August 12
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is the 224th day of the year (225th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. There are 141 days remaining. It is the peak of the Perseid meteor shower. It is also known as the "Glorious Twelfth" in the UK, as it marks the traditional start of the grouse shooting season.
Events
- 490 BC - the Battle of Marathon, in which Athens defeated an invasion army of Persians, may have been fought on this date in the proleptic Julian calendar - but see 12 September.
- 1099 - The First Crusade concluded with a decisive victory in the Battle of Ascalon over Fatimid forces under Al-Afdal Shahanshah.
- 1121 - The Georgian army under King David the Builder won a decisive victory over the famous Seljuk commander Ilghazi at the Battle of Didgori.
- 1323 - Treaty of Nöteborg - Sweden and Novgorod (Russia) regulates the border for the first time
- 1332 - Battle of Dupplin Moor - Scots under Domhnall II, Earl of Mar routed by Edward Balliol
- 1676 - Praying Indian John Alderman shot and killed Metacomet the Wampanoag war chief, ending King Philip's War.
- 1851 - Isaac Singer granted a patent for his sewing machine
- 1854 - Count Gaston de Raousset Boulbon is executed by shooting, in regard to the Battle of Guaymas.
- 1877 - Asaph Hall discovers Deimos
- 1883 - The last quagga dies at the Artis Magistra zoo in Amsterdam
- 1898 - Armistice ends the Spanish-American War
- 1898 - The Hawaiian flag is lowered from Iolani Palace in an elaborate annexation ceremony and replaced with the American flag to signify the transfer of sovereignty from the Republic of Hawaii to the United States.
- 1908 - First Model T Ford built
- 1914 - World War I - Britain declares war on Austria-Hungary; British Empire countries automatically included.
- 1914 - World War I: Beginning of the Battle of Cer between Austria-Hungary and Serbia
- 1952 - The Night of Murdered Poets - Prominent Jewish intellectuals were murdered in Moscow.
- 1953 - Nuclear testing: The Soviet atomic bomb project proceeded with the detonation of Joe 4, the first Soviet thermonuclear weapon.
- 1960 - Echo I, the first communications satellite, launched
- 1966 - Massacre of Braybrook Street as three policemen are shot dead in East Acton, London.
- 1969 - Battle of the Bogside, Catholic community of Derry engage in two-day "battle" with Royal Ulster Constabulary
- 1978 - Japan and China sign the Treaty of Peace and Friendship between Japan and the People's Republic of China.
- 1980 - Signing of the Montevideo Treaty, which established the Latin American Integration Association.
- 1985 - Japan Airlines Flight 123, a Boeing 747 jumbo jet, crashes into Mount Ogura in Gunma Prefecture, Japan, killing 520 in the world's worst single-plane air disaster. Four people miraculously survive.
- 1990 - Sue, the most complete skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus rex, was discovered near Faith, South Dakota.
- 1992 - Canada, Mexico, and the United States announce completion of negotiations for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
- 1994 - The Woodstock '94 rock concert takes place in New York.
- 1994 - Major League Baseball players go on strike. The work stoppage will force the cancellation of the 1994 World Series.
- 2000 - The Oscar class submarine K-141 Kursk of the Russian Navy exploded and sank in the Barents Sea during a military exercise.
- 2004 - Sweden's nine millionth inhabitant is born.
- 2004 - Lee Hsien Loong is sworn in as Singapore's 3rd Prime Minister.
- 2004 - World Youth Festival in Barcelona.
- 2005 - Sri Lanka's foreign minister, Lakshman Kadirgamar, is fatally shot by a sniper in his home.
- 2005 - An F2 tornado strikes the coal mining town of Wright, Wyoming, destroying nearly 100 homes and killing two people.
