Historical Events on 12 Apr

Historical Events on 12 Apr

1557 - Cuenca is founded in Ecuador.
1606 - The Union Flag is adopted as the flag of Great Britain.
1633 - The formal inquest of Galileo Galilei by the Inquisition begins.
1776 - American Revolution: With the Halifax Resolves, the North Carolina Provincial Congress authorizes its Congressional delegation to vote for independence from Britain.
1820 - Alexander Ypsilantis is declared leader of Filiki Eteria, a secret organization to overthrow Ottoman rule over Greece.
1861 - American Civil War: The war begins with Confederate forces firing on Fort Sumter, in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina.
1864 - American Civil War: The Fort Pillow massacre: Confederate forces kill most African American soldiers that surrendered at Fort Pillow, Tennessee.
1865 - American Civil War: Mobile, Alabama, falls to the Union Army.
1877 - The United Kingdom annexes the Transvaal.
1917 - World War I: Canadian forces successfully complete the taking of Vimy Ridge from the Germans.
1927 - April 12 Incident: Chiang Kai-shek orders the CPC members executed in Shanghai, ending the First United Front.
1934 - The strongest surface wind gust in the world at 231 mph, is measured on the summit of Mount Washington, US.
1934 - The US Auto-Lite Strike begins, culminating in a five-day melee between Ohio National Guard troops and 6,000 strikers and picketers.
1935 - First flight of the Bristol Blenheim.
1937 - Sir Frank Whittle ground-tests the first jet engine designed to power an aircraft at Rugby, England.
1945 - US President Franklin D. Roosevelt dies while in office; vice-president Harry Truman is sworn in as the 33rd President.
1955 - The polio vaccine, developed by Dr. Jonas Salk, is declared safe and effective.
1961 - Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human to travel into outer space in Vostok 3KA-2 (Vostok 1).
1963 - The Soviet nuclear powered submarine K-33 collides with the Finnish merchant vessel M/S Finnclipper in the Danish straits.
1968 - Nerve gas accident at Skull Valley, Utah.
1980 - Terry Fox begins his "Marathon of Hope" at St. John's, Newfoundland.
1980 - Samuel Doe takes control of Liberia in a coup d'etat, ending over 130 years of national democratic presidential succession.
1981 - The first launch of a Space Shuttle: Columbia launches on the STS-1 mission.
1990 - Jim Gary's Twentieth Century Dinosaurs exhibition opens at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.
1992 - Disneyland Resort Paris opens in the eastern suburbs of Paris, France.
1994 - Canter & Siegel post the first commercial mass Usenet spam.
1998 - An earthquake in Slovenia, measuring 5.6 on the Richter scale occurs near the town of Bovec.
1999 - US President Bill Clinton is cited for contempt of court for giving "intentionally false statements" in a sexual harassment civil lawsuit.
2002 - Pedro Carmona becomes interim President of Venezuela during the military coup against Hugo Chávez.
2002 - Palestinian suicide bomber (female) kills 7 and injures 104 (among them 9 Arabs) at the Mahane Yehuda Market in Jerusalem.
467 - Anthemius is elevated to Emperor of the Western Roman Empire.