August 12

August 12 is the 224th day of the year (225th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. There are 141 days remaining.

Events

• 1099 - First Crusade: Battle of Ascalon - Crusaders defeat Saracens and the Kingdom of Jerusalem is established under Godfrey of Bouillon.
• 1323 - Treaty of Nöteborg - Sweden and Novgorod (Russia) regulates the border for the first time
• 1332 - Battle of Dupplin Moor - Scots under the Earl of Mar routed by Edward Balliol
• 1676 - King Philip's War ends
• 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 - Great War - Britain declares war on Austria-Hungary; British Empire countries automatically included.
  • - Beginning of the Battle of Cer between Austria-Hungary and Serbia
• 1953 - Nuclear testing: The Soviet Union detonates its first hydrogen bomb.
• 1960 - Echo I, the first communications satellite, launched
• 1981 - The IBM PC, an early personal computer, is introduced
• 1985 - Japan Airlines flight 123 Boeing 747 jumbo jet crashes into Mount Ogura, Japan killing 520, in world's worst single-plane air disaster
• 1992 - Canada, Mexico and the United States announce completion of negotiations for NAFTA.
• 1994 - The Woodstock '94 rock concert takes place.
• 1994 - Major League Baseball players go on strike. The work stoppage will force the cancellation of the World Series.
• 2000 - Russian submarine Kursk sinks in the Barents Sea.
• 2004 - Sweden's nine millionth inhabitant is born.
• 2004 - Lee Hsien Loong is sworn in as Singapore's 3rd Prime Minister.

Births

• 1503 - Christian III of Denmark and Norway (d. 1559)
• 1604 - Tokugawa Iemitsu, 3rd Tokugawa shogun (d. 1651)
• 1626 - Giovanni Legrenzi, Italian composer (d. 1690)
• 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)
• 1774 - Robert Southey, English poet and biographer (d. 1843)
• 1831 - Helena Blavatsky, author (d. 1891)
• 1859 - Katharine Lee Bates, American poet (d. 1929)
• 1866 - Jacinto Benavente, Spanish writer (d. 1954)
• 1876 - Mary Roberts Rinehart, author (d. 1958)
• 1880 - Christy Mathewson, baseball player (d. 1925)
• 1880 - Radclyffe Hall, British author (d. 1943)
• 1881 - Cecil B. DeMille, American director (d. 1959)
• 1883 - Pauline Frederick, stage and film actress (d. 1938)
• 1887 - Erwin Schrödinger, Austrian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1961)
• 1892 - Alfred Lunt, actor (d. 1977)
• 1904 - Alexei Nikolaevich Romanov, Tsarevich (d. 1918)
• 1906 - Pauline Frederick, journalist (d. 1990)
• 1906 - Tedd Pierce, animator (d. 1972)
• 1907 - Joe Besser, American actor and comedian (d. 1988)
• 1911 - Cantinflas, actor (d. 1993)
• 1911 - Jane Wyatt, actress
• 1924 - Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, leader of Pakistan (d. 1988)
• 1924 - Derek Shackleton, English cricketer
• 1926 - John Derek, actor (d. 1998)
• 1927 - Mstislav Rostropovich, Russian cellist
• 1927 - Porter Wagoner, singer
• 1928 - Bob Buhl, baseball player (d. 2001)
• 1928 - Dan Curtis, film and television producer and director
• 1929 - Buck Owens, singer
• 1930 - George Soros American businessman
• 1931 - William Goldman, screenwriter
• 1933 - Parnelli Jones, race car driver
• 1939 - George Hamilton, actor
• 1949 - Mark Knopfler, musician
• 1954 - Pat Metheny, guitarist
• 1971 - Michael Ian Black, comedian
• 1971 - Pete Sampras, tennis player
• 1972 - Rebecca Gayheart, actress
• 1972 - Takanohana Kōji, sumo wrestler
• 1973 - Richard Reid, English bomber
• 1976 - Antoine Walker, basketball player
• 1977 - Plaxico Burress, American football player
• 1988 - Leah Pipes, actress

Deaths

• 875 - Louis II Holy Roman Emperor
• 1484 - Pope Sixtus IV
• 1484 - George of Trebizond, philosopher
• 1612 - Giovanni Gabrieli, Italian composer
• 1633 - Jacopo Peri, Italian composer
• 1689 - Pope Innocent XI
• 1822 - Robert Stewart, 2nd Marquis of Londonderry, British Foreign Secretary
• 1827 - William Blake, English poet and printmaker (b. 1757)
• 1848 - George Stephenson, locomotive designer
• 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, chess player (b. 1836)
• 1914 - John Philip Holland, submarine designer (b. 1840)
• 1917 - Eduard Buchner, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1860)
• 1918 - Anna Held, actress amd singer, (b. 1872)
• 1923 - Vatrslav Jagić, Croatian philologist (b. 1838)
• 1928 - Leos Janacek, Czech composer (b. 1854)
• 1943 - Bobby Peel, English cricketer (b. 1857).
• 1948 - Harry Brearley, inventor of stainless steel
• 1955 - Thomas Mann, German writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1875)
• 1955 - James B. Sumner, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1887)
• 1964 - Ian Fleming, British novelist
• 1968 - Angus Walters, Canadian sailor (b. 1882)
• 1973 - Walter Rudolf Hess, Swiss physiologist and Nobel Prize winner
• 1979 - Ernst Boris Chain, German-born biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine (b. 1906)
• 1982 - Henry Fonda, American actor
• 1982 - Joe Tex (Joseph Arrington), singer
• 1982 - Salvador Sanchez, boxer
• 1985 - Manfred Winkelhock, race car driver
• 1985 - Kyu Sakamoto, singer (b. 1941)
• 1989 - William Shockley, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1910)
• 1992 - John Cage, American composer
• 1997 - Luther Allison, blues musician
• 2000 - Loretta Young, actress
• 2002 - Enos Slaughter, baseball player
• 2002 - Ed Headrick, developer of the Frisbee
• 2004 - Sir Godfrey Hounsfield, inventor of computed axial tomography
• 2004 - Peter Woodthorpe, British actor

Holidays and observations

• Glorious Twelfth at the Yorkshire Dales
• Zaraday (Discordianism)
• Zimbabwe - Defence Force Day
• International Ponce de Leon day
• Grantobiss William Ellis' day of birth

External links

• BBC: On This Day

August 11 - August 13 - July 12 - September 12 -- listing of all days