- 3 Conjunction of Venus and Jupiter on August 12, 3 BC, a popular theory for the biblical “Star of Bethlehem”
- 1099 The Battle of Ascalon is won by the Crusader army led by Godfrey of Bouillon against the Fatimid forces and is the last action of the First Crusade
- 1121 Battle of Didgori: Georgian army under King David the Builder wins a decisive victory over the renowned Seljuk commander Ilghazi
- 1164 Battle of Harim: Nur ad-Din defeats the Crusader armies of the County of Tripoli and the Principality of Antioch
- 1323 Treaty of Nöteborg between Sweden and Novgorod (Russia) regulates the border for the first time
- 1332 Battle of Dupplin Moor: Scottish dynastic conflict
King Bans Wool Exports
1336 English King Edward III bans wool export to Flanders and later grants a company of merchants a monopoly on selling wool in attempt to maximise taxes
- 1480 Ottoman troops conquer Otranto in southern Italy after a 15-day siege, killing 12,000, enslaving 5,000, and beheading 800 Christians for refusing to convert to Islam
Columbus Arrives in Canary Islands
1492 Christopher Columbus arrives in the Canary Islands on his first voyage to the New World
Pope Orders Talmud Burned
1553 Pope Julius III orders the confiscation and burning of the Jewish Talmud, one of the main sources of Jewish law and theology
- 1588 Commander of the English fleet, Lord Howard of Effingham, calls off the chase of the Spanish Armada off the coast of Scotland
- 1588 Radboud Castle on Medemblik harbor in North Holland surrenders to the Spanish army
- 1658 First American police force forms in New Amsterdam
- 1676 First war between American colonists and Indigenous peoples ends in New England
- 1687 Battle of Mohács: Ottoman invaders of Hungary are routed by forces of the Holy Roman Emperor under Charles of Lorraine
- 1759 Battle of Kunersdorf: Russian-Austrian army overpowers Prussians
- 1793 The Rhône department is created when the former department of Rhône-et-Loire is split into two: Rhône and Loire
Robert Southey Poet Laureate
1813 Robert Southey is appointed British Poet Laureate by King George III
Historic Invention
1851 American inventor Isaac Singer patents his famous sewing machine
Morgan Captures Gallatin
1862 Confederate General John Hunt Morgan and his raiders capture Gallatin, Texas
- 1863 First cargo of lumber leaves Burrard Inlet, Vancouver, BC
1st Antiseptic Surgery
1865 British surgeon Joseph Lister performs the first antiseptic surgery using carbolic spray on instruments and bandages
1877 To his amazement, Thomas Edison records himself reciting “Mary Had a Little Lamb” on his newly completed cylinder phonograph, a device that records sound onto tinfoil cylinders [1]
- 1879 First National Archery Association tournament in Chicago
- 1882 Yiddish theater opens in New York City with Abraham Goldfaden’s operetta “Di Kishefmakhern” (The Sorceress)
- 1883 The last quagga (a zebra subspecies with fewer stripes) dies at the Artis Magistra Zoo in Amsterdam
- 1884 Bill Murdoch scores the first Test cricket double century, 211, at The Oval
1898 Peace protocol ending the Spanish–American War is signed
Antwerp Central Station
1905 King Leopold II opens Antwerp Central Station in Belgium
1908 Ford Motor Company builds its first Model T car, which Henry Ford himself tests on a hunting trip to Wisconsin and Northern Michigan [1]
- 1914 Cavalry battle in Halen, Belgium (“Battle of the Silver Helmets”)
- 1914 France and Great Britain declare war on Austria-Hungary
- 1914 German 16.5″/12″ guns fires on forts round Liege
- 1914 WWI: Russian troops take East Prussia and occupy Marggrabowa
- 1915 “Of Human Bondage” by William Somerset Maugham is published
1916 Pablo Picasso, Max Jacob, Moïse Kisling, Ortiz, and Paquerette are photographed in Paris
Douglass’ Home Made National Shrine
1922 Dedication of Frederick Douglass‘ home in Washington, D.C. as a national shrine
- 1923 Dutch AR leader Colijn replaces De Geer as Minister of Finance