- 2005 - Civil unrest provoked in the Maldives
- 2005 - An F1 tornado strikes Glen Cove, New York, a rare event on Long Island
Births
- 1503 - Christian III of Denmark and Norway (d. 1559)
- 1566 - Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia of Spain (d. 1633)
- 1604 - Tokugawa Iemitsu, Japanese shogun (d. 1651)
- 1629 - Tsar Alexei I of Russia (d. 1676)
- 1643 - King Afonso VI of Portugal (d. 1683)
- 1644 - Heinrich Ignaz Biber, Bohemian composer (d. 1704)
- 1647 - Johann Heinrich Acker, German writer (d. 1719)
- 1686 - John Balguy, English philosopher (d. 1748)
- 1696 - Maurice Greene, English composer (d. 1755)
- 1720 - Konrad Ekhof, German actor (d. 1778)
- 1762 - King George IV of the United Kingdom (d. 1830)
- 1774 - Robert Southey, English poet and biographer (d. 1843)
- 1831 - Helena Blavatsky, Ukrainian-born author (d. 1891)
- 1856 - "Diamond Jim" Brady, American financier (d. 1917)
- 1859 - Katharine Lee Bates, American poet (d. 1929)
- 1866 - Jacinto Benavente, Spanish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1954)
- 1867 - Edith Hamilton, German classicist (d. 1963)
- 1876 - Mary Roberts Rinehart, American author (d. 1958)
- 1880 - Radclyffe Hall, British author (d. 1943)
- 1880 - Christy Mathewson, baseball player (d. 1925)
- 1881 - Cecil B. DeMille, American director (d. 1959)
- 1883 - Pauline Frederick, American actress (d. 1938)
- 1885 - Jean Cabannes, French physicist (d. 1959)
- 1886 - Sir Keith Murdoch, Australian journalist and newspaper owner (d. 1952)
- 1887 - Erwin Schrödinger, Austrian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1961)
- 1892 - Alfred Lunt, American actor (d. 1977)
- 1902 - Mohammad Hatta, Vice President of Indonesia 1945-1956 (d. 1980)
- 1904 - Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich of Russia (d. 1918)
- 1906 - Harry Hopman, Australian-born tennis player and coach (d. 1985)
- 1906 - Tedd Pierce, American animator (d. 1972)
- 1907 - Joe Besser, American actor and comedian (d. 1988)
- 1911 - Cantinflas, Mexican actor (d. 1993)
- 1911 - Jane Wyatt, American actress
- 1919 - Vikram Sarabhai, Indian physicist (d. 1971)
- 1924 - Derek Shackleton, English cricketer
- 1924 - Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, leader of Pakistan (d. 1988)
- 1925 - Norris McWhirter, Scottish co-founder of the Guinness Book of Records (d. 2004)
- 1925 - Ross McWhirter, Scottish co-founder of the Guinness Book of Records (d. 1975)
- 1926 - John Derek, American actor (d. 1998)
- 1926 - Joe "Boogaloo" Jones, American R&B singer (d. 2005)
- 1927 - Mstislav Rostropovich, Russian cellist and conductor
- 1927 - Porter Wagoner, American singer
- 1928 - Bob Buhl, baseball player (d. 2001)
- 1928 - Dan Curtis, film and television producer and director
- 1928 - Charles Blackman, Australian artist
- 1929 - Buck Owens, American singer
- 1930 - George Soros American businessman
- 1930 - Jacques Tits, French mathematician
- 1931 - William Goldman, American screenwriter
- 1932 - Somdej Phra Nangchao Sirikit Phra Boromarajininat HM Queen Sirikit of Thailand
- 1933 - Parnelli Jones, American race car driver
- 1939 - George Hamilton, American actor
- 1943 - Deborah Walley, American actress (d. 2001)
- 1945 - Ann M. Martin, American author
- 1949 - Mark Knopfler, British guitarist (Dire Straits)
- 1951 - Willie Horton, American murderer and rapist
- 1954 - Pat Metheny, American guitarist
- 1954 - Sam J. Jones, American actor
- 1956 - Bruce Greenwood, Canadian actor
- 1960 - Laurent Fignon, French cyclist
- 1962 - Miss Cleo, American psychic
- 1965 - Peter Krause, American actor
- 1967 - Regilio Tuur, Dutch boxer
- 1968 - Andras Jones, American actor
- 1970 - Kevin Smith, American Director/actor
- 1971 - Michael Ian Black, American comedian
- 1971 - Pete Sampras, American tennis player
- 1971 - Rebecca Gayheart, American actress
- 1972 - Mark Kinsella, Irish footballer
- 1973 - Richard Reid (shoe bomber)
- 1974 - Matt Clement, baseball pitcher
- 1976 - Antoine Walker, American basketball player
