Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift.

Historical Events on November 12

Events 1 - 200 of 214

  • 295 Origin of Era of Ascension
  • 764 Tibetan troops occupy Chang'an for 15 days, capital of the Chinese Tang Dynasty
  • 954 Lotharius becomes King of France
  • 1439 Plymouth, England, becomes the first town incorporated by the English Parliament

Charles the Bold Plunders Liège

1468 Duke of Burgundy Charles the Bold occupies and plunders Liège

  • 1555 The English Parliament re-establishes Catholicism
  • 1591 Castiliaans army occupies Zaragoza
  • 1614 Treaty of Xanten: Guliks-Kleefse War victory ends

Robert Hooke

1661 Robert Hooke appointed Curator of Experiments to the Royal Society, England

  • 1673 Dutch troops under William of Orange occupy Bonn
  • 1682 Swedish king Charles XI establishes absolute monarchy
  • 1723 Ambrose Godfrey patents a gunpowder fueled fire extinguisher system in England
  • 1727 France & Bavaria renew secret treaty

James Cook

1767 Meeting of the Royal Society appoints James Cook as head of an expedition to the Pacific Ocean to observe the transit of Venus on Tahiti in 1769 (will be Cook's 1st voyage aboard HMS Endeavour) [1]

  • 1775 General Washington forbids recruiting officers from enlisting black troops
  • 1793 The 1st Mayor of Paris and astronomer Jean Sylvain Bailly, is guillotined during the Reign of Terror
  • 1799 Andrew Ellicott makes the first known record of a meteor shower observation in the U.S, from a ship off the coast of Florida Keys
  • 1813 Allied troops occupy Zwolle, Netherlands
  • 1823 Great North Holland Canal (Amsterdam) opens
  • 1833 The great Leonid Meteor shower recorded
  • 1847 Sir James Young Simpson, a British physician, is the first to use chloroform as an anaesthetic
  • 1859 Jules Leotard performs 1st Flying Trapeze circus act (Paris) He also designed garment that bears his name
  • 1873 Bay District Race Track in San Francisco opens

Ben-Hur Turns Author Into a Soldier of Fortune

1880 Best selling American novel "Ben-Hur: A Tale of The Christ" by soldier Lew Wallace is published

  • 1885 Montreal & Britannia Football Clubs (QRFU) defeat Ontario Combined Team (ORFU) 3-0 in CRFU Championship game

Poems by Emily Dickinson

1890 Mabel Loomis Todd publishes the first edition of "Poems by Emily Dickinson"

  • 1892 Pudge Heffelfinger receives $500 to become first professional football player in the Allegheny Athletic Association's 4-0 win over the Pittsburgh Athletic Club
  • 1893 The treaty of the Durand Line is signed between present day Pakistan and Afghanistan - the Durand Line has gained international recognition as an international border between the two sister nations.
  • 1894 Lawrence Hargrave, Australian aeronautical pioneer and inventor of the box kite, linked four huge box kites together and flew - but remained attached to the ground by piano wire
  • 1899 British troops reach Durban, Natal
  • 1900 Exposition Universelle (World's Fair) in Paris closes after 50 million visitors - Art Nouveau style dominates
  • 1905 (November 12 & November 13) Norway holds a referendum in favor of monarchy over republic.
  • 1906 C W Gregory (NSW v Qld) starts day at 48*, is 366* at stumps

Andrew Fisher PM

1908 Andrew Fisher assumes the position of prime minister for what turns out to be a short-lived second Labour government, Australia

Mackenzie King

1909 Politician William Lyon Mackenzie King takes his seat in the House of Commons as Canda's first Minister of Labour

  • 1910 1st possible movie stunt: man jumps into the Hudson river from a burning balloon

Scott's Body and Diary Found

1912 British explorer Robert Falcon Scott's diary & body found in Antarctica

  • 1912 Spanish Prime Minister José Canalejas y Méndez is assassinated by an anarchist book shopping in Madrid
  • 1914 Turks sultan Jamal Pasja declares a German holy war
  • 1915 Britain annexes Gilbert & Ellice archipelago in the Western Pacific
  • 1915 Theodore W. Richards is 1st American to win Nobel Prize in Chemistry
  • 1918 Emperor Karl of Austria-Hungary abdicates, Austria becomes a republic
  • 1919 Ross & Keith Smith start a 1 month flight from London to Australia

