August 12 - Events

Events

• 30 BC – Cleopatra VII Philopator, the last ruler of the Egyptian Ptolemaic dynasty, commits suicide, allegedly by means of an asp bite.
• 1099 – First Crusade: Battle of Ascalon Crusaders under the command of Godfrey of Bouillon defeat Fatimid forces led by Al-Afdal Shahanshah. This is considered the last engagement of the First Crusade.
• 1121 – Battle of Didgori: the Georgian army under King David IV wins a decisive victory over the famous Seljuk commander Ilghazi.
• 1164 – Battle of Harim: Nur ad-Din Zangi defeats the Crusader armies of the County of Tripoli and the Principality of Antioch.
• 1323 – Signature of the Treaty of Nöteborg between Sweden and Novgorod (Russia), that regulates the border between the two countries for the first time.
• 1480 – Battle of Otranto: Ottoman troops behead 800 Christians for refusing to convert to Islam.
• 1499 – First engagement of the Battle of Zonchio between Venetian and Ottoman fleets.
• 1624 – The president of Louis XIII of France's royal council is arrested, leaving Cardinal Richelieu in the role of the King's principal minister.
• 1676 – Praying Indian John Alderman shoots and kills Metacomet, the Wampanoag war chief, ending King Philip's War.
• 1687 – Battle of Mohács: Charles of Lorraine defeats the Ottoman Empire.
• 1779 – The Royal Navy defeats the Penobscot Expedition with the most significant loss of United States naval forces prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor.
• 1793 – The Rhône and Loire (Lêre) départments are created when the former département of Rhône-et-Loire is split into two.
• 1806 – Santiago de Liniers, 1st Count of Buenos Aires re-takes the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina after the first British invasion.
• 1831 – French intervention forces William I of the Netherlands to abandon his attempt to suppress the Belgian Revolution.
• 1851 – Isaac Singer is granted a patent for his sewing machine.
• 1877 – Asaph Hall discovers the Mars moon Deimos.
• 1883 – The last quagga dies at the Artis Magistra zoo in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
• 1898 – An Armistice ends the Spanish–American War.
• 1898 – The Hawaiian flag is lowered from ʻIolani Palace in an elaborate annexation ceremony and replaced with the flag of the United States to signify the transfer of sovereignty from the Republic of Hawaii to the United States.
• 1914 – World War I: the United Kingdom declares war on Austria-Hungary; the countries of the British Empire follow suit.
• 1914 – World War I: the Battle of Haelen a.k.a. (Battle of the Silver Helmets) last cavalry style attack from the German army on the city of Halen, Belgium.
• 1944 – Waffen-SS troops massacre 560 people in Sant'Anna di Stazzema.
• 1944 – Nazi German troops end the week-long Wola massacre, during which time at least 40,000 people were killed indiscriminately or in mass executions.
• 1944 – Alençon is liberated by General Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque, the first city in France to be liberated from the Nazis by French forces.
• 1948 – USS Nevada (BB-36) is struck from the naval record.
• 1950 – Bloody Gulch massacre : American POWs were massacred by North Korean Army.
• 1952 – The Night of the Murdered Poets: 13 prominent Jewish intellectuals are murdered in Moscow, Russia, Soviet Union.
• 1953 – Nuclear weapons testing: the Soviet atomic bomb project continues with the detonation of Joe 4, the first Soviet thermonuclear weapon.
• 1953 – The islands of Zakynthos and Kefalonia in Greece are severely damaged by an earthquake measuring 7.3 on the Richter scale.
• 1958 – Art Kane photographs 57 notable jazz musicians in the black and white group portrait "A Great Day in Harlem" in front of a Brownstone in New York City.
• 1960 – Echo 1A, NASA's first successful communications satellite, is launched.
• 1964 – South Africa is banned from the Olympic Games due to the country's racist policies.
• 1964 – Charlie Wilson, one of the Great Train Robbers, escapes from Winson Green Prison in Birmingham, England, United Kingdom.
• 1969 – Violence erupts after the Apprentice Boys of Derry march in Derry, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom resulting in a three-day communal riot known as the Battle of the Bogside.
• 1976 – Between 1,000 and 3,500 Palestinians are killed in the Tel al-Zaatar massacre, one of the bloodiest events of the Lebanese Civil War
• 1977 – The first free flight of the Space Shuttle Enterprise.
• 1977 – The 1977 riots in Sri Lanka, targeting the minority Sri Lankan Tamil people, begin, less than a month after the United National Party came to power. Over 300 Tamils are killed.
• 1978 – The Treaty of Peace and Friendship between Japan and the People's Republic of China is signed.
• 1980 – The Montevideo Treaty, establishing the Latin American Integration Association, is signed.
• 1981 – The IBM Personal Computer is released.
• 1982 – Mexico announces it is unable to pay its enormous external debt, marking the beginning of a debt crisis that spreads to all of Latin America and the Third World.
• 1985 – Japan Airlines Flight 123 crashes into Osutaka ridge in Gunma Prefecture, Japan, killing 520, to become the worst single-plane air disaster.
• 1990 – Sue, the largest and most complete Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton found to date, was discovered by Sue Hendrickson in South Dakota.
• 1992 – Canada, Mexico and the United States announce completion of negotiations for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
• 1994 – Major League Baseball players go on strike. This will force the cancellation of the 1994 World Series.
• 2000 – The Oscar class submarine K-141 Kursk of the Russian Navy explodes and sinks in the Barents Sea during a military exercise.
• 2005 – Sri Lanka's foreign minister, Lakshman Kadirgamar, is fatally shot by an LTTE sniper at his home.
• 2007 – The bulk carrier M/V New Flame collides with the oil tanker Torm Gertrud at the southernmost tip of Gibraltar, ending up partially submerged.