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February 12: Today in History – Historical Events
Early Centuries – February 12 Historic Events – Before the 1700s
1. 12th Feb 1111: German King Hendry arrived on this day at St. Peter in Rome.
2. 12th Feb 1130: This day Pope Innocent III was elected.
3. 12th Feb 1502: Muslims in Granada were on this day forced to convert to Catholicism.
4. 12th Feb 1502: Explorer Vasco da Gama on this day sets sail from Lisbon in Portugal for his second voyage to India.
5. 12th Feb 1541: The city of Santiago in Chile was founded on this day.
6. 12th Feb 1554: Lady Jane Grey who was the Queen of England for nine days was executed on this day after being charged with treason.
18th Century – What Happened on February 12 – The 1700s
7. 12th Feb 1700: The Great Northern War between Denmark-Norway, Saxony, Russia, and the Swedish Empire begins on this day in Northern Europe.
8. 12th Feb 1719: On this day Onderlinge Van 1719 u.a., the oldest existing life insurance company was founded in the Netherlands.
9. 12th Feb 1733: Savannah in Georgia was on this day founded by English colonist James Oglethorpe.
10. 12th Feb 1762: Martinique was on this day occupied by the British fleet.
11. 12th Feb 1763: John Carteret was on this day appointed as British minister of foreign affairs.
12. 12th Feb 1771: Gustav III became the King of Sweden to-day.
13. 12th Feb 1793: The first fugitive slave law was passed in the US on this day, which requires the return of escaped slaves.
19th Century – February 12 This Day That Year – The 1800s
14. 12th Feb 1818: Chile on this day gained independence from Spain.
15. 12th Feb 1821: The Mercantile Library of the City of New York was opened on this day.
16. 12th Feb 1825: The Creek Indian treaty was signed today. The Tribal chiefs agreed to migrate west by 1st Sept 1826 after giving up all their land in Georgia to the government.
17. 12th Feb 1832: The Galapagos Islands were on this day annexed by Ecuador.
18. 12th Feb 1850: The original manuscript of Washington’s farewell address was on this day sold for $2,300.
19. 12th Feb 1855: The Michigan State University was established on this day.
20. 12th Feb 1861: During the Civil War in the US the state troops on this day seized ammunition in Napoleon in Arkansas.
21. 12th Feb 1865: Henry Highland Garnet spoke in the House of Representatives today. He was the first black to speak in the House of Representatives.
22. 12th Feb 1870: There was an official proclamation on this day setting April 15th as the last day of grace for the circulation of US silver coins in Canada.
23. 12th Feb 1870: Women in Utah Territory gained the right to vote on this day.
24. 12th Feb 1873: The US Congress on this day abolished bimetallism. $1 and $3 gold coins were authorized.
25. 12th Feb 1878: On this day the base catcher’s mask was patented by Frederick W. Thayer.
26. 12th Feb 1879: At the Madison Square Garden in New York City, the first artificial ice rink in North America was opened on this day.
27. 12th Feb 1880: On this day the National Croquet League was organized in Philadelphia.
28. 12th Feb 1882: The Social-Democratic Union was on this day formed in Amsterdam.
29. 12th Feb 1885: The German East-Africa Society was founded on this day by Carl Peters.
30. 12th Feb 1877: Railroad builders in the United States went on strike on this day against wage reduction.
31. 12th Feb 1877: The first news dispatch by telephone happened on this day between Boston and Salem in Massachusetts.
32. 12th Feb 1892: In the United States President Lincoln’s birthday was declared as a national holiday.
20th Century – Important Events On This Day February 12th – The 1900s
33. 12th Feb. 1907: There was a collision between the steamer Larchmont and a schooner off New England’s Block Island on this day. This resulted in the death of more than 300 people.
34. 12th Feb 1908: This day marks the beginning of the auto race from New York to Paris via Alaska and Siberia. George Schuster of New York City won the race.
35. 12th Feb 1909: On this day the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded.
36. 12th Feb 1912: China today adopted the Gregorian calendar.