First Baseball Commissioner

1920 Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis elected first baseball commissioner by team owners

  • 1920 The Dalmatian coast between Italy and Yugoslavia is ceded to Yugoslavia
  • 1921 Washington Conference for Limitation of Armaments
  • 1922 The Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority is founded on the campus of Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana
  • 1923 Dr Hjalmar Schacht is appointed special commissioner to deal with the currency problem in Germany; by November 1924 the currency will have been restored

Hitler Arrested

1923 In Germany, Adolf Hitler is arrested for attempt to seize power during "Beer Hall Putsch" coup

  • 1924 Jewish school Yeshivah Slobodka opens a branch in Hebron, Palestine
  • 1925 US & Italy sign peace accord about war debts
  • 1926 The first recorded aerial bombing on US soil took place in Williamson County, Illinois, during a feud between rival liquor gangs, the Sheltons and the Birgers

Trotsky Expelled

1927 Leon Trotsky is expelled from the Soviet Communist Party, paving the way for Joseph Stalin to consolidate complete power

  • 1927 Notre Dame's Fighting Irish changes blue jerseys for green
  • 1928 British steamer "Vestris", sailing from NYC to Uruguay, capsizes and sinks off Hampton Roads, Virginia, kills 111, including many women and children

Ballet Lady of Shalott

1931 Jean Sibelius and Ashton's ballet "Lady of Shalott" premieres in London

  • 1931 Maple Leaf Gardens opens in Toronto - Chic Blackhawks beat Leafs, 2-1
  • 1932 24 killed at Lancashire mine explosion
  • 1933 1st NFL football game on a Sunday at Philadelphia's Baker Bowl - sporting events on Sunday had been illegal on Sundays; Eagles tie Chicago Bears, 3-3
  • 1933 1st NFL football game on a Sunday at Pittsburgh's Forbes Field - sporting events on Sunday had been illegal on Sundays; Pirates lose to Brooklyn Dodgers 32-0
  • 1933 First known photo of so-called Loch Ness monster is taken by Hugh Gray
  • 1933 Nazis receive 92% of vote in German parliamentary elections
  • 1935 Egas Moniz performs the first modern brain surgery on the frontal lobes to treat mental disorders, at Santa Marta Hospital in Lisbon, Portugal
  • 1936 1st ever TV Gardening show "In Your Garden" shown on BBC television

Eugene O'Neill

1936 Nobel Prize for literature awarded to American playwright Eugene O'Neill

  • 1936 Oakland Bay Bridge opens
  • 1936 St Louis Browns sold to Donald L Barnes & William O DeWitt

Madagascar A Jewish Homeland

1938 Hermann Goering announces he wants Madagascar as a Jewish homeland

  • 1939 Jews in Lodz, Poland, ordered to wear a yellow star of David
  • 1940 Blizzard strikes North American midwest, 154 die (69 on boat on Great Lakes)
  • 1941 Alma Heflin, 1st female test pilot for commercial aircraft - Piper Corporation, Lock Haven, Pennsylvania
  • 1941 Germany's drive to take Moscow halted
  • 1941 Radio stations WOV-AM & WNEW-AM in NYC swaps call letters

SS Robert E. Peary

1942 The SS Robert E. Peary, a Liberty ship built in 4 days and 15.5 hours at Henry J. Kaiser's Richmond Shipyard #2, is launched, setting a new record

  • 1942 WWII Naval Battle of Guadalcanal begins between Allied and Japanese forces in Solomon Islands
  • 1943 Landwacht (NSB-political party) forms in Netherlands
  • 1944 RAF sinks German battleship Tirpitz at Tromso Fjord, Norway
  • 1945 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to American politician Cordell Hull (for establishing the UN)
  • 1946 A branch of the Exchange National Bank in Chicago, Illinois opens the first ten drive-up teller windows
  • 1946 Walt Disney's "Song Of South" released
  • 1947 KPO-AM in San Francisco CA changes call letters to KNBC (now KNBR)
  • 1947 Schilderijenvervalser Han of Meegeren to 1 years jail sentenced

