February 12 - Events

Events

• 881 – Pope John VIII crowns Charles the Fat, the King of Italy: Emperor
• 1429 – English forces under Sir John Fastolf defend a supply convoy carrying rations to the army besieging Orleans from attack by the Comte de Clermont and Sir John Stewart of Darnley in the Battle of Rouvray (also known as the Battle of the Herrings).
• 1502 – Vasco da Gama sets sail from Lisbon, Portugal, on his second voyage to India.
• 1541 – Santiago, Chile is founded by Pedro de Valdivia.
• 1554 – A year after claiming the throne of England for nine days, Lady Jane Grey is beheaded for treason.
• 1689 – The Convention Parliament convenes and declares that the flight to France in 1688 by James II, the last Roman Catholic British monarch, constitutes an abdication.
• 1700 – The Great Northern War begins in Northern Europe.
• 1719 – The Onderlinge van 1719 u.a., the oldest existing life insurance company in the Netherlands is founded.
• 1733 – Englishman James Oglethorpe founds Georgia, the 13th colony of the Thirteen Colonies, and its first city at Savannah (known as Georgia Day).
• 1771 – Gustav III becomes the King of Sweden.
• 1816 – The Teatro di San Carlo, the oldest working opera house in Europe, is destroyed by fire.
• 1817 – An Argentine/Chilean patriotic army, after crossing the Andes, defeats Spanish troops on theBattle of Chacabuco.
• 1818 – Bernardo O'Higgins formally approved the Chilean Declaration of Independence near Concepción, Chile.
• 1825 – The Creek cede the last of their lands in Georgia to the United States government, and migrate west.
• 1832 – Ecuador annexes the Galápagos Islands.
• 1855 – Michigan State University is established.
• 1870 – Women gain the right to vote in the Utah Territory.
• 1879 – The first artificial ice rink in North America opens at Gilmore's Park in New York City.
• 1894 – Anarchist Émile Henry hurls a bomb into Paris's Cafe Terminus, killing one and wounding 20.
• 1909 – The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is founded.
• 1912 – Xuantong Emperor of the Manchu Qing dynasty, the last Emperor of China, abdicates.
• 1912 – The Republic of China adopts the Gregorian calendar.
• 1914 – In Washington, D.C., the first stone of the Lincoln Memorial is put into place.
• 1924 – Calvin Coolidge becomes the first President of the United States to deliver a political speech on radio.
• 1934 – The Austrian Civil War begins.
• 1934 – The Export-Import Bank of the United States is incorporated.
• 1934 – In Spain the national council of Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional-Sindicalista is inaugurated. The council decides to merge the movement with the Falange Española.
• 1940 – FBLA-PBL organization is founded.
• 1946 – World War II: Operation Deadlight ends after scuttling 121 of 154 captured U-boats.
• 1947 – A meteor creates an impact crater in Sikhote-Alin, in the Soviet Union.
• 1961 – U.S.S.R. launches Venera 1 towards Venus.
• 1966 – Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, announces the Six Points in Karachi as the election manifesto of Awami League, that later led to formation of Bangladesh.
• 1973 – Vietnam War: The first United States prisoners of war are released by the Viet Cong.
• 1974 – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, winner of the Nobel Prize in literature in 1970, is exiled from the Soviet Union.
• 1976 – Actor Sal Mineo is stabbed to death in West Hollywood.
• 1990 – Carmen Lawrence becomes the first female Premier in Australian history when she becomes Premier of Western Australia.
• 1997 – Hwang Jang-yop, secretary in the Workers' Party of Korea and a prime architect of North Korea's Juche doctrine, defects at theSouth Korean embassy in Beijing along with his aide, Kim Dok-hong.
• 1999 – President Bill Clinton is acquitted by the United States Senate in his impeachment trial.
• 2001 – NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft touchdown in the "saddle" region of 433 Eros becoming the first spacecraft to land on an asteroid.
• 2002 – The trial of former President of Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Slobodan Milošević begins at the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague. He dies four years later before its conclusion.
• 2002 – US Secretary of Energy makes the decision that Yucca Mountain is a suitable site for a deep geological repository for the United States.
• 2002 – An Iran Air Tours Tupolev Tu-154 crashes in the mountains outside Khorramabad, Iran while descending for a landing atKhorramabad Airport, killing 119.
• 2004 – The city of San Francisco, California begins issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples in response to a directive from MayorGavin Newsom.
• 2009 – Colgan Air Flight 3407 crashes into a house in Clarence Center, New York while on approach to Buffalo-Niagara International Airport, killing all on board and one on the ground.