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Today in History ~ August 12
Events0003 - Venus-Jupiter in conjunction -- alleged "Star of Bethlehem"
1071 - Battle at Manzikert Armenia, Venetian Byzantine brings Islam to Europe
1099 - Crusaders are victorious at Battle of Ascalon
1332 - Battle of Dupplin Moor; Scottish dynastic battle
1492 - Christopher Columbus discovers Canary Islands
1508 - Juan Ponce de Leon ("Fountain of Youth") arrives in Puerto Rico
1508 - Ponce de Leon Named Governor of Borinquen
1553 - Pope Julius III orders confiscation & burning of Jewish Talmud
1658 - 1st US police corps forms (New Amsterdam)
1676 - King Philip's War, the 1st war between American colonists & Indians effectively came to an end when Philip, chief of the Wampanoag Indians, was assassinated. [H]
1687 - Ottoman invaders of Hungary routed at Battle of Mohacs
1812 - Dr Joseph Lister is 1st surgeon to use disinfectant during surgery
1812 - Duke of Wellington's troops enter Madrid
1851 - Isaac Singer was granted a patent for his double-treadle sewing machine. He set up business in Boston with $40 in capital.
1856 - Anthony Fass patents accordion
1861 - Skirmish at Texas -- rebels are attacked by Apaches
1862 - Gen John Hunt Morgan & his raiders capture Gallatin, Tenn. [H]
1867 - Pres A Johnson defies Congress suspending Sec of War Edwin Stanton
1877 - British explorer Henry Morton Stanley reached the mouth of the Congo River.
1877 - Thomas Edison invents Edisonphone, a sound recording device
1896 - Gold discovered at Klondike River at Dawson
1898 - Peace protocol ends Spanish-American War, signed. The United States acquired Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines, and annexed Hawaii. [H]
1914 - Great Britain declares war on Austria-Hungary
1915 - "Of Human Bondage," by William Somerset Maugham, published
1940 - Luftwaffe bombs British radar stations, loses 31 aircrafts
1941 - French Marshal Henri Petain gives full support to Nazi Germany
1942 - British premier Churchill arrives in Moscow, meets Stalin
1944 - Churchill & Tito meet in Naples
1953 - Ann Davidson, 1st woman to sail solo across Atlantic, arrives in Miami
1953 - Soviet Union conducts secret test of its 1st hydrogen bomb
1955 - Pres Eisenhower raises minimum wage to $1 an hour
1961 - Overnight Barbed Wire Divides Berlin. Early the next morning, East German troops sealed off all roads between East and West Berlin, and began laying down barbed wire along the border.
1963 - Stan Musial announces he will retire at end of year
1964 - Race riot in Elizabeth NJ
1965 - Race riot in West Side of Chicago
1966 - As the Beatles were beginning their last tour, John Lennon apologized for saying the Beatles were more popular than Jesus Christ
1970 - Curt Flood loses his $41 million antitrust suit against baseball
1971 - Syriam Pres Assad drops diplomatic relations with Jordan
1972 - The last American combat ground troops left Vietnam.
1972 - "Oh! Calcutta!" closes at Belasco Theater NYC after 1316 performances
1973 - Jack Nicklaus won the PGA championship, giving him fourteen major tournament titles and breaking the record set by Bobby Jones
1976 - Christian militia conquer Palestinian camp Tell al-Za'tar, 2000 killed
1977 - Space Shuttle first flight, first atmospheric flight of a space shuttle, the Enterprise was lifted to a height of twenty-five thousand feet by a Boeing 747 airplane, and then released, gliding back to California's Edwards Air Force Base for a landing
1979 - Iran press censors start massive book burnings
1981 - IBM introduces PC & PC-DOS version 1.0 [H]
1982 - Heavy Israeli bombardement of Beirut
1983 - General Manuel A Noriega becomes commander of Panamanian army
1984 - The 23rd Olympic Games ended in Los Angeles with a record attendance of 5.5 million people despite a Soviet- led boycott.
1985 - Worst catastrophe involving a single airplane in history. Japan Air Lines (JAL) Boeing 747SR crashed into Mount Otsuka, seventy miles northwest of Tokyo at 6:50 p.m. local time, of the 524 people aboard, and all but four had died by the time rescuers reached the remote crash-site twelve hours later
1987 - President Reagan, in his first television address since the Iran-Contra hearings, said he'd been "stubborn" in pursuing a policy "that went astray."
1988 - Movie "Last Temptation of Christ" is released
1988 - Nelson Mandela is treated for tuberculosis at hospital
1990 - Iraq President Saddam Hussein says he is ready to resolve Gulf crisis if Israel withdraws from occupied territories
1992 - US, Mexico, and Canada agreed to form a free-trade zone North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) would eliminate virtually all tariffs and create the world's largest free trade bloc.
1993 - Pope John Paul II begins visit of US
1994 - A three-day concert began in Saugerties, N.Y., to mark the 25th anniversary of the Woodstock Music and Art Fair in Bethel, N.Y., in 1969.
1996 - Delegates to the Republican National Convention passed a platform calling for a constitutional amendment against abortions.
1997 - Steel workers approved a contract ending a 10-month strike against Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel Corp.
1997 - A flash flood in Arizona's Lower Antelope Canyon claimed the lives of 11 hikers.
1997 - Hudson Foods, Inc., a meat processor in Rogers, Ark., announced it was recalling 20,000 lbs. of beef due to possible contamination by the E.coli bacterium. The recall ultimately was expanded to 25 million lbs. of beef.