37. 12th Feb 1912: China’s Emperor Hsuan Tung abdicates ending the Manchu Ch’ing dynasty. Subsequently, the Republic of China was established.
38. 12th Feb 1915: Germany’s Adolf Hitler on this day received the second class bravery award, an iron cross in World War I.
39. 12 Feb 1915: On this day the cornerstone for the Lincoln Memorial was laid in Washington D.C.
40. 12th Feb1918: To conserve coal all theaters in New York City were shut down on this day.
41. 12th Feb 1921: Winston Churchill on this day became the British Minister of Colonies.
42. 12th Feb 1921: South African General Smut’s party won the general elections. He declared that South Africa would continue to be part of the British Empire but under different terms like having a separate constitution, flying its Olag, having power, and authority over domestic affairs and International and foreign relations, and being an an independent sovereign state in friendly association with Bthe British Empire.
43. 12th Feb 1924: The first presidential political speech on radio was delivered by US President Calvin Coolidge.
44. 12th Feb 1924: “The Everyday Hour” became the first sponsored network program on the radio. The National Carbon Company was the first sponsor of the network show.
45. 12th Feb 1925: On this day the first federal arbitration law was approved by Congress.
46. 12th Feb 1925: On this day the communist party was banned in Estonia.
47. 12th Feb 1926: The largest merger of the banks to date happened today. The banks to merge were Chase National Bank, Metal National, and Mechanics Merger. The new bank would be named Chase National Bank.
48. 12th Feb 1931: Vatican Radio begins broadcasting from this day with a call sign HVJ.
49. 12th Feb 1932: The Unemployment Combat Committee was on this day formed by the Communist Party in Holland.
50. 12th Feb 1934: The Export-Import Bank was incorporated on this day.
51. 12th Feb 1934: France is affected badly by the general strike against royalists and fascists.
52. 12th Feb 1935: USS Macon, the great airship crashes into the Pacific Ocean.
53. 12th Feb 1938: The first “Kindertransport” carrying Jewish refugee children from Nazi Germany arrives in Britain.
54. 12th Feb 1938: Taxicab insurance plans to enforce strict taxicab ordnance which would require taxicab drivers to carry liability insurance. It would also make it easier to revoke their licenses if they broke any city driving law.
55. 12th Feb 1938: The third British Empire Games close in Sydney, Australia.
56. 12th Feb 1942: This day marks the escape of German battle cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen from Brest to Germany.
57. 112th Feb1948: 1st Lt Nancy Leftenant was the first black in the army nursing corps.
58. 12th Feb 1949: On this day some unidentified aircraft bombed Jerusalem
59. 12th Feb 1950: Renowned physicist Albert Einstein on this day warned against the Hydrogen Bomb.
60. 12th Feb 1954: The Atomic Energy Authority was formed in the UK to control the production and development of Atomic Energy in the United Kingdom.
61. 12th Feb 1955: President Eisenhower on this day sent the first US advisers to South Vietnam.
62. 12th Feb 1957: Researchers on this day announced that a material Borazan which is harder than diamonds is being developed.
63. 12th Feb 1960: Twelve Indian soldiers were on this day killed by the Chinese army.
64. 12th Feb 1961: The USSR on this day launched Venera I towards Venus.
65. 12th Feb 1964: Fighting breaks out between Turks and Greeks over disputed island in Cyprus. 16 people were killed. In response, the UN sent its peacekeeping force the following month.
66. 12th Feb 1965: Nuclear test conducted in the Pacific Ocean.
67. 12th Feb 1967: Pirate radio Free Harlem begins transmission on this day from New York City.
68. 12th Feb 1973: American prisoners of war were released for the first time today during the Vietnam conflict.
69. 12th Feb 1974: Given the progress in the Arab-Israel disengagement, heads of states of Algeria, Egypt, Syria, and Saudi Arabia discuss the oil strategy.
70. 12th Feb 1976: the United States on this day performed nuclear at its test site in Nevada.
71. 12th Feb 1979: The USSR on this day launched the first Oceanographic satellite “Cosmos 1076”.
