Historical Events on 12 Aug

Historical Events on 12 Aug

1099 - First Crusade: Battle of Ascalon - Crusaders under the command of Godfrey of Bouillon defeat Fatimid forces under Al-Afdal Shahanshah. Considered the last engagement of the First Crusade.
1121 - Battle of Didgori: The Georgian army under King David the Builder won a decisive victory over the famous Seljuk commander Ilghazi.
1164 - Battle of Harim: Nur ad-Din defeats the Crusader armies of the County of Tripoli and the Principality of Antioch.
1281 - The fleet of Qubilai Khan is destroyed by a typhoon while approaching Japan.
1323 - Treaty of Nöteborg - Sweden and Novgorod (Russia) regulates the border for the first time.
1332 - Wars of Scottish Independence: Battle of Dupplin Moor - Scots under Domhnall II, Earl of Mar routed by Edward Balliol.
1480 - Battle of Otranto - Ottoman troops behead 800 Christians for refusing to convert to Islam.
1499 - First act of the Battle of Zonchio between Venetian and Ottoman fleets.
1676 - Praying Indian John Alderman shot and killed Metacomet the Wampanoag war chief, ending King Philip's War.
1687 - Charles of Lorraine defeats the Ottomans at the Battle of Mohács.
1793 - The Rhône department was created when the former département of Rhône-et-Loire was split into two departments: Rhône and Loire (Lêre).
1806 - Santiago de Liniers re-takes the city of Buenos Aires after the first British invasion.
1833 - Chicago was founded.
1851 - Isaac Singer granted a patent for his sewing machine.
1877 - Asaph Hall discovers Deimos.
1883 - The last quagga dies at the Artis Magistra zoo in Amsterdam.
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 Hawai`i to the United States.
1898 - Armistice ends the Spanish-American War.
1908 - First Model T Ford built.
1914 - World War I - Britain declares war on Austria-Hungary; British Empire countries automatically included.
1925 - The first cast of Alpha Psi Omega, drawn from The Masquers of Fairmont College, West Virginia, was initiated.
1943 - Alleged date of the first Philadelphia Experiment test on United States Navy ship USS Eldridge.
1944 - Alençon liberated by General Leclerc, the first city in France to be liberated from the Nazis by French forces.
1944 - Waffen SS troops massacre more than 500 civil people in Sant'Anna di Stazzema.
1952 - The Night of the Murdered Poets - Thirteen most prominent Jewish intellectuals were murdered in Moscow.
1953 - Nuclear testing: The Soviet atomic bomb project proceeded with the detonation of Joe 4, the first Soviet thermonuclear weapon.
1960 - Echo I, the first communications satellite, launched.
1964 - Charlie Wilson, one of the Great Train Robbers escapes from Winson Green Prison in Birmingham, England.
1964 - South Africa is banned from the Olympic Games due to the country's racist policies.
1969 - Battle of the Bogside, Catholic community of Derry engage in two-day battle with the Royal Ulster Constabulary
1977 - The first free flight of the Space Shuttle Enterprise.
1978 - Japan and the People's Republic of China sign the Treaty of Peace and Friendship between Japan and the People's Republic of China.
1980 - Signing of the Montevideo Treaty, which established the Latin American Integration Association.
1981 - The IBM Personal Computer is released.
1982 - Mexico announces it is unable to pay its enormous external debt, marking the beginning of a debt crisis that spread to all of Latin America and the Third World.
1985 - Japan Airlines Flight 123 crashes into Mount Ogura in Gunma Prefecture, Japan, killing 520. It is the worst single-plane air disaster.
1990 - Sue, the most complete skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus rex, is discovered near Faith, South Dakota.
1992 - Canada, Mexico, and the United States announce completion of negotiations for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
1994 - Major League Baseball players go on strike. The work stoppage forces the cancellation of the 1994 World Series.
2000 - The Oscar class submarine K-141 Kursk of the Russian Navy exploded and sank in the Barents Sea during a military exercise.
2004 - New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey comes out publicly as a gay man.
2005 - An F2 tornado strikes the coal mining town of Wright, Wyoming, destroying nearly 100 homes and killing two people.
2005 - Sri Lanka's foreign minister, Lakshman Kadirgamar, is fatally shot by an LTTE sniper at his home.
2005 - An F1 tornado strikes Glen Cove, New York, a rare event on Long Island
2005 - Civil unrest provoked in the Maldives
2007 - Bulk carrier M/V New Flame collides with oil tanker Torm Gertrud at the southernmost tip of Gibraltar, ending up partially submerged.
30 BC - Cleopatra commits suicide after her lover Mark Antony's defeat at the battle of Actium.