1998 - The two largest Swiss banks and representatives of Holocaust survivors and their heirs agreed on a settlement of claims against the banks.
2001 - A suicide bomber blew himself up on the patio of a restaurant near the northern Israeli coastal town of Haifa, killing himself and wounding 21 people.
2002 - Floodwaters tore through central Europe and southwestern Russia, where the death toll was put at 58, while monsoons in Asia claimed more than 1,600 lives.
Birthdays Today
1644 - Georg Christoph Leuttner, composer
1644 - Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber, composer
1753 - Thomas Bewick, England, artist (British Birds, Aesop's Fables)
1762 - George IV, king of England (1820-30)
1774 - Robert Southey, English poet laureate/biographer of Nelson
1781 - Robert Mills, US, architect (Washington Monument)
1849 - Abbott Thayer (artist: created camouflage pattern for military)
1875 - Ettore Panizza, composer
1876 - Mary Roberts Rinehart, mystery writer (Miss Pinkerton)
1878 - Christy Mathewson (Baseball Hall of Famer: developed the screwball; New York Giants pitcher: 1905 World Series: shut out Philadelphia in 1st three games; manager: Cincinnati Reds; coach: NY Giants; president: Boston Braves)
1881 - Cecil B.(lount) DeMille, His many "spectacle" films include The Ten Commandments (1923; 1956), The Crusades (1935), Union Pacific (1939), and The Greatest Show on Earth (1952).
1904 - Aleksei N Romanov, son of tsar Nicolas II
1911 - Cantinflas (Mario Moreno) (comic actor: Around the World in 80 Days, Pepe; Mexico's vaudeville: carpas)
1913 - Jane Wyatt (Emmy Award-winning actress: Father Knows Best [1957, 1958-59, 1959-60], Gentleman's Agreement, Lost Horizon, Amityville 4)
1919 - Michael Kidd (Milton Greenwald) (choreographer(7 Brides for 7 Bros), dancer: It's Always Fair Weather, Smile)
1919 - Peter Ambrose Cyprian Luke, playwright
1921 - Marjorie Reynolds (Goodspeed) (actress: Gone with the Wind, The Time of Their Lives, Doomed to Die)
1926 - Joe Jones (singer: You Talk Too Much; pianist for B.B. King)
1926 - John Derek (Derek Harris) (actor: All the King's Men, Prince of Players, Ambush at Tomahawk Gap, Exodus; director: Bolero; married to Bo Derek)
1927 - Mstislav Leopoldovich Rostropovich, cellist/conductor
1928 - Bob Buhl (baseball)
1929 - Buck (Alvis Edgar) Owens (singer: I've Got a Tiger by the Tail, Act Naturally, Waiting in Your Welfare Line, Made in Japan; songwriter: Crying Time; TV host: Hee Haw, Buck Owen's Ranch House)
1930 - Porter Wagoner (singer: Satisfied Mind, Sorrow on the Rocks, Big Wind, Cold Hard Facts of Life, Misery Loves Company, The Carroll County Accident; w/Dolly Parton: Daddy Was An Old-Time Preacher Man, Please Don't Stop Loving Me; songwriter: Tore Down, I Haven't Learned a Thing, Ole Slew Foot)
1931 - William Golding, author (Lord of the Flies -- Nobel 1983)
1931 - William Goldman (screen writer: Marathon Man, The Princess Bride, All the President's Men, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Chaplin)
1933 - Parnelli (Rufus) Jones (auto racer: Indianapolis 500 winner [1963])
1939 - George Hamilton (actor: Love at First Bite, Act One, The Survivors, Zorro, the Gay Blade, Where the Boys Are, Evel Kneivel, The Dead Don't Die, Doc Hollywood)
1939 - Larry Ziegler (golfer)
1941 - Jennifer Warnes (singer: Right Time of the Night, Up Where We Belong [w/Joe Cocker], (I've Had) The Time of My Life [w/Bill Medley])
1949 - Bobby Sheehan (hockey)
1949 - Mark Knopfler (musician: guitar, songwriter, singer: group: Dire Straits: Money for Nothing)
1950 - George McGinnis (basketball: Philadelphia 76ers)
1961 - Roy Hay (musician: guitar: group: Culture Club: Karma Chameleon)
1971 - Pete Sampras (tennis champion: Australian Open [[1994], Wimbledon [1993, 94, 95], U.S. Open [1990, 93, 95])
Famous deaths
0875 - Louis II, king of Italy/emperor of France, dies at about 50
1612 - Giovanni Gabrieli, Italian composer (Madrigali), dies at 60
1676 - King Philip, [Metacomet], leader Wampanoag-indians, shot to death
1811 - John FE Acton, cruel premier of Naples, dies at 77
1827 - William Blake, English poet/painter, dies at 69
1848 - George Stephenson, locomotive engineer, dies
1928 - Leos Janacek, Czech composer/conductor (Sly Little Fox), dies at 74
1944 - Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., eldest son of Joseph and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, was killed with his co-pilot when their explosives-laden Navy plane blew up over England.
1955 - Thomas Mann, German writer (Dr Faustus, Nobel 1929), dies at 80
1964 - Ian L Fleming, British spy/journalist/writer (James Bond), dies at 56
If you have other Birthdays or events to add for this day please E-mail me
Yesterday Tomorrow
