Gen Nathan Bedford Forrest captures Fort Pillow, Tn (slaughter atrocity follows) [H]
1865 - Mobile, Alabama surrenders
1869 - North Carolina legislature passes anti-Klan Law
1872 - Jesse James gang robs bank in Columbia, Kentucky (1 dead/$1,500)
1892 - George C Blickensderfer patents portable typewriter
1898 - Army transfers Yerba Buena Island to Navy.
1905 - French Dufaux brothers test helicopter
1905 - Hippodrome arena opens (NYC)
1908 - Fire leaves 17,000 homeless in Chelsea Massachusetts
1917 - Domenico Scarlatti's & Jean Cocteau's ballet premieres in Rome
1927 - Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek begins counter revolution in Shanghai
1928 - Assassination attempt on king Victor Emmanuel II of Italy
1931 - Spanish voters reject the monarchy
1932 - Emmanuel Chabrier's & Balanchine's ballet premieres in Monte Carlo
1935 - "Your Hit Parade," debuts on radio
1935 - Germany prohibits publishing "not-Aryan" writers
1940 - Italy annexes Albania
1941 - Vichy-France's head of government Admiral Dalan consults with Hitler
1942 - Japan kills about 400 Filipino officers in Bataan
1944 - Lillian Hellman's "Searching Wind," premieres in NYC
1945 - Canadian troops liberate Nazi concentration camp Westerbork, Neth
1945 - President Roosevelt died at Warm Springs, Ga. About three hours later,
Vice President Harry Truman was sworn in as 33rd president
1945 - Richard Strauss completes his "Metamorphosis"
1946 - Syria gains independence from France
1951 - Israeli Knesset officially designated April 13 as Holocaust Day
1954 - Bill Haley & Comets records "Rock Around the Clock"
1954 - Joe Turner releases "Shake, Rattle & Roll"
1955 - Salk polio vaccine safe & effective; 4 billion dimes marched
1959 - France Observator reports torture practice by French army in Algeria
1960 - Bill Veeck & Chicago Comiskey Park debuts "Exploding Scoreboard"
1961 - Douglas MacArthur declines offer to become baseball commissioner
1961 - Yuri A. Gagarin becomes 1st man to orbit Earth. when he made a 108-minute voyage. Gagarin made his trip aboard the Soviet spacecraft Vostok I at a speed of 18,000 mph
[H]
1963 - Birmingham police use dogs & cattle prods on peaceful demonstrators
1966 - 1st B-52 bombing on North Vietnam
1969 - Simon & Garfunkel release "The Boxer"
1973 - France recognizes North Vietnam
1982 - 3 CBS employees shot to death in NYC parking lot
1981 - The first U.S. space shuttle flight was launched. The flight of Columbia
was the first U.S. manned space mission since July 1976.
1983 - Harold Washington becomes Chicago's 1st black mayor
1985 - US Olympic Committee endorses a boycott of Moscow games
1987 - Texaco files for bankruptcy
1988 - Harvard U patents genetically engineered mouse (1st for animal life)
1988 - Sonny Bono elected mayor of Palm Springs, Calif
1990 - Under pressure from environmentalists, three top U.S. tuna canneries--H.J.
Heinz, Van Camp and Bumblebee--announced "dolphin-safe" tuna-catching
practices.
1990 - Greyhound Bus hires new drivers to replace strikers
1990 - James Brown moves to a work-release center after serving 15 months
1990 - 1st meeting of East German democratically elected parliament, acknowledges responsibility for Nazi holocaust & asks for
forgiveness
1991 - Defense Secretary Dick Cheney announced plans to close 31 major U.S.
military bases, including Fort Ord in California and Fort Dix in New
Jersey.
1991 - Kurdish rebels reported the Iraqi army was attacking guerrillas in
northern Iraq.
1992 - The European Community announced that a cease-fire accord had been
reached in Europe's newest nation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, a former Yugoslav
republic. The truce did not last.
1992 - Earthquake rocks Germany
1992 - Euro Disney opens in Marne-la-Vallee France
1993 - NATO warplanes began enforcing a no-fly zone over embattled
Bosnia-Herzegovina, marking the first time the alliance's forces were used
outside its traditional defense area.
1994 - Israel and the PLO agreed that 9,000 Palestinian police would be
stationed in Jericho and the Gaza Strip after the Israeli military withdrawal.
1996, President Clinton named trade representative Mickey Kantor to succeed the
late Ron Brown as secretary of commerce.
1999 - A federal judge in Little Rock, Ark., found President Clinton in contempt
of court for lying during his sworn deposition in Jan. 1998, when he had
testified that he had not had sexual relations with former White House intern
Monica Lewinsky. Clinton -- who was fined $1,202, the cost of the judge's trip
to Washington to preside over the deposition -- was the first sitting president
ever to be held in contempt of court.
1999 - The Clintons' Whitewater partner, Susan McDougal, was acquitted of
obstruction of justice.
2000 - Attorney General Janet Reno met in Miami with the U.S. relatives of
Elian Gonzalez, after which she ordered them to bring the 6-year-old boy to an
airport the next day so he could be taken to a reunion with his father in
Washington. Elian was seized by federal agents 10 days after Reno's order to
turn him over.