- 1976 - Mikko Viljami "Linde" Lindström, Finnish Guitarist
- 1977 - Plaxico Burress, American football player
- 1977 - Jesper Grønkjær, Danish soccer player
- 1980 - Dominique Swain, American actress
- 1980 - Matt Thiessen, Canadian-born musician (Relient K)
- 1981 - Djibril Cisse, French footballer
Deaths
- 30 BC - Cleopatra (b. 69 BC)
- 875 - Louis II Holy Roman Emperor (b. 825)
- 1424 - Yongle, Emperor of China (b. 1460)
- 1484 - George of Trebizond, Greek philosopher (b. 1395)
- 1484 - Pope Sixtus IV (b. 1414)
- 1512 - Alessandro Achillini, Italian philosopher (b. 1463)
- 1577 - Thomas Smith, English diplomat and scholar (b. 1513)
- 1588 - Alfonso Ferrabosco (I), Italian composer (b. 1543)
- 1612 - Giovanni Gabrieli, Italian composer
- 1633 - Jacopo Peri, Italian composer (b. 1561)
- 1648 - Ibrahim I, Ottoman Sultan (b. 1615)
- 1674 - Philippe de Champaigne, French painter (b. 1602)
- 1689 - Pope Innocent XI (b. 1611)
- 1778 - Peregrine Bertie, 3rd Duke of Ancaster and Kesteven, British general and politician (b. 1714)
- 1809 - Mikhail Kamensky, Russian field marshal (b. 1738)
- 1810 - Etienne Louis Geoffroy, French pharmacist and entomologist (b. 1725)
- 1848 - George Stephenson, British locomotive designer (b. 1781)
- 1864 - Sakuma Shōzan, Japanese reformer (b. 1811)
- 1865 - William Jackson Hooker, English botanist (b. 1785)
- 1891 - James Russell Lowell, American poet and essayist (b. 1819)
- 1900 - Wilhelm Steinitz, Austrian chess player (b. 1836)
- 1901 - Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld, Finnish-Swedish explorer (b. 1832)
- 1914 - John Philip Holland, Irish submarine designer (b. 1840)
- 1918 - Anna Held, Polish-born actress and singer (b. 1872)
- 1922 - Arthur Griffith, President of Ireland (b. 1871)
- 1928 - Leos Janacek, Czech composer (b. 1854)
- 1934 - Hendrik Petrus Berlage, Dutch architect (b. 1856)
- 1935 - Friedrich Schottky, German mathematician (b. 1851)
- 1943 - Bobby Peel, English cricketer (b. 1857)
- 1948 - Harry Brearley, English inventor (b. 1871)
- 1955 - Thomas Mann, German writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1875)
- 1955 - James B. Sumner, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1887)
- 1964 - Ian Fleming, English novelist (b. 1908)
- 1973 - Walter Rudolf Hess, Swiss physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1881)
- 1979 - Ernst Boris Chain, German-born biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1906)
- 1982 - Henry Fonda, American actor (b. 1905)
- 1982 - Salvador Sanchez, Mexican boxer (b. 1959)
- 1982 - Varlam Shalamov, Russian writer (b. 1907)
- 1982 - Joe Tex, American singer (b. 1933)
- 1985 - Kyu Sakamoto, Japanese singer (plane crash) (b. 1941)
- 1985 - Manfred Winkelhock, German race car driver (b. 1951)
- 1988 - Jean-Michel Basquiat, Haitian-American artist
- 1988 - Bhakti Raksaka Sridhara Deva Gosvami Maharaja, religious Guru from India (b. 1895)
- 1989 - William Shockley, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1910)
- 1990 - Dorothy Mackaill, British-born American actress (b. 1903)
- 1992 - John Cage, American composer (b. 1912)
- 1997 - Luther Allison, American musician (b. 1939)
- 2000 - Loretta Young, American actress (b. 1913)
- 2002 - Enos Slaughter, baseball player (b. 1916)
- 2004 - Sir Godfrey Hounsfield, English electrical engineer and inventor, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1919)
- 2004 - Peter Woodthorpe, British actor (b. 1931)
- 2005 - John Loder, co-founder of the anarcho-punk band CRASS (b. 1946)
Holidays and observations
- United Nations - International Youth Day (since 1999)
- Glorious Twelfth at the Yorkshire Dales
- Thailand - The Queen's Birthday, Mother's Day
- Zaraday (Discordianism)
- Zimbabwe - Defence Force Day
- International Ponce de Leon day
- Roman Catholicism - the feasts of at least ? saints:
- *St. Clare
- *St. Euplius
- *St. Muredach
External links
August 11 - August 13 - July 12 - September 12 -- listing of all days
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