72. 12th Feb 1981: Admiral Bobby R Inman of the US Navy on this day became the deputy director of the CIA.
73. 12th Feb 1982: US performs nuclear test at the Nevada test site.
74. 12th Feb 1989: In a protest against the novel The “Satanic Verses” 5 Pakistani Muslim rioters were killed.
75. 12th Feb 1991: Lithuania’s independence was on this day recognized by Iceland.
76. 12th Feb 1994: One of the world’s best-known paintings “Scream” was on this day stolen from a gallery in the Norwegian capital Oslo.
77. 12th Feb 1998: The Russians had bumped into a US destroyer, ”Caron” and a US cruiser, “Yorktown”. The incident occurred during the fag end of the cold war between the US and Russia. The American vessels moved out of Russian waters. There was no exchange of fire and no casualties.
78. 12th Feb 1998: A U.S. federal judge on this day declared presidential line-item veto as unconstitutional.
79. 12th Feb 1999: American President Bill Clinton on this day was acquitted by the US Senate on two impeachment articles, one was perjury and the other was obstruction of justice.
80. 12th Feb 1999: A group of 20 international scientists reinforced warnings that genetically modified food may be damaging to health. This was based on the studies conducted on rats by Arpad Puztai, who was forced to retire for his revelations.
21st Century – February 12 This Day In History – The 2000s
81. 12th Feb 2001: NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft touched down in the “saddle” region of 433 Eros. It became the first spacecraft to land on an asteroid.
82. 12th Feb 2002: The US Secretary of Energy on this day made a decision that Yucca Mountains was suitable to be used as the United States nuclear waste repository.
83. 12th Feb 2002: About 119 people were killed when a Tu-154 of Iran Air Tupolev crashed before landing in Khorramabad.
84. 12th Feb 2002: Kenneth Lay, the former Enron CEO, exercised his constitutional rights and refused to testify before the US Congress about the sudden collapse of Enron.
85. 12th Feb 2002: The trial of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic, began on this day at the UN tribunal in Hague. He was accused of war crimes.
86. 12th Feb 2002: Pakistan on this day charged three men for the kidnapping of Wall Street journalist Daniel Pearl in Karachi.
87. 12th Feb 2002: Princess Stephanie of Monaco and Franco Knie won on this day a defamation-of-character lawsuit against the Swiss magazine “Facts”. The case involved photomontage created by the magazine.
88. 12th Feb 2003: U.N. nuclear agency on this day declared that North Korea violates international treaties. The complaint was sent to the Security Council.
89. 12th Feb 2004: Defying the California law officials in San Francisco began performing same-sex marriage.
90. 12th Feb 2006: There was very heavy snowfall on this day. There was 26.9 inches of snowfall in New York Central Park.
91. 12th Feb 2007: A lone gunman on this day, armed with a shotgun and handgun went on a shooting spree and killed 5 bystanders and wounded 4 others at the Trolley Square Mall in Salt Lake City, Utah.
92. 12th Feb 2008: Today marked the end of a three-month-old American film and television writers’ strike with their voting to return to work.
93. 12th Feb 2009: On this day the Dutch Parliamentarians who had called the Koran a fascist book were denied entry into the U.K. on grounds of security.
94. 12th Feb 2009: Colgan Air Flight 3407 crashed near Buffalo in New York State. 50 people were killed in the crash.
95. 12th Feb 2010: On this day the 21st Winter Olympic Games opened at Vancouver in Canada.
96. 12th Feb 2012: Turkmenistan on this day re-elected Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow with 97% votes.
97. 12th Feb 2013: North Korea on this day conducted its third underground nuclear test.
98. 12th Feb 2014: Intel entrepreneur and co-founder of X-PRIZE Foundation claimed on this day that 50% of the US jobs are under threat of mechanization.
99. 12th Feb 2016: Pope Francis meets Patriarch Kirill in Havana on this day. This was the first meeting between heads of the Catholic Church and the Russian Orthodox Church.
100. 12th Feb 2016: Fiji ratified the UN climate deal. It became the first country to ratify the deal.
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