Birthdays
Today
1692 - Giuseppe Tartini, composer, Istria
1716 - Felice de' Giardini, composer
1722 - Pietro Nardini, composer
1769 - Giovanni Agostino Perotti, composer
1777 - Henry Clay (The Great Pacificator: U.S. Secretary of State under John Quincy Adams; three time unsuccessful candidate for president of U.S.: "I would rather be right than president.")
1791 -
Francis P. Blair, helped found the Republican Party.
1801 - Josef Franz Karl Lanner, Austria, composer/violist
1831 - Grenville Mellen Dodge, Major General (Union volunteers)
1838 - John Shaw Billings, US, librarian/army physician
1851 - Emil Liebling, composer
1852 - [Carl L] Ferdinand von Lindemann, German mathematician
1869 - Henri-Desirw Landru, French sex murderer
1883 - Imogen Cunningham, photographer (1965 ASMP award)
1895 - Lily (Alice) Pons (soprano singer, actress: I Dream Too Much, That Girl from Paris)
1903 - Sally Rand (Helen Beck) (dancer, actress)
1913 - Lionel Hampton (singer, songwriter, jazz musician: vibes, drums, piano, bandleader: On the Sunny Side of the Street, Hey! Hot Mallets, Ba-Ba-Re-Bop, Rag Mop; played with Benny Goodman)
1916 - Russ Garcia (musician, composer, orchestra leader: Waiter, Make Mine Blues with Anita O'Day; Royal Wedding Suite with Oscar Peterson)
1919 - Ann Miller (Lucy Ann Collier) (actress, dancer: Easter Parade, Sugar Babies, You Can't Take It with You, Hit the Deck, Kiss Me Kate, On the Town, Room Service, Lovely to Look At)
1919 - Maurice Girodias, French publisher
1923 - Maria Callas, opera singer (Norma, Traviata, Medea, Lucia, Tosca)
1925 - Tiny Tim, (aka Darry Dover, Larry Love)[Herbert Khaury], (ukulele playing, falsetto singer: Tiptoe Through The Tulips, Sonny Boy; film: You Are What You Eat, TV: Laugh In)
1931 - Billy (Richard) Vaughn (musician, orchestra leader: Melody of Love, The Shifting, Whispering Sands, Sail along Silver Moon; baritone singer with: Hilltoppers; music director: Dot Records)
1933 - Charlie Lau (baseball)
1933 - Montserrat Caballe, Barcelona Spain, soprano (Mimi-La Boheme)
1935 - Wendy Savage, obstetrician/gynecologist
1936 - Judy Lynn (country singer: Footsteps of a Fool; entertainer: Las Vegas; The Judy Lynn Show; Snake Valley Jamboree Queen [1952]; U.S. Champion Yodeler [1953]; Miss Idaho [1955])
1939 - Alan Ayckbourn, London, playwright
1940 - Herbie Hancock (Oscar-winning jazz/fusion musician, composer of original score: Round Midnight [1986]; TV score: Rockschool; singles: Riot, Canteloupe Island, Rockit, Dolphin's Dance)
1940 - Woody Fryman (baseball)
1944 - John Kay (Joachim Krauledat) (guitarist, vocalist: group: Steppenwolf: Born To Be Wild, Magic Carpet Ride, Rock Me)
1944 - Terry Harmon (baseball)
1947 - David Letterman (TV host & comedian: Late Night with David Letterman)
1949 - Scott Turow (author: Presumed Innocent, The Burden of Proof)
1950 - Chip (James Earl) Carter (son of 39th U.S. President Jimmy Carter and First Lady, Roslyn Carter)
1950 - David Cassidy (actor: The Partridge Family, Spirit of '76, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat; singer: Cherish, I Think I Love You; son of actors: Jack Cassidy, Evelyn Ward)
1951 - Matt Herkenhoff (football)
1952 - Mike Martin (baseball)
1952 - Reuben Gant (football)
Famous
deaths
1605 - Boris Godunov, Tsar of Russia (1598-1605), dies
1748 - William Kent, English sculptor/architect (Kensington Palace), dies
1788 - Carlo Antonio Campioni, composer, dies at 67
1845 - Henry M Baron the Kock, officer/politician, dies at 65
1878 - William M "Boss" Tweed, NY politician, dies
1912 - Clara Barton, organizer (American Red Cross), dies at 90
1945 - President Franklin Delano Roosevelt died of
a cerebral hemorrhage in Warm Springs, Ga., at age 63.
1975 - Josephine Baker, US/French revue artist (Folies-Bergere), dies at 68
1981 - Hendrik F Andriessen, Dutch organist/composer (Te Deum), dies at 88
1981 - Joe Louis, [Brown bomber], US heavyweight champ (1937-49), dies at 66
1988 - Alan Stewart Paton, writer (Cry The Beloved Country), dies
1989 - Abbie Hoffman, yippie peace activist of the 60's, dies at 52, suicide
1989 - Sugar Ray Robinson, heavyweight boxing champ, dies at 67 of Alzheimer's
If
you have other Birthdays or events to add for this day please
E-mail me
 |
Yesterday |
|
Tomorrow |
 |