Hideki Tojo

1948 Japanese Prime Minister Hideki Tojo sentenced to death by war crimes tribunal

  • 1948 The first mobile betatron (particle accelerator) begins operation at the U.S. Naval Ordnance Laboratory, White Oak, Maryland
  • 1950 Gene Roberts sets NFL NY Giant rushing record (218 yds) vs Chic Cards
  • 1952 Philadelphia A's pitcher Bobby Shantz wins AL MVP
  • 1952 White Sox place Jim Rivera on 1 year probation after cleared of rape

Ben-Gurion Resigns

1953 David Ben-Gurion, resigns as Prime Minister of Israel

  • 1953 US district Judge Grim, rules NFL can black out TV home games
  • 1954 Ellis Island, immigration station in NY Harbor is closed

People's Action Party

1954 Lee Kuan Yew and others form the People's Action Party (PAP) in Singapore to work towards self-rule in Singapore

  • 1955 1st West German officers sworn in
  • 1955 Doc and Marty McFly are sent "Back to the Future" when lightning strikes the Hill Valley clock tower, at exactly 10:04 p.m. generating the power to send the DeLorean and Marty back to 1985 [fictional]

Racing's Inaugural Inductees

1955 Eddie Arcaro, Earl Sande and George Woolf inaugural inductees in (Horse) Racing Hall of Fame

  • 1956 Largest observed iceberg, 208 by 60 miles, 1st sighted
  • 1958 Bob Turley of NY Yankees wins Cy Young Award
  • 1959 White Sox 2B Nellie Fox wins AL's MVP
  • 1960 Mercury-Redstone 1 test launch fails at 10 cm altitude

Vietnam Coup Fails

1960 Military coup against Republic of Vietnamese President Ngô Đình Diệm fails

  • 1964 Jean becomes Grand Duke of Luxembourg
  • 1964 Paula Murphy sets female land speed record 226.37 MPH

Election of Ferdinand Marcos

1965 Ferdinand Marcos elected 10th President of the Philippines

  • 1965 General strike in Morocco against disappearance of Ben Barka
  • 1965 Mad Dog Vachon beats Crusher in Denver, to become NWA champ
  • 1965 Venera 2 launched by Soviet Union toward Venus
  • 1966 18-year-old US High schooler Robert Smith kills 5 people at Arizona's Rose-Mar Beauty College for fame

First Space Selfie

1966 Buzz Aldrin takes the first 'space selfie', a photo of himself performing extravehicular activity in space during the Gemini program

  • 1966 Dick The Bruiser beats Mad Dog Vachon in Omaha, to become NWA champ
  • 1966 Dodgers complete an 18-game tour of Japan with a 9-8-1 record
  • 1967 Packers' Travis Williams returns 2 kickoffs for TDs against Browns, setting largest margin of Browns defeat (48), winning 55-7

Film & TV History

1968 Al Pacino stars in "Deadly Circle of Violence", an episode of the ABC television series NYPD

  • 1968 KSEL (now KAMC) TV channel 28 in Lubbock, TX (ABC) begins broadcasting
  • 1968 US Supreme Court: Epperson v. Arkansas, court declares unconstitutional Arkansas law banning teaching evolution in public schools

Solzhenitsyn Expelled

1969 Author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn expelled from the Soviet Writers Union

Killebrew MVP

1969 Minnesota's Harmon Killebrew is voted AL MVP

  • 1969 US army announces investigating William Calley for alleged massacre of civilians at Vietnamese village of My Lai in March, 19
  • 1969 WJJY (now WJPT) TV channel 14 in Jacksonville, IL (ABC) 1st broadcast
  • 1970 Cleveland Cavaliers notch 1st NBA victory, in their 16th game, beating the Trail Blazers 105-103, in Portland, Oregon
  • 1970 Cyclone Bhola makes landfall in East Pakistan (Bangladesh) killing up to 500,000, making it the deadliest tropical cyclone ever recorded
  • 1970 Scientists perform 1st artificial synthesis of a live cell
  • 1970 The Northern Ireland Housing Executive (NIHE) is formed; the NIHE gradually took over control of the building and allocation of public sector housing in Northern Ireland
  • 1972 Charity concert for United Crusade (now United Way) in San Diego, California attracts nearly 52,000; performers include: J. Geils Band, Jesse Colin Young, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Foghat, and Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show

Shostakovich's 14th String Quartet

1973 Dmitri Shostakovich's 14th String Quartet premieres in Leningrad, Soviet Union

  • 1974 A salmon is discovered in the River Thames, England, for the first time since 1833
  • 1974 South Africa suspended from UN General Assembly over racial policies
  • 1975 American Supreme Court Justice William O Douglas (77) retires after 36 years

Seaver's Third

1975 NY Mets Tom Seaver wins his 3rd Cy Young Award

  • 1977 France performs nuclear test at Mururoa atoll
  • 1977 New Orleans elects 1st black mayor, Ernest "Dutch" Morial
  • 1979 Tony Franklin of Philadelphia Eagles kicks 59-yard field goal
  • 1979 US President Carter announces a halts to Iranian oil imports & freezes Iranian assets
  • 1980 Baltimore's Steve Stone wins AL Cy Young Award

Koch's Confession

1980 NYC Mayor Ed Koch admits to trying marijuana

  • 1980 US space probe Voyager I approaches 77,000-mi (124,000 km) of Saturn
  • 1981 1st balloon crossing of Pacific is completed (Double Eagle V)
  • 1981 2nd shuttle mission-1st time spacecraft launched twice (Columbia 2)
  • 1981 Bill C Davis' "Mass Appeal" premieres in NYC

Billy Martin

1981 Billy Martin named AL Manager of Year (Oakland A's)

  • 1981 Great Britain performs nuclear test
  • 1982 Aaron Pryor scores a 14th round KO of Alexis Argüello in Miami to retain his WBA super lightweight boxing title in the first of 2 meetings between the Hall of Famers; The Ring’s 'Fight of the Decade'
  • 1982 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
  • 1982 Zaheer Abbas gets his 100th 100 in Test Cricket for Pakistan v India, goes to 215
  • 1983 4 die in a train crash in Marshall Texas
  • 1983 NJ Devils 1st overtime game, lose to Calgary Flames 4-3
  • 1984 NBC premiere of "Victims for Victims: The Theresa Saldana Story", fact based telepic of actress Saldana's near fatal attack and its aftermath

We All Stand Together

1984 Paul McCartney releases single "We All Stand Together"

  • 1984 Space shuttle astronauts snared a satellite 1st space salvage

Richard Hadlee

1985 Richard Hadlee takes 15-123 for cricket match New Zealand v Australia at Brisbane

  • 1985 Secretary in Ann Arbor Mich wounded by package bomb
  • 1985 STS 61-B vehicle moves to launch pad
  • 1986 France performs nuclear test

Roger Clemens

1986 Roger Clemens wins AL Cy Young Award unanimously

  • 1987 Heavy snow closes schools from DC to Maine
  • 1988 Japan beats MLB All-Star team 5-4 in Tokyo (Game 6 of 7)
  • 1988 USSR performs nuclear test at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in northeast Kazakhstan
  • 1989 Brazil holds its 1st free presidential election in 29 years
  • 1989 George Forrest's musical "Grand Hotel" opens at Martin Beck Theater, NYC; runs for 1018 performances and wins 5 Tony Awards
  • 1990 "The Body Bag Game" - after Eagles coach Buddy Ryan threatens beating Redskins so badly "they'll have to be carted off in body bags" the Eagles defense score 3 touchdowns winning 28–14, knocking 8 Redskins out of the game

Emperor Akihito

1990 Crown Prince Akihito is formally installed as Emperor Akihito of Japan, becoming the 125th Japanese monarch.

World Wide Web

1990 The World Wide Web is first proposed by CERN computer scientists Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau [1]

Tom Glavine

1991 Atlanta Brave Tom Glavine wins NL Cy Young Award

  • 1991 Dili Massacre, Indonesian forces open fire on a crowd of protesters in Dili, East Timor, killing at least 250

Full House

1991 US TV series "Full House" 100th episode, the twins are born

  • 1992 British TV comedy "Absolutely Fabulous" written by Jennifer Saunders, starring Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley first appears on the BBC
  • 1992 NY Yankee pitcher Steve Howe is reinstated for 8th time

Michael Schumacher

1995 German Benetton driver Michael Schumacher crashes in the season-ending Australian Grand Prix in Adelaide but claims second straight F1 World Drivers Championship by 33 points from Damon Hill

Martin Crowe

1995 Last day of Test cricket for New Zealand batsman Martin Crowe

  • 1995 Marino breaks Tarkenton's NFL all-time passing yardage mark of 47,003
  • 1995 NY MTA raises subway & bus fares from $1.25 to $1.50
  • 1995 STS 74 (Atlantis 15), launches into orbit
  • 1996 Saudi Arabian Flight 763 and Kazakhstan Airlines Flight 1907 collide in midair over Charkhi Dadri in India, killing 349 people, the third-deadliest aviation disaster in history
  • 1996 Toronto's Pat Hentgen wins AL Cy Young Award
  • 1997 Dick Vitale signs with ESPN through year 2004
  • 1998 NY Islanders tie Detroit Red Wings 1-1, to end 10 game losing streak

Kyoto Protocol

1998 Vice President of the United States Al Gore symbolically signs the Kyoto Protocol (US never ratifies)

  • 1999 The Düzce earthquake strikes Turkey with a magnitude of 7.2 on the Richter scale.
  • 2001 In New York City, American Airlines Flight 587, an Airbus A300 on its way to the Dominican Republic, crashes minutes after takeoff from John F. Kennedy International Airport, killing all 260 on board and five on the ground.
  • 2001 Taliban forces abandon Afghanistan's capital Kabul, ahead of advancing Afghan Northern Alliance troops
  • 2003 Iraq war: In Nasiriya, Iraq, at least 23 people, among them the first Italian casualties of the 2003 Iraq war are killed in a suicide bomb attack on an Italian police base.
  • 2003 With 501 km/h (311 mph) Shanghai Transrapid sets up a new world record for commercial railway systems.

WTA Championship

2006 Belgian tennis star Justine Hénin-Hardenne wins WTA Tour Championship title decider in Madrid, Spain; beats defending champion Amélie Mauresmo 6-4, 6-3

  • 2006 Former Soviet republic of South Ossetia holds a second referendum on independence from Georgia
  • 2011 Opera "Silent Night" by Kevin Puts opens at the Ordway Theater, St. Paul sung in English, German, French, Italian and Latin (winner 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Music) [1]

Berlusconi Resigns

2011 Silvio Berlusconi resigns as Prime Minister of Italy due, in large part, to the European sovereign debt crisis.

  • 2012 Into the Silence by Wade Davis wins the 2012 Samuel Johnson Prize

Sakic, Sundin, Bure and Oates

2012 Joe Sakic, Mats Sundin, Pavel Bure and Adam Oates are inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame

Đoković's Second ATP

2012 Novak Đoković of Serbia wins his second season-ending ATP World Tour Finals tennis title beating 6-time champion Roger Federer 7-6, 7-5 in the final in London. England

  • 2014 European Space Agency's Rosetta lands the Philae probe on the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko

Obama 'Ally of the Year'

2015 Out Magazine names Barack Obama 'Ally of the Year', Obama becomes 1st sitting US President to pose for cover of a gay magazine

  • 2015 Suicide bombings in Lebanon kill 43, Isis claim responsibility

Chan's Honorary Oscar

2016 Jackie Chan awarded honorary Oscar for his film achievements at 8th Annual Governors Awards ceremony

  • 2017 7.3 earthquake hits near Halabjal, Iraq, on border with Iran, killing over 500 people, with 7,000 injured

Prince Charles Steps Up

2017 For the first time Prince Charles lays the wreath to Great Britain's war dead, replacing Queen Elizabeth

Becoming

2018 Former US First lady Michelle Obama publishes her memoir "Becoming"

  • 2018 Israeli secret operation in Gaza kills eight including one Israeli and an Hamas Commander, igniting tensions with retaliatory rocket attack from Gaza

Guru Nanak

2019 550th anniversary of the birth of Guru Nanak - the founder of Sikhism celebrated in India and Pakistan

  • 2019 Disney launches its film and television streaming service Disney+

Morales Takes Asylum

2019 Former Bolivian President Evo Morales takes asylum in Mexico

  • 2019 Former Houston Astros MLB pitcher Mike Fiers reveals team secretly “stole signs” via camera from visiting teams 2015-17; comms between opposing pitchers & catchers intercepted and relayed to Astros batters