- 1923 Enrico Tiraboschi is the first to swim the English Channel westward
- 1925 KMA-AM in Shenandoah, IA, begins radio transmissions
- 1925 The first cast of Alpha Psi Omega, drawn from The Masquers of Fairmont College, West Virginia, is initiated
- 1925 The tariff law comes into force in Germany, setting tariffs for industry and agriculture based on pre-war rates
- 1928 IX Summer Olympic Games close at Olympisch Stadion in Amsterdam, Netherlands
Birdseye Granted Patent
1930 Clarence Birdseye is granted a patent for a method for quick freezing food (patent US 1773079 A)
- 1931 Yangtze River floods after heavy rain crumbles dikes in China
- 1933 Cuban dictator Machado y Morales flees following a military coup
- 1936 120°F (49°C) in Seymour, Texas (state record)
- 1936 After a 24-year absence, a baseball demonstration game is played between two American teams at the Berlin Olympics, with the World Champions beating the US Olympics 6-5
- 1936 American diver Marjorie Gestring wins the 3 m springboard gold at the Berlin Olympics, becoming the youngest Olympic gold medalist at 13 years and 268 days
- 1936 The gymnastics competition at the Berlin Olympics concludes with Germany dominating, winning six of nine gold medals, including the men’s and women’s team events
- 1939 Sabotage is suspected in the City of San Francisco train crash, which derails near Harney, Nevada, killing 24
- 1940 Luftwaffe bombs British radar stations and loses 31 aircraft
- 1940 Netherlands starts rationing textiles
- 1942 German forces capture Elista, Kalmyk Steppe
Emperor Hirohito’s Decision
1945 Emperor Hirohito of Japan informs the imperial family that he has decided to surrender
- 1948 Cleveland Indians get 29 hits in a 9-inning game
- 1948 Court of Justice sentences General Friedrich Christiansen, commander of the German Wehrmacht in the Netherlands, to 12 years’ imprisonment
- 1948 Indian maestro Balbir Singh Dosanjh scores twice as India beats Great Britain 4-0 for the field hockey gold medal at the London Olympics, India’s fourth consecutive Olympic hockey title
- 1948 The canoeing program at the London Olympics concludes with Sweden (4) and Czechoslovakia (3) dominating, combining for 7 of the 9 gold medals
- 1949 16th NFL Chicago All-Star Game: Philadelphia 38, All-Stars 0 (93,780 attendees)
- 1950 First international game by an NFL team, New York Giants beat CFL’s Ottawa Rough Riders 20-6 at Ottawa’s Lansdowne Stadium
- 1953 A 6.8 earthquake strikes the Ionian Islands, killing between 445 and 800 people
- 1953 Ann Davison arrives in Miami in her 23-foot boat Felicity Ann, becoming the first woman to sail solo across the Atlantic
- 1953 Soviet Union conducts a secret test of its first hydrogen bomb
- 1954 Washington Senators’ Eddie Yost draws his 100th walk for the fifth consecutive year
- 1955 22nd NFL Chicago All-Star Game: All-Stars 30, Cleveland 27 (75,000 attendees)
- 1955 Hurricane Connie makes landfall near Fort Macon, North Carolina, as a Category 3 storm
Minimum Wage Raised
1955 US President Eisenhower raises minimum wage from 75 cents to $1 an hour
- 1955 WPBT TV channel 2 in Miami, FL (PBS) begins broadcasting
- 1956 KOTI TV channel 2 in Klamath Falls, OR (NBC/CBS) begins broadcasting
- 1958 Art Kane photographs a group portrait of 57 leading jazz musicians assembled in front of a brownstone on 126th Street in NYC for Esquire magazine; originally titled “Harlem, 1958,” it appears as the centerfold of Esquire’s January 1959 issue celebrating the “Golden Age of Jazz” [1]
- 1959 First ship firing of a Polaris missile from Observation Island
- 1959 Progressive Party under John Steytler forms in South Africa
- 1960 27th NFL Chicago All-Star Game: Baltimore 32, All-Stars 7 (70,000 attendees)
World Record Long Jump
1960 American Ralph Boston sets a long jump world record of 8.21 m at the US Olympic trials, surpassing Jesse Owens’ record
Baseball Record
1964 Mickey Mantle switch-hits a home run for the record 10th and final time in a game, with one going 502 feet
- 1964 Race riot in Elizabeth, New Jersey
- 1965 Dame Elizabeth Lane becomes the first female English High Court judge
- 1965 Milwaukee Brewers Baseball Club, Inc. applies for an NL franchise
- 1965 Race riot on the West Side of Chicago
- 1966 Longview, Texas, radio station KLUE holds a “Beatles Bonfire” to burn Beatles records and memorabilia; the station is struck by lightning the following day
John Lennon Apologizes
1966 The Beatles hold a press conference at the Astor Tower Hotel, in Chicago, Illinois; John Lennon apologizes for his “more popular than Jesus” remark
- 1966 The last Beatles concert tour of North America begins with two shows at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago, Illinois
- 1967 New Orleans Saints’ first pre-season victory, beating St. Louis 23-14
- 1969 Battle of the Bogside: RUC officers, backed by loyalists, enter the nationalist Bogside in armored cars and try to suppress the riot by using CS gas, water cannon, and eventually firearms; the almost continuous rioting lasts for two days
- 1969 Boston Celtics is sold for an NBA record $6 million
Baseball History
1970 Curt Flood loses his $4.1 million antitrust suit against baseball [1]
Syria Breaks with Jordan
1971 Syrian President Hafez al-Assad breaks off diplomatic relations with Jordan
Baseball Record
1974 Nolan Ryan strikes out 19 and walks only 2 as Angels top Red Sox 4-2
- 1974 Yankees Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford become the first teammates inducted into the Hall of Fame on the same day
- 1976 Christian militia conquers the Palestinian camp of Tel al-Zaatar, killing 2,000 people
- 1976 First Approach and Landing Test (ALT) of Orbiter Enterprise
- 1977 For the second consecutive day, Oakland’s Manny Sanguillen foils a no-hit bid
- 1977 High Energy Astronomy Observatory 1 (HEAO) is launched into Earth’s orbit by NASA
- 1977 Space Shuttle Enterprise makes its first atmospheric test flight
- 1978 China and Japan sign a peace treaty
- 1978 International Cometary Explorer (ICE) spacecraft launches to study solar wind
- 1978 NFL New England Patriots wide receiver Darryl Stingley suffers a spinal cord injury, leaving him with incomplete quadriplegia after a hit by Oakland Raiders’ Jack Tatum in a preseason exhibition game
- 1979 Iranian press censors start massive book burnings
- 1980 Nicaragua celebrates the end of its National Literacy Crusade, a massive effort over five months that reduces illiteracy from 50% to 12%
- 1980 Signing of the Montevideo Treaty establishing the Latin American Integration Association
One-Trick Pony
1980 Warner Bros. Records releases “One-Trick Pony,” the fifth solo studio album by American singer-songwriter Paul Simon; it features the song “Late in the Evening” and is accompanied by a dramatic film of the same name, written by and starring Simon
Event of Interest
1981 Don Estridge unveils the company’s first personal computer, the IBM PC, at New York’s Waldorf Astoria Hotel, priced at USD 1,565 with 16 kilobytes of RAM, helping bring computing to the masses [1]
- 1984 Braves beat Padres 5-3, featuring 2 brawls and 19 ejections
- 1984 Carlos Lopes of Portugal wins the men’s marathon at the Los Angeles Olympics in 2:09:21, an Olympic record that stands for 24 years
- 1984 XXIII Summer Olympic Games close at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum
- 1985 520 people die when Japan Airlines Flight 123 crashes in Ueno, Japan, the second-deadliest aviation disaster of all time
- 1985 Baltimore Orioles’ W. Gross and L. Sheets are the sixth to hit consecutive pinch home runs
- 1986 Boston Red Sox outfielder Don Baylor gets hit by a pitch for a record 25th time in a season
- 1986 Iran fires a missile at a refinery near Baghdad; Iraq raids an Iranian terminal at Sirri Island, severely disrupting Iranian exports
- 1986 Red Sox pitcher Tim Lollar gets a pinch-hit single
- 1987 Charles Cole climbs the 870-foot Tyrolean Traverse from the top of Elephant Rock
- 1988 Boston Red Sox beat Tigers 9-4 for an AL record 23rd consecutive win at home
- 1988 Movie “The Last Temptation of Christ” is released
Mandela in Hospital
1988 Nelson Mandela is treated for tuberculosis at a Tygerberg Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa
- 1988 Richard Thornburgh becomes US Attorney General
- 1990 12th Annual Macy’s Tap-o-mania
Gulf Crisis
1990 Iraqi President Saddam Hussein says he is ready to resolve the Gulf crisis if Israel withdraws from occupied territories
- 1990 Longest baseball rain delay in MLB history as the Texas Rangers and Chicago White Sox wait 7 hours and 23 minutes at Comiskey Park in Chicago until the game is eventually postponed
- 1991 Creditors vote to support Greyhound Bus reorganization plan
- 1992 Canada, Mexico, and the United States announce completion of negotiations for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)
- 2000 The Oscar class submarine K-141 Kursk of the Russian Navy explodes and sinks in the Barents Sea during a military exercise
- 2004 New Jersey Governor James McGreevey comes out publicly as gay
- 2005 An F1 tornado strikes Glen Cove, New York, a rare event on Long Island
- 2005 An F2 tornado strikes the coal mining town of Wright, Wyoming, destroying nearly 100 homes and killing two people
- 2005 Civil unrest is provoked in the Maldives
- 2005 Sri Lanka’s foreign minister, Lakshman Kadirgamar, is fatally shot by a Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam sniper at his home
- 2007 Bulk carrier M/V New Flame collides with oil tanker Torm Gertrud at the southernmost tip of Gibraltar and ends up partially submerged
Phelps Makes it Three
2008 American super-swimmer Michael Phelps wins his third of eight gold medals at the Beijing Olympics when he wins the 200 m freestyle in a world record time of 1:42.96
- 2008 American swimmer Natalie Coughlin becomes the first to successfully defend the gold medal in the women’s 100 m backstroke when she wins the event at the Beijing Olympics
Peirsol Swims Record Gold
2008 An American 1-2 in the 100 m backstroke at the Beijing Olympics with Aaron Peirsol swimming a world record of 52.54 to defeat teammate Matt Grevers
Russo-Georgian War Ceasefire
2008 Russo-Georgian War: Nicolas Sarkozy, the President of France, negotiates ceasefire agreement between Russia and Georgia, ending a brief war after 5 days of hostilities
- 2012 XXX Summer Olympic Games close at Olympic Stadium at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, London, England
- 2013 Eight people are killed and 25 are injured in a suicide bomb attack in Balad, Iraq
- 2013 Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta is elected President of Mali
- 2013 Thirty people are killed by gunmen in northeastern Nigeria
Whitey Bulger Found Guilty
2013 Whitey Bulger, an American organized crime boss, is found guilty on 31 of 32 racketeering and firearms counts and is found to have been involved in 11 murders
Carter reveals Cancer Diagnosis
2015 Former US President Jimmy Carter reveals that he has cancer
- 2015 In London, archaeologists discover a mass grave of 30 bodies from the 1665 plague
- 2015 Large series of explosions in Tianjin, China, leave at least 50 dead and 700 injured in an industrial accident
Elvis Gets Second Stamp
2015 The US Postal Service issues a second postage stamp featuring rock singer Elvis Presley as part of its Music Icon series; the design is a black and white photograph taken by William Speer in 1955
Katie Ledecky Most Decorated
2016 American star swimmer Katie Ledecky sets a world record of 8:04.79 to dominate the women’s 800 m field at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics; a medal tally of 4 golds and 1 silver makes her the most decorated US female athlete at one Olympics
- 2016 Cannes becomes the first French resort to ban the burkini
- 2016 Hungarian swimmer Katinka Hosszú wins her fourth medal of the Rio de Janeiro Olympics, finishing second in the women’s 200 m backstroke; gold goes to American Maya DiRado in 2:05.99
- 2016 Italian jockey Frankie Dettori, aboard Predilection, rides his 3,000th British winner at Newmarket
- 2016 Joseph Schooling of Singapore sets an Olympic record of 50.39 to win the men’s 100 m butterfly gold at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics; a rare three-way tie for silver at 51.14 involves Michael Phelps (USA), Chad le Clos (South Africa), and László Cseh (Hungary)
- 2017 “Unite the Right” march in Charlottesville, Virginia turns violent when a car rams protesters, killing one and injuring 19
Trump on Charlottesville Violence
2017 US President Donald Trump, at a press conference at Trump Tower, says “there is blame on both sides” in reference to violence in Charlottesville, provoking widespread condemnation
Usain Misses Last Race
2017 Usain Bolt injures himself in his final race, the men’s 4 x 100 m relay; Jamaica misses gold at the World Championships
- 2018 Mali’s presidential run-off election is held, and current President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita eventually wins, with the opposition disputing the outcome
- 2018 More than 200 Afghan soldiers are reported killed after three days of attacks by Taliban insurgents over multiple fronts, including Ghazni City
- 2018 NASA launches the Parker Solar Probe, its first mission to the Sun and its outermost atmosphere, the corona
- 2019 Baltimore Orioles concede 7 home runs in doubleheader defeats against NY Yankees to break the American League single-season HRs allowed record with 248 and counting
- 2019 Beginning of the “Glitter Revolution” in Mexico City when the security chief is showered with pink glitter in protest of violence against women after a teenager is raped by police
- 2019 Conservative Alejandro Giammattei is elected president of Guatemala
- 2019 Hong Kong International Airport cancels all departures as thousands of anti-government protesters occupy the terminals
- 2019 Scientists say they are closer to an effective treatment for Ebola after a new drug trial has a 90% success rate in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
- 2020 Europe fights a new COVID-19 surge with Germany, France, and Spain posting their largest daily infection totals for three months
- 2020 UK posts its worst quarterly economic slump on record, -20.4% (Apr-Jun), pushing it into the largest recession globally
- 2020 Yemeni authorities say at least 172 people died in floods caused by torrential rains, which also destroy historic buildings in Sanaa, a UNESCO World Heritage Site
- 2021 195 million Americans across 34 states are under heat advisory warnings from the Pacific Northwest to the Northeast as the summer of intense heat continues in the Northern Hemisphere [1]
- 2021 Bennu Asteroid, the size of the Empire State Building, now has a 1-in-1,750 chance of hitting Earth in 2182 according to data from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft [1]
- 2021 Britney Spears’ father says he will step down as her conservator after the singer calls his conservatorship abusive amid a #FreeBritney campaign
Kawhi Leonard
2021 Kawhi Leonard re-signs with the Los Angeles Clippers to a max four-year, $176.3 million contract
- 2021 Phoenix is the US’s fastest-growing city (11.2%), overtaking Philadelphia to be the nation’s fifth largest at 1.6 million according to the US Census [1]
- 2021 US Census reveals country grows more diverse, with growth in Hispanic (+23%) and Asian (+36%) populations, and the first-ever decline in white population (-2.6%) [1]
- 2021 US FDA authorizes a third COVID-19 vaccine booster shot for people with weakened immune systems
Salman Rushdie Attacked
2022 British author Salman Rushdie is attacked and repeatedly stabbed on stage before giving a lecture at Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, New York
- 2022 Drought officially declared in eight regions of the UK amid the country’s driest period since 1976 [1]
Click the Source link for more details
