February 12 - Events

Events

• 881 – Pope John VIII crowns Charles the Fat, the King of Italy: Emperor
• 1429 – English forces under Sir John Fastolf defend a supply convoy carrying rations to the army besieging Orleans from attack by the Comte de Clermont and Sir John Stewart of Darnley in the Battle of Rouvray (also known as the Battle of the Herrings).
• 1502 – Vasco da Gama sets sail from Lisbon, Portugal, on his second voyage to India.
• 1541 – Santiago, Chile is founded by Pedro de Valdivia.
• 1554 – A year after claiming the throne of England for nine days, Lady Jane Grey is beheaded for treason.
• 1593 – Japanese invasion of Korea: Approximately 3,000 Joseon defenders led by general Kwon Yul successfully repel more than 30,000 Japanese forces in the Siege of Haengju.
• 1689 – The Convention Parliament declares that the flight to France in 1688 by James II, the last Roman Catholic British monarch, constitutes an abdication.
• 1733 – Englishman James Oglethorpe founds Georgia, the 13th colony of the Thirteen Colonies, and its first city at Savannah (known as Georgia Day).
• 1771 – Gustav III becomes the King of Sweden.
• 1816 – The Teatro di San Carlo, the oldest working opera house in Europe, is destroyed by fire.
• 1817 – An Argentine/Chilean patriotic army, after crossing the Andes, defeats Spanish troops on the Battle of Chacabuco.
• 1818 – Bernardo O'Higgins formally approved the Chilean Declaration of Independence near Concepción, Chile.
• 1825 – The Creek cede the last of their lands in Georgia to the United States government by the Treaty of Indian Springs, and migrate west.
• 1832 – Ecuador annexes the Galápagos Islands.
• 1851 – Edward Hargraves announces that he has found gold in Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia, starting the Australian gold rush.
• 1855 – Michigan State University is established.
• 1894 – Anarchist Émile Henry hurls a bomb into Paris's Cafe Terminus, killing one and wounding 20.
• 1909 – The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is founded.
• 1909 – New Zealand's worst maritime disaster of the 20th century happens when the SS Penguin, an inter-island ferry, sinks and explodes at the entrance to Wellington Harbour.
• 1912 – The Xuantong Emperor, the last Emperor of China, abdicates.
• 1914 – In Washington, D.C., the first stone of the Lincoln Memorial is put into place.
• 1934 – The Austrian Civil War begins.
• 1934 – In Spain the national council of Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional-Sindicalista decides to merge the movement with the Falange Española.
• 1935 – USS Macon, one of the two largest helium-filled airships ever created, crashes into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California and sinks.
• 1946 – World War II: Operation Deadlight ends after scuttling 121 of 154 captured U-boats.
• 1946 – African American United States Army veteran Isaac Woodard is severely beaten by a South Carolina police officer to the point where he loses his vision in both eyes. The incident later galvanizes the Civil Rights Movement and partially inspires Orson Welles' film Touch of Evil.
• 1947 – A meteor creates an impact crater in Sikhote-Alin, in the Soviet Union.
• 1961 – U.S.S.R. launches Venera 1 towards Venus.
• 1968 – Phong Nhi and Phong Nhat massacre.
• 1974 – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, winner of the Nobel Prize in literature in 1970, is exiled from the Soviet Union.
• 1990 – Carmen Lawrence becomes the first female Premier in Australian history when she becomes Premier of Western Australia.
• 1992 – The current Constitution of Mongolia comes into effect.
• 1994 – Four men break into the National Gallery of Norway and steal Edward Munch's iconic painting The Scream.
• 1999 – President Bill Clinton is acquitted by the United States Senate in his impeachment trial.
• 2001 – NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft touchdown in the "saddle" region of 433 Eros becoming the first spacecraft to land on an asteroid.
• 2002 – The trial of Slobodan Milošević, the former President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, begins at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague. He dies four years later before its conclusion.
• 2002 – An Iran Air Tours Tupolev Tu-154 crashes in the mountains outside Khorramabad, Iran while descending for a landing at Khorramabad Airport, killing 119.
• 2004 – The city of San Francisco, California begins issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples in response to a directive from Mayor Gavin Newsom.
• 2009 – Colgan Air Flight 3407 crashes into a house in Clarence Center, New York while on approach to Buffalo-Niagara International Airport, killing all on board and one on the ground.
• 2012 – A primary election is held in Venezuela to choose the contendent against Hugo Chávez, the then current president of Venezuela.