February 12

From Wikipedia, a free encyclopedia written in simple English for easy reading.

[edit] Births

• 1809 - Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States.
• 1951 - Steven Parent, murder victim
• 1973 - Tara Strong, American actress
• 1980 - Christina Ricci, American actress

[edit] Deaths

• 1804 - Immanuel Kant
• 1916 - Richard Dedekind, mathematician
• 1929 - Lily Langtry, singer and actress
• 1933 - Henri Duparc, French composer
• 1949 - Imam Hassan al Banna
• 1951 - Choudhary Rahmat Ali, founding father of Pakistan (b. 1895)
• 1954 - Dziga Vertov, Russian filmmaker (b. 1896)
• 1971 - James C. Penney, American department store founder (b. 1875)
• 1976 - Sal Mineo, actor (b. 1939)
• 1979 - Jean Renoir, director (b. 1894)
• 1982 - Victor Jory, Canadian actor (b. 1902)
• 1983 - Eubie Blake, musician and songwriter (b. 1883 or 1887)
• 1984 - Julio Cortázar, author, intellectual (b. 1914)
• 1985 - Nicholas Colasanto, American actor
• 1992 - María Elena Moyano, Peruvian activist (b. 1960)
• 1993 - James Bulger, murder victim (b. 1990)
• 1995 - Robert Bolt, writer (b. 1924)
• 1995 - Philip Taylor Kramer, musician (Iron Butterfly)
• 1996 - Bob Shaw, author (b. 1931)
• 2000 - Screamin' Jay Hawkins, musician (b. 1929)
• 2000 - Tom Landry, American football coach (b. 1924)
• 2000 - Charles Schulz, American comics author
• 2000 - Oliver, singer
• 2001 - Kristina Söderbaum, German actress and photographer
• 2005 - Rafael Vidal
• 2005 - Brian Kelly, American actor

[edit] Events

• 1354 - Treaty of Stralsund settles border disputes between the duchies of Mecklenburg and Pomerania.
• 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 Catholic British monarch, constitutes an abdication.
• 1719 - The Onderlinge van 1719 u.a., the oldest existing life insurance company in the Netherlands is founded
• 1733 - Englishman James Oglethorpe founds the 13^th and final American colony of Georgia, and its first city at Savannah.
• 1737 - The San Carlo, the oldest working opera house in Europe, is inaugurated.
• 1771 - Gustav III becomes the King of Sweden when his father Adolf Frederick "[eats] himself to death".
• 1817 - Chilean patriotic army, after crossing the Andes, defeat Spanish troops on the battle of Chacabuco
• 1818 - Bernardo O'Higgins signs the Independence of Chile near Concepción.
• 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.
• 1870 - Women gain the right to vote in Utah Territory.
• 1879 - At New York City's Madison Square Garden the first artificial ice rink in North America opens.
• 1892 - Former President Abraham Lincoln's birthday is declared a national holiday in the United States.
• 1894 - Anarchist Emile 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 - China adopts the Gregorian calendar.
• 1915 - In Washington, DC, the first stone of the Lincoln Memorial is put into place.
• 1924 - Premiere of George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue with Paul Whiteman's Palais Royal Orchestra in Aeolian Hall in New York City
• 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.
• 1938 - Anschluss: German troops enter Austria.
• 1946 - Operation Deadlight ends after scuttling 121 of 154 captured U-boats.
• 1951 - Soraya Esfandiary Bakhtiari marries the Shah of Iran Reza Pahlavi at Golestan Palace in Teheran at age of 17.
• 1973 - Ohio becomes the first U.S. state to post distance in SI units on signs.
• 1973 - Vietnam War: The first American prisoners of war are released by the NLF.
• 1994 - 1994 Winter Olympics open in Lillehammer, Norway.
• 1998 - The presidential line-item veto is declared unconstitutional by United States federal judge.
• 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.
• 2001 - Google obtains Usenet, creating Google Groups (press release)
• 2002 - The trial of former President of Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Slobodan Milošević begins at the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
• 2002 - Nuclear waste: US Secretary of Energy makes the decision that Yucca Mountain is suitable to be the United States' nuclear repository.
• 2002 - An Iran Air Tupolev Tu-154 crashes prior to landing in Khorramabad, Iran, killing 119
• 2004 - Mayor Gavin Newsom of San Francisco, California, on National Freedom to Marry Day, orders his county clerk to revise marriage licenses to allow gay and lesbian couples to legally wed.
• 2004 - Mattel Inc. announces the split of Barbara Millicent Roberts and Ken Carson (aka Barbie and Ken) after 43 years of dating.
• 2005 - Former Vermont governor and presidential candidate Howard Dean becomes chairman of the Democratic National Committee.