November 12

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[edit] Births

• 1651 - Juana de Asbaje, poet
• 1929 - Grace Kelly, actress and Princess of Monaco
• 1945 - Neil Young, singer

[edit] Deaths

• 607 - Pope Boniface III
• 1035 - Canute the Great
• 1094 - Duncan II of Scotland
• 1671 - Thomas Fairfax, English general during the English Civil War (b. 1612)
• 1757 - Colley Cibber, English poet (b. 1671)
• 1865 - Elizabeth Gaskell, English novelist (b. 1810)
• 1939 - Norman Bethune, Canadian doctor (b. 1890)
• 1941 - Abe "Kid Twist" Reles, American mobster (b. 1907)
• 1955 - Alfréd Hajós, Hungarian swimmer (b. 1878)
• 1976 - Walter Piston, American composer (b. 1894)
• 1981 - William Holden, American actor (b. 1981)
• 1984 - Chester Himes, American author (b. 1909)
• 1990 - Eve Arden, American actress (b. 1908)
• 1993 - H. R. Haldeman, Watergate scandal figure (b. 1926)
• 1994 - Wilma Rudolph, American runner (b. 1940)
• 2001 - Tony Miles, English chess player (b. 1955)
• 2003 - Jonathan Brandis, American actor (b. 1976)
• 2003 - Penny Singleton, American actress (b. 1908)
• 2003 - Tony Thompson, drummer for The Power Station (b. 1954)

[edit] Events

• 764 - Tibetan troops occupy Chang'an, the capital of the Chinese Tang Dynasty, for fifteen days.
• 1028 - Future Byzantine empress Zoe marries Romanus Argyrus according to the wishes of dying Constantine VIII
• 1439 - Plymouth, England, becomes the first town incorporated by the English Parliament.
• 1905 - (November 12 & 13) Norway holds referendum in favour of monarchy over republic.
• 1912 - The frozen bodies of Robert Scott and his men are found on the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica.
• 1918 - Austria becomes a republic.
• 1927 - Leon Trotsky is expelled from the Soviet Communist Party, leaving Joseph Stalin with undisputed control of the Soviet Union.
• 1927 - The Holland Tunnel opens to traffic as the first Hudson River vehicular tunnel linking New Jersey to New York City.
• 1933 - Hugh Gray of the British Aluminium Company takes the first known photos of the Loch Ness Monster; four of them turn out to be blank, while the last one is later proven to be a hoax.
• 1934 - The musical Babes in Toyland debuts, featuring Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy as comic relief (see Laurel and Hardy).
• 1936 - In California, the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge opens to traffic.
• 1938 - Hermann Göring announces Nazi Germany plans to make Madagascar the "Jewish homeland", an idea that actually was first considered by 19th century journalist Theodor Herzl.
• 1941 - World War II: Temperatures around Moscow drop to -12 ° C and the Soviet Union launches ski troops for the first time against the freezing German forces near the city.
• 1942 - World War II: The Naval Battle of Guadalcanal between Japanese and American forces begins near Guadalcanal, will last for three days.
• 1944 - World War II: The Royal Air Force launches one of the most successful precision bombing attacks of war and sinks the German battleship Tirpitz off the coast of Norway.
• 1946 - A branch of the Exchange National Bank in Chicago opens the first ten drive-up teller windows.
• 1948 - In Tokyo, an international war crimes tribunal sentences seven Japanese military and government officials to death, including General Hideki Tojo, for their roles in World War II.
• 1969 - Vietnam War: My Lai Massacre - Independent investigative journalist Seymour Hersh breaks the My Lai story.
• 1970 - The Oregon Highway Division attempts to destroy a rotting beached Gray whale with explosives, leading to the now infamous exploding whale incident
• 1971 - Vietnam War: As part of Vietnamization, US President Richard M. Nixon sets February 1, 1972 as the deadline for the removal of another 45,000 American troops from Vietnam.
• 1979 - Iran hostage crisis: In response to the hostage situation in Tehran, US President Jimmy Carter orders a halt to all oil imports into the United States from Iran.
• 1980 - The NASA space probe Voyager I makes its closest aproach to Saturn.
• 1982 - In the Soviet Union, Yuri Andropov is selected to become the general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party's Central Committee, succeeding the late Leonid I. Brezhnev.
• 1990 - Crown Prince Akihito is formally installed as Emperor Akihito of Japan, becoming the 125th Japanese monarch.
• 1990 - Tim Berners-Lee publishes a formal proposal for the World Wide Web.
• 1991 - Dili Massacre, Indonesian forces opened fire on a crowd of student protesters in Dili, East Timor.
• 1992 - Absolutely Fabulous airs its first episode on BBC1.
• 1996 - A Saudi Arabian Airlines Boeing 747 and a Kazakh Ilyushin Il-76 cargo plane collide in mid-air near New Delhi, India killing 349.
• 1997 - Ramzi Yousef is found guilty of masterminding the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
• 1998 - Daimler-Benz completes a merger with Chrysler to form Daimler-Chrysler.
• 2001 - In New York City, an Airbus A300 carrying American Airlines Flight 587 crashes minutes after takeoff from John F. Kennedy International Airport, killing all 260 on board.
• 2001 - 2001 Attack on Afghanistan: Taliban forces abandon Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, ahead of advancing Northern Alliance troops.
• 2002 - Special Extended DVD Edition of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring is released.
• 2003 - Occupation of Iraq: In Nasiriya, Iraq, at least 23 people, among them the first Italian casualties of the 2003 Iraq war are killed in a suicide bomb attack on an Italian police base.
• 2004 - Scott Peterson is found guilty of first degree murder of his wife Laci Peterson and their unborn son Conner after a five-and-a-half month long trial.
• 2004 - Official Guided by Voices Day in Los Angeles, California.
• 2004 - Resignation of Colin Powell as Secretary of Defense.