On this day in History - Apr. 12

• 599 BC - Mahavira was born (d. 0527 BC). Founder of Jainism.
• 0065 - Lucius Annaeus Seneca dies (b. c.3 BC). Philosopher, dramatist, statesman.
• 0238 - Roman emperor Gordian I dies (suicide) .
• 0238 - Roman emperor Gordian II dies, killed in battle.
• 0352 - St Julius I dies. Pope (0337-0352).
• 0467 - Anthemius is elevated to Emperor of the Western Roman Empire .
• 0812 - Muhammad at-Taqi was born (d. 0835). Shia Imam.
• 1167 - Karl Sverkersson dies. King of Sweden.
• 1204 - Alexius V, the last Greek emperor of a united Byzantium, fled Constantinople in the face of the Fourth Crusade. / A Quarta Cruzada saqueia Constantinopla.
• 1372 - Renovação do Tratado de comércio de Portugal com a Inglaterra
• 1443 - Henry Chichele dies. Archbishop of Canterbury.
• 1539 - Nace em Cuzco, Perú, Garcilaso de la Vega, El Inca, historiador y militar .
• 1550 - Edward de Vere, 17th earl of Oxford was born. English lyric poet who emerged in the 20th century as the strongest candidate proposed (other than William Shakespeare himself) as the author of Shakespeare's plays.
• 1557 - Fundação da cidade de Santa Ana de los ríos de Cuenca - Equador.
• 1605 - Boris Godunov dies. Tsar of Russia (1598-1605).
• 1606 - The Union Jack is adopted as the national flag of Great Britain.
• 1609 - Los Países Bajos recobran la independencia de España.
• 1633 - The formal interrogation by the Inquisition of Galileo Galilei begins.
• 1647 - Maria Sibylla Merian, German painter, botanist and entomologist, who died on 13 January 1717. She was born in Frankfurt and was taught painting and engraving by her stepfather, the painter and engraver Jacob Marrel [1613 – 11 Nov 1681 bur.], whose speciality was traditional Dutch flower pictures .
• 1671 - Canonizan al jesuita español San Francisco de Borja.
• 1695 - Jean-Baptiste Corneille dies (b. 02 Nov 1649). French painter and engraver.
• 1704 - Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet dies (b. 25 Sep 1627). French religious and writer.
• 1724 - Partiu de Lisboa uma embaixada com destino a China.
• 1727 - Antoine Dieu dies (b. 1662). French painter, dealer, draftsman, and designer.
• 1748 - Antoine Laurent de Jussieu was born in Lyon (d. 17 Sep 1836). French botanist who developed the principles that served as the foundation of a natural system of plant classification.
• 1748 - William Kent dies. English architect
• 1761 - Jacques de Lajoüe dies (b. 1686). French painter, draftsman, and designer.
• 1776 - North Carolina's Provincial Congress authorized its delegates to the Second Continental Congress to vote for independence by issuing the Halifax Resolves.
• 1777 - Leendert de Koningh, was born (d. 05 Jun 1849). Dutch artist.
• 1777 - Henry Clay was born (d.1852). American statesman and orator.
• 1782 - Metastasio, pseudonym of Pietro Armando Dominico Trapassi, dies. Italian poet and librettist (b. 1698) .
• 1789 - Nascimento de Santo Antonio Maria Giannelli (canonizado em 21 Out 1951).
• 1799 - Henri Druey, was born (d.1855). Member of the Swiss Federal Council (d. 1855).
• 1799 - The first US patent for a comb-cutting machine was issued to Phineas Pratt of Connecticut as a "machine for making combs."
• 1817 - Morte do astrónomo francês Charles Messier.
• 1823 - Aleksandr Ostrovsky, was born. Russian playwright.
• 1831 - Grenville Mellen Dodge was born (d. 03 Jan 1916). American civil engineer who was responsible for much of the railroad construction in the western and southwestern U.S. during the 19th century.
• 1832 - Hugo Adolph Steinheil, was born (d. 1893). Optician.
• 1833 - Louis Florent Polydore Roux, dies (b. 31 Jul 1792). French naturalist and painter.
• 1833 - The first U.S. patent for a fireproof safe was issued to Charles A. Gaylor of New York City, as a "fire-proof iron chest."
• 1833 - Charles Gaylor patented the fireproof safe in New York City.
• 1838 - John Shaw Billings was born (d. 11 Mar 1913). American surgeon and librarian whose organization of U.S. medical institutions played a central role in the modernization of hospital care and the maintenance of public health.
• 1840 - Ferdinand Victor Léon Roybet, was born (d. 10 Apr 1920). French painter.
• 1847 - Egor Ivanovitch Zolotarev , was born in St. Petersburg, Russia (d. 19 Jul 1878). Russian mathematician.
• 1849 - Albert Heim was born (d. 31 Aug 1937). Swiss geologist whose studies of the Swiss Alps greatly advanced knowledge of the dynamics of mountain building and of glacial effects on topography and geology.
• 1850 - Adoniram Judson, dies (b. 1788). Pioneer Baptist missionary to India and Burma.
• 1852 - (Carl Louis) Ferdinand von Lindemann was born (d. 6 March 1939). German mathematician who was the first to prove that the number is transcendental, that is, it does not satisfy any algebraic equation with rational coefficients.
• 1853 - Sir James Mackenzie was born (d. 26 Jan 1925). Scottish cardiologist, pioneer in the study of cardiac arrhythmias. He was first to make simultaneous records of the arterial and venous pulses to evaluate the condition of the heart, a procedure that laid the foundation for much future research.
• 1856 - William Martin Conway, was born (d. 1937). English art critic and mountaineer.
• 1857 - Gustave Flaubert's "Madame Bovary" published.
• 1861 - Gyula Tornai was born (d.24 Nov 1928) . Hungarian Orientalist painter.
• 1861 - American Civil War: The war begins with Confederate forces firing on Fort Sumter, in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina .
• 1862 - Nace en Buenos Aires el profesor, historiador y sociólogo Juan Agustín García, autor de "La ciudad indiana", "Chiche y su tiempo" y "Sombras que pasan", entre otras obras. Falleció en Buenos Aires el 23 de junio de 1923.
• 1863 - Raul Pompéia was born in Jacucanga, Angra dos Reis (d. 25 Dec 1895). Brazilian writer ( O Ateneu ).
• 1864 - American Civil War: Fort Pillow massacre: Confederate forces under General Nathan Bedford Forrest kill most of the African American soldiers who had surrendered at Fort Pillow, Tennessee.
• 1865 - American Civil War: Mobile, Alabama falls to the Union Army .
• 1867 - Sindo Garay was born (d. 1968). Cuban singer and musician.
• 1867 - Davi Canabarro dies (b. 22 Aug 1796). Brazilian revolucionary militar
• 1870 - John Stough Bobbs, dies (b. 28 Dec 1809). American physician who performed the first U.S. gallstone operation in Indianapolis, Indiana, becoming known as "the father of cholecystotomy".
• 1877- The United Kingdom annexes the Transvaal.
• 1878 - Richard Benedict Goldschmidt was born (d. 24 Apr 1958). German-born U.S. zoologist and geneticist, formulator of the theory that chromosome molecules are the more decisive factors in inheritance (rather than the qualities of the individual genes).
• 1882 - José de Abreu Albano was born in Fortaleza (d. 11 Jul 1923). Brazilian poet.
• 1883 - Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell, was born (d.1937). British artist.
• 1883 - Imogen Cunningham was born (d. 23 Jun 1976). American photographer
• 1884 - Otto Meyerhof was born (d. 6 Oct 1951). German biochemist, winner of Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine - 1922. for research on the chemical reactions of metabolism in muscle.
• 1885 - Robert-Victor-Félix Delaunay was born (d.25 Oct 1941). French Cubist painter. Husband of Sonia Delaunay [14 Nov 1885 – 05 Dec 1979].
• 1888 - A French newspaper mistakenly published an obituary for Albert Nobel, inventor of dynamite, calling him "a merchant of death." The mistake was that it was actually Albert's brother, Ludwig Nobel, who had just died (at age 56, due to heart trouble). However, shocked by the newspaper's report, Albert Nobel began to seek a change in public opinion, which led to his decision to establish the Nobel Prizes.
• 1888 - Cecil Kimber, was born in south London. Founder of MG.
• 1891 - Se juegan los dos primeros partidos oficiales de la historia del fútbol argentino: Buenos Ayres F.C. vs. Saint Andrew's, y Old Caledonians vs. Belgrano F.C.
• 1892 - The first U.S. patent for a portable typewriter, the Blickensderfer, by George lickensderfer of Stamford, Connecticut (No. 472,692).
• 1892 - Johnny Dodds, was born (d.1940). Jazz musician.
• 1893 - Jules Jacques Veyrassat, dies (b. 02 Jul 1828). French artist.
• 1894 - Francisco Higino Craveiro Lopes was born. Portuguese general and President of Republic (1951-58).
• 1895 - Lily Pons was born (d. 1976). Opera soprano.
• 1896 - Karl Humann dies (b. 4 Jan 1839). German engineer and archaeologist, whose excavation of the ancient Greek city of Pergamum (now Bergama, Tur.) brought to light some of the choicest examples of Hellenistic sculpture and revealed much about Hellenistic city planning
• 1897 - Edward Drinker Cope dies (b. 28 July 1840). American paleontologist and prolific taxonomist of vertebrate paleontology. He was also active in ichthyology and herpetology.
• 1902 - Louis Beel, was born (d.1977). Prime Minister of the Netherlands.
• 1903 - Sally Rand, was born (d.1979). Fan dancer .
• 1903 - Jan Tinbergen, was born (d. 14 Jun 1994). Dutch economist and U.N. advisor, Nobel Prize 1969 for his work with econometric models.
• 1904 - Lily Pons was born (d. 1976). French-born American opera singer.
• 1904 - Paul (Victor Ernest) Dahlke was born in Streitz († 24 Nov 1984). Actor.
• 1907 - Felix de Weldon was born (d. 2003). Sculptor.
• 1908 - Lionel Hampton was born (d. 2002). Musician.
• 1908 - Carlos Lleras Restrepo was born (d. 1990). Politician and lawyer. President of Colombia (1966-1970).
• 1909 - Bartolomeo Giuliano, dies in Milan, Italy (b. 1825). Italian artist, painter.
• 1911 - Foi concretizado o primeiro voo sem paragens entre Paris e Londres, pelo piloto francês Pierre Prier.
• 1912 - Clara Barton, dies (b. 25 Dec 1821).American nursing pioneer and Red Cross advocate.
• 1916 - Beverly Cleary, was born in McMinnville, Oregon. US writer.
• 1921 - Henri Adolphe Laissement, dies (b. 1854). French artist.
• 1922 - Tiny Tim, was born (d. 1996). English musician.
• 1923 - American scientists studying Einstein's Theory of Relativity found further evidence in support of its correctness.
• 1924 - Peter Safar was born (d. 3 Aug 2003). Austrian-American physician whose pioneering "Kiss of Life" procedure of mouth-to-mouth resuscitations is credited with saving countless lives. In the 1960s the technique was combined with new chest compressions, producing what's known today as CPR, or cardio-pulmonary resuscitation.
• 1923 - José Eligio Ayala assume a presidência do Paraguai.
• 1924 - Enrico Ferri, dies (b. 1856). Italian writer and politician.
• 1924 - Nascimento de Raymond Barre (primeiro-ministro da França 1976-1981).
• 1925 - Fundación del Club Bolívar de La Paz, Bolivia.
• 1926 - By a vote of 45 to 41, the United States Senate unseats Iowa Senator Smith W. Brookhart and seats Daniel F. Steck, after Brookhart had already served for over one year.
• 1928 - El rey de Italia, Víctor Manuel III, sale ileso de un atentado en la inauguración de la Feria de Muestras de Milán.
• 1928 - Jean-François Paillard, was born. French conductor.
• 1931 - Nascimento em Maranguape - CE de Chico Anysio, [Francisco Anysio de Oliveira Paula] actor, humorista, diretor, compositor, escritor e comentarista brasileiro .
• 1932 - Tratado comercial entre Lituânia e Portugal.
• 1933 - Montserrat Caballé, was born in Barcelona, Cataluña, Spain. Catalan soprano.
• 1934 - The fastest natural wind ever recorded blew in at 231 miles per hour on this date, at Mount Washington, New Hampshire.
• 1936 - Glen Campbell, American musician
• 1937 - Sir Frank Whittle ground-tests the first jet engine designed to power an aircraft, at the British Thomson-Houston factory in Rugby, England .
• 1938 - Feodor Chaliapin dies (b. 1873). Operatic bass.
• 1939 - Alan Ayckbourn was born in Hampstead. British playwright and director.
• 1940 - Herbie Hancock was born. US musician: Jazz pianist and composer.
• 1940 - Italy annexes Albania .
• 1941 - Bobby Moore was born (d. 1993). English national football team captain.
• 1942 - Carlos Alberto Reutemann was born in Santa Fe, Argentina. Winner of 12 Formula 1 races. South Africa, Austria and America 1974, Germany 1975, Brazil 1977, Brazil, USA West, Great Britain and USA East 1978, Monaco 1980, Brazil and Belgium 1981. Won 1981 South African Grand Prix put race did not count for championship points. Runner up in 1981 world championship by 1 point. Moved into politics after retiring from F1 in 1982. Is now Governor of Sante Fe province in Argentina.
• 1942 - 9th Golf Masters Championship: Byron Nelson wins, shooting a 280
• 1944 - John Kay of Steppenwolf was born.
• 1945 - Franklin Delano Roosevelt, recently elected to a record fourth term in office, dies in Warm Springs, Georgia, of a cerebral hemorrhage. 32nd President of the United States. Vice President Harry S. Truman is sworn as the 33rd President of the United States.
• 1946 - Syria gains independence from France .
• 1946 - Ed O'Neill was born. Actor.
• 1947 - Tom Clancy was born. American author.
• 1947 - David Letterman was born. American television entertainer and talk show host.
• 1948 - Joschka Fischer was born. Foreign minister of Germany .
• 1948 - Sandra "Lois" Reeves was born. Singer, member of Martha & the Vandellas .
• 1949 - Scott Turow was born. Writer.
• 1950 - David Cassidy was born. Singer, actor.
• 1952 - Ralph Wiley was born (d. 2004). Sports journalist.
• 1953 - 17th Golf Masters Championship: Ben Hogan wins, shooting a 274
• 1954 - 18th Golf Masters Championship: Sam Snead wins, shooting a 289
• 1954 - Bill Haley and His Comets recorded Rock Around the Clock for Decca Records.
• 1955 - The Salk vaccine against polio was announced to work, and be "safe, effective and potent," after a year-long field trial. Dr. Thomas Francis, Jr. made the statement at a press conference in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on the tenth annniversary of the death of Franklin Roosevelt (1945), the U.S. president who was a victim of the disease. Dr. Francis was a former professor of Jonas Salk.
• 1956 - Andy Garcia was born in Cuba. Actor ( Stand and Deliver, 8 Million Ways to Die).
• 1956 - Herbert Grönemeyer was born. Singer, pianist and actor.
• 1956 - Walter Salles was born. Brasilian film director.
• 1957 - Vince Gill was born. Country musician .
• 1957 - Bonn: Leading German physicists drop all work connected with nuclear weapons.
• 1961 - Lisa Gerrard was born. Singer, film composer.
• 1961 - Yuri Gagarin aboard Vostok 1, is the first man to travel to space; he makes one orbit of the earth during his 108-minute flight.
• 1961 - 3rd Grammy Awards: Theme From a Summer Place, Ray Charles wins 4.
• 1962 - Las Cortes Españolas aprueban la nacionalización del Banco de España.
• 1962 - Carlos Sainz was born. Spanish race car driver.
• 1962 - Antoine Pevsner [Natan Borisovich Pevzner], dies (b. 18 Jan 1884). Belorussian French painter and sculptor.
• 1962 - Sir Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya, Indian politician and engineer, dies at 101.
• 1963 - Alfred Métraux dies (b. 5 Nov 1902). Swiss anthropologist noted for his pioneering contributions to South American ethnohistory and the examination of African culture in Haiti. While director of the ethnological institute at the University of Tucumán, Argentina, (1928-34) he wrote two classic works on the ethnohistory of the extinct Tupinambá Indians of Brazil .
• 1963 - Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz dies (b. 12 Dec 1890). Polish logician and semanticist who was the chief contributor to the Warsaw school of philosophy and logic.
• 1964 - Philadelphia singer Chubby Checker married former Miss World, the Dutch-born beauty Catharina Lodders.
• 1964 - 28th Golf Masters Championship: Arnold Palmer wins, shooting a 276.
• 1964 - Arnold Palmer won his fourth Masters title and became the first golfer to make career earnings of $506,496.84.
• 1965 - Silvye Vartin / Johnny Halliday wed .
• 1966 - Sumokil, president of Republic South Moluccas, executed .
• 1968 - Alicia Coppola, was born in Huntington, Long Island, New York, USA. Actress.
• 1968 - Nerve gas accident at Skull Valley, Utah .
• 1969 - Simon & Garfunkel releases "The Boxer" .
• 1971 - Igor Yevgenyevich Tamm dies (b. 8 July 1895). Soviet physicist who shared the 1958 Nobel Prize for Physics with Pavel A. Cherenkov and Ilya M. Frank for his efforts in explaining Cherenkov radiation.
• 1971 - Shannen Doherty, was born in Memphis, Tenessee. Actress (Little House on the Prairie, Bev Hills 90210, Our House, Night Shift, Heathers).
• 1971 - Nicholas Brendon, was born. Actor .
• 1971 - Fernando Meligeni was born. Argentine tennies player.
• 1973 - France recognizes North Vietnam .
• 1973 - Sudan adopts constitution.
• 1973 - Swaziland suspends constitution.
• 1973 - Comienza a funcionar la Universidad Nacional de La Pampa.
• 1973 - Nascimento de Roberto Ayala. Jogador argentino de futebol.
• 1973 - Nascimento de Christian Panucci. Jogador italiano de futebol.
• 1975 - Nascimento em Petropolis - RJ, de Camila Morgado (Camila Ribeiro da Silva), atriz brasileira.
• 1974 - Marley Shelton was born. Actress.
• 1975 - Josephine Baker dies (b. 1906). Dancer.
• 1975 - Vietnam War: The United States embassy in Phnom Penh, Cambodia is evacuated as Khmer Rouge troops encircle the city .
• 1975 - Camila Morgado was born. Brazilien actress.
• 1976 - Henrik Dam dies. Danish biochemist and physician, Nobel Prize 1943.
• 1978 - Riley Smith was born. American actor.
• 1979 - Claire Danes was born in New York, New York, USA. Actress (Angela-My So Called Life, Romeo and Juliet, How to Make an American Quilt, Home for the Holidays, Little Women, Law & Order, The Mod Squad).
• 1980 - Clark McConachy, dies (b.1895). Billiards and snooker player.
• 1981 - Joe Louis dies in Las Vegas, Nevada (b. 1914). American world heavyweight boxing champion from 1937 to 1949.
• 1981 - The first launch of a Space Shuttle: Columbia launches on the STS-1 mission.
• 1981 - 45th Golf Masters Championship: Tom Watson wins, shooting a 280
• 1981 - the shuttle Columbia was launched into space, to become the first of a series of reusable spacecraft.
• 1982 - Deen was born. Bosnian singer.
• 1983 - La película española "Volver a empezar", de José Luis Garci, consigue por primera vez para España el "Oscar" a la mejor película en lengua no inglesa.
• 1985 - Un atentado atribuído a la "Yihad Islámica" en el restaurante El Descanso de Madrid, provoca 18 muertos y 82 heridos.
• 1985 - U.S. Olympic Committee endorses a boycott of Moscow games .
• 1987 - 51st Golf Masters Championship: Larry Mize wins, shooting a 285
• 1987 - Larry Mize, 28, hit a miracle shot - a 140-foot chip - to win the Masters golf title in Augusta, GA. Mize defeated Greg Norman and Severiano Ballesteros in a playoff.
• 1987 - Ahmed Salah wins 2nd World Cup marathon (2:10:55) .
• 1988 - the first U.S. patent was issued on an animal life form to Harvard scientists for a genetically engineered mouse.
• 1988 - Alan Paton dies (b. 1903). South-African novelist.
• 1989 - Sugar Ray Robinson dies (b. 1921). Multiple time world champion boxer.
• 1989 - Abbie Hoffman dies (b. 1936). Radical leader.
• 1990 - Christian Bernard F.R.C., becomes Imperator of AMORC .
• 1992 - EuroDisney opens in Marne-la-Vallee, France.
• 1992 -56th Golf Masters Championship: Fred Couples wins, shooting a 275
• 1994 - Israel y la OLP concluyen en El Cairo el acuerdo sobre la policía palestina que se desplegará en Gaza y Jericó y que contará con 9.000 hombres .
• 1994 - the first Internet spamming program was used by an attorney in Arizona. Laurence Canter created the software program, a simple Perl script, that flooded Usenet message board readers
• 1997 - George Wald dies (b. 18 Nov 1906) American biochemist who received (with Haldan K. Hartline of the U.S. and Ragnar Granit of Sweden) the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1967 for his work on the chemistry of vision.
• 1998 - 62nd Golf Masters Championship Mark O’Meara wins.
• 1999 - A U.S. District Court judge cites President Bill Clinton in contempt of court for lying under oath about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky.
• 2001 - Harvey Ball dies (b. 10 Jul 1921). Inventor of the Smiley .
• 2002 - Coup d'Etat against Hugo Chávez in Venezuela .
• 2003 - Hungria: referendum para adesão à UE; a participação é de 45% da população com direito de voto e 84% dos votantes votam a favor do ingresso na União Europeia.
• 2003 - Malta e Hungria votam sua adesão ao Tratado de Maastricht (União Européia).
• 2003 - Cecil H. Green, dies (b. 1900). Texas Instruments Founder.
• 2004 - Ucrânia ratifica o Protocolo de Kyoto.
• 2005 - Andrus Ansip is confirmed by the Riigikogu, the Estonian Parliament, as the country's next Prime Minister, following the 24 March resignation of former Prime Minister Juhan Parts.