http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history
Apr 12, 1861: The Civil War begins
The bloodiest four years in American history begin when Confederate shore batteries under General P.G.T. Beauregard open fire on Union-held Fort Sumter in South Carolina's Charleston Bay. During the next 34 hours, 50 Confederate guns and mortars launched more than 4,000 rounds at the poorly supplied fort. On April 13, U.S. Major Robert Anderson surrendered the fort. Two days later, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation calling for 75,000 volunteer soldiers to quell the Southern "insurrection."
As early as 1858, the ongoing conflict between North and South over the issue of slavery had led Southern leadership to discuss a unified separation from the United States. By 1860, the majority of the slave states were publicly threatening secession if the Republicans, the anti-slavery party, won the presidency. Following Republican Abraham Lincoln's victory over the divided Democratic Party in November 1860, South Carolina immediately initiated secession proceedings. On December 20, the South Carolina legislature passed the "Ordinance of Secession," which declared that "the Union now subsisting between South Carolina and other states, under the name of the United States of America, is hereby dissolved." After the declaration, South Carolina set about seizing forts, arsenals, and other strategic locations within the state. Within six weeks, five more Southern states--Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana--had followed South Carolina's lead.
In February 1861, delegates from those states convened to establish a unified government. Jefferson Davis of Mississippi was subsequently elected the first president of the Confederate States of America. When Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated on March 4, 1861, a total of seven states (Texas had joined the pack) had seceded from the Union, and federal troops held only Fort Sumter in South Carolina, Fort Pickens off the Florida coast, and a handful of minor outposts in the South. Four years after the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter, the Confederacy was defeated at the total cost of 620,000 Union and Confederate soldiers dead.
Apr 12, 1633: Galileo is convicted of heresy
On this day in 1633, chief inquisitor Father Vincenzo Maculano da Firenzuola, appointed by Pope Urban VIII, begins the inquisition of physicist and astronomer Galileo Galilei. Galileo was ordered to turn himself in to the Holy Office to begin trial for holding the belief that the Earth revolves around the Sun, which was deemed heretical by the Catholic Church. Standard practice demanded that the accused be imprisoned and secluded during the trial.
This was the second time that Galileo was in the hot seat for refusing to accept Church orthodoxy that the Earth was the immovable center of the universe: In 1616, he had been forbidden from holding or defending his beliefs. In the 1633 interrogation, Galileo denied that he "held" belief in the Copernican view but continued to write about the issue and evidence as a means of "discussion" rather than belief. The Church had decided the idea that the Sun moved around the Earth was an absolute fact of scripture that could not be disputed, despite the fact that scientists had known for centuries that the Earth was not the center of the universe.
This time, Galileo's technical argument didn't win the day. On June 22, 1633, the Church handed down the following order: "We pronounce, judge, and declare, that you, the said Galileo... have rendered yourself vehemently suspected by this Holy Office of heresy, that is, of having believed and held the doctrine (which is false and contrary to the Holy and Divine Scriptures) that the sun is the center of the world, and that it does not move from east to west, and that the earth does move, and is not the center of the world."
Along with the order came the following penalty: "We order that by a public edict the book of Dialogues of Galileo Galilei be prohibited, and We condemn thee to the prison of this Holy Office during Our will and pleasure; and as a salutary penance We enjoin on thee that for the space of three years thou shalt recite once a week the Seven Penitential Psalms."
Galileo agreed not to teach the heresy anymore and spent the rest of his life under house arrest. It took more than 300 years for the Church to admit that Galileo was right and to clear his name of heresy.
Apr 12, 1961: First man in space
On April 12, 1961, aboard the spacecraft Vostok 1, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin becomes the first human being to travel into space. During the flight, the 27-year-old test pilot and industrial technician also became the first man to orbit the planet, a feat accomplished by his space capsule in 89 minutes. Vostok 1 orbited Earth at a maximum altitude of 187 miles and was guided entirely by an automatic control system. The only statement attributed to Gagarin during his one hour and 48 minutes in space was, "Flight is proceeding normally; I am well."
After his historic feat was announced, the attractive and unassuming Gagarin became an instant worldwide celebrity. He was awarded the Order of Lenin and given the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Monuments were raised to him across the Soviet Union and streets renamed in his honor.
The triumph of the Soviet space program in putting the first man into space was a great blow to the United States, which had scheduled its first space flight for May 1961. Moreover, Gagarin had orbited Earth, a feat that eluded the U.S. space program until February 1962, when astronaut John Glenn made three orbits in Friendship 7. By that time, the Soviet Union had already made another leap ahead in the "space race" with the August 1961 flight of cosmonaut Gherman Titov in Vostok 2. Titov made 17 orbits and spent more than 25 hours in space.
To Soviet propagandists, the Soviet conquest of space was evidence of the supremacy of communism over capitalism. However, to those who worked on the Vostok program and earlier on Sputnik (which launched the first satellite into space in 1957), the successes were attributable chiefly to the brilliance of one man: Sergei Pavlovich Korolev. Because of his controversial past, Chief Designer Korolev was unknown in the West and to all but insiders in the USSR until his death in 1966.
Born in the Ukraine in 1906, Korolev was part of a scientific team that launched the first Soviet liquid-fueled rocket in 1933. In 1938, his military sponsor fell prey to Soviet leader Joseph Stalin's purges, and Korolev and his colleagues were also put on trial. Convicted of treason and sabotage, Korolev was sentenced to 10 years in a labor camp. The Soviet authorities came to fear German rocket advances, however, and after only a year Korolev was put in charge of a prison design bureau and ordered to continue his rocketry work.
In 1945, Korolev was sent to Germany to learn about the V-2 rocket, which had been used to devastating effect by the Nazis against the British. The Americans had captured the rocket's designer, Wernher von Braun, who later became head of the U.S. space program, but the Soviets acquired a fair amount of V-2 resources, including rockets, launch facilities, blueprints, and a few German V-2 technicians. By employing this technology and his own considerable engineering talents, by 1954 Korolev had built a rocket that could carry a five-ton nuclear warhead and in 1957 launched the first intercontinental ballistic missile.
That year, Korolev's plan to launch a satellite into space was approved, and on October 4, 1957, Sputnik 1 was fired into Earth's orbit. It was the first Soviet victory of the space race, and Korolev, still technically a prisoner, was officially rehabilitated. The Soviet space program under Korolev would go on to numerous space firsts in the late 1950s and early '60s: first animal in orbit, first large scientific satellite, first man, first woman, first three men, first space walk, first spacecraft to impact the moon, first to orbit the moon, first to impact Venus, and first craft to soft-land on the moon. Throughout this time, Korolev remained anonymous, known only as the "Chief Designer." His dream of sending cosmonauts to the moon eventually ended in failure, primarily because the Soviet lunar program received just one-tenth the funding allocated to America's successful Apollo lunar landing program.
Korolev died in 1966. Upon his death, his identity was finally revealed to the world, and he was awarded a burial in the Kremlin wall as a hero of the Soviet Union. Yuri Gagarin was killed in a routine jet-aircraft test flight in 1968. His ashes were also placed in the Kremlin wall.
Apr 12, 1917: Canadians capture Vimy Ridge
After three days of fierce combat and over 10,000 casualtie suffered, the Canadian Corps seizes the previously German-held Vimy Ridge in northern France on April 12, 1917.
Many historians have pointed to the victory at Vimy Ridge during World War I as a moment of greatness for Canada, when it emerged from Britain's shadow to attain its own measure of military achievement. As a result of the victory, earned despite the failure of the larger Allied offensive of which it was a part, Canadian forces earned a reputation for efficiency and strength on the battlefield.
The Allied offensive—masterminded by the French commander in chief, Robert Nivelle—began Easter Monday, April 9, 1917, as British and Canadian forces launched simultaneous attacks on German positions at Arras and Vimy Ridge, a heavily fortified, seven-kilometer-long raised stretch of land with a sweeping view of the Allied lines. The first day was overwhelmingly successful for the Allies, as the British punched through the Hindenburg Line—the defensive positions to which Germany had retreated in February 1917—and overran sections of two German trench lines within two hours, taking 5,600 prisoners.
The Canadians, attacking over a stretch of land littered with the dead of previous French attacks on the same positions, also moved swiftly in the first hours of the offensive, as four Canadian divisions stormed the ridge at 5:30 am on April 9, moving forward under cover of a punishing artillery barrage that forced the Germans to hunker down in their trenches and away from their machine guns. More than 15,000 Canadian infantry troops attacked Vimy Ridge that day, overrunning the German positions and taking 4,000 prisoners.
Three more days of heavy fighting resulted in victory on April 12, when control of Vimy was in Canadian hands. Though the Nivelle Offensive as a whole failed miserably, the Canadian operation had proved a success, albeit a costly one: 3,598 Canadian soldiers were killed and another 7,000 were wounded. Vimy Ridge became a shining example of Canada's effort in the Great War, and one that served as a symbol of the sacrifice the young British dominion had made for the Allied cause. As Brigadier-General A.E. Ross famously declared after the war, in those few minutes I witnessed the birth of a nation. In 1922, the French government ceded Vimy Ridge and the land surrounding it to Canada; the gleaming white marble Vimy Memorial was unveiled in 1936 as a testament to the more than 60,000 Canadians who died in service during World War I.
Apr 12, 1770: British repeal hated Townshend Act
On this fateful day in 1770, the British government moves to mollify outraged colonists by repealing most of the clauses of the hated Townshend Act. Initially passed on June 29, 1767, the Townshend Act constituted an attempt by the British government to consolidate fiscal and political power over the American colonies by placing import taxes on many of the British products bought by Americans, including lead, paper, paint, glass and tea.
The measure bore the name of its sponsor, Charles Townshend, the chancellor of the Exchequer, who was notoriously conservative in his understanding of colonial rights. Townshend's annual Revenue Act levied a controversial package of taxes on the colonists, including duties on lead, painters' colors, paper and tea. The chancellor also undermined the colonial judiciary by increasing the power of the British navy's vice-admiralty courts over American colonists and initiating an American Board of Customs Commissioners charged with enforcing his new import taxes. These taxes were used at least in part to fund the salaries of colonial governors and judges to ensure their financial, and thus political, independence from the colonial assemblies. Townshend also moved British troops from the western frontier to the eastern seaboard, where they were both less expensive to supply and more troubling to colonists, who feared that they were being asked to cover the expenses of their own military oppression.
Riotous protest of the Townshend Acts in the colonies often invoked the phrase no taxation without representation. Colonists eventually decided not to import British goods until the act was repealed and to boycott any goods that were imported in violation of their non-importation agreement. Colonial anger culminated in the deadly Boston Massacre on March 5, 1770.
Also on March 5, Townshend's successor (he had died soon after proposing the hated act), Lord Frederick North, asked Parliament to repeal the Townshend Acts except for the duty on tea; he considered all the duties bad for trade and, thus, expensive for the British empire. However, he wished to avoid the appearance of weakness in the face of colonial protest and thus left the tea tax in place. This strategy successfully divided colonial merchants, eager, for their own enrichment, to resume trade in all British goods barring tea, from colonial craftsmen, who profited from non-importation agreements, and wished to leave them in place as long as the tax on tea remained in effect.
Apr 12, 1945: President Franklin D. Roosevelt dies
While on a vacation in Warm Springs, Georgia, President Roosevelt suffers a stroke and dies. His death marked a critical turning point in U.S. relations with the Soviet Union, as his successor, Harry S. Truman, decided to take a tougher stance with the Russians.
By April 1945, Roosevelt had been elected president of the United States four times and had served for over 12 years. He had seen the United States through some of its darkest days, from the depths of the Great Depression through the toughest times of World War II. In early 1945, shortly after being sworn in for his fourth term as president, Roosevelt was on the verge of leading his nation to triumph in the Second World War. Germany teetered on the brink of defeat, and the Japanese empire was crumbling under the blows of the American military. In February 1945, Roosevelt traveled to Yalta in the Soviet Union to meet with Russian leader Joseph Stalin and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to discuss the postwar world. Roosevelt returned from these intense meetings drawn and sick. He vacationed in Warm Springs, Georgia, but the rest did not lead to recuperation. On April 12, 1945, he suffered a massive stroke and died.
Roosevelt left a controversial legacy in terms of U.S.-Soviet relations. Critics charged that the president had been "soft" on the communists and naive in dealing with Stalin. The meetings at Yalta, they claimed, resulted in a "sellout" that left the Soviets in control of Eastern Europe and half of Germany. Roosevelt's defenders responded that he made the best of difficult circumstances. He kept the Grand Alliance between the United States, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain intact long enough to defeat Germany. As for Eastern Europe and Germany, there was little Roosevelt could have done, since the Red Army occupied those areas. Roosevelt's successor, Harry S. Truman, decided that a "tougher" policy toward the Soviets was in order, and he began to press the Russians on a number of issues. By 1947, relations between the two former allies had nearly reached the breaking point and the Cold War was in full swing.
Apr 12, 1981: Lawrence Taylor drafted by NY Giants
On April 12, 1981, the New York Giants draft University of North Carolina linebacker Lawrence Taylor as their first-round pick and the second selection overall in the NFL Draft. Taylor went on to revolutionize the linebacker position and revitalize the Giants football franchise.
Taylor, a Virginia native, didn’t start playing organized football until his junior year of high school, when a coach recruited him for his size. Still, he went on to play football at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he became an All-American known for his intense, hard-hitting style. The New York Giants selected the 6’3” Taylor as the second overall pick in the 1981 NFL Draft on April 12 and that season he went on to be named the NFL’s Defensive Rookie of the Year. He helped the team make it to their first playoff appearance since 1963 and quickly established himself as a star in New York, dazzling football fans with his speed, strength and fearlessness, and terrorizing a generation of quarterbacks.
In 1986, Taylor recorded 20.5 sacks and was named the NFL’s MVP, the first defensive player to receive the honor since Alan Page of the Minnesota Vikings in 1971. He also led the Giants to a Super Bowl victory, the team’s first championship since 1956. The Giants would claim another Super Bowl championship in 1990. Before retiring after the 1993 season, “L.T.,” as he was known, was named to the All-Pro team 10 times and recorded 132.5 sacks (not including his 9.5 sacks in 1981, as the NFL didn’t make sacks an official stat until 1982), 1,088 tackles, 11 fumble recoveries and nine interceptions.
Off the football field, Taylor led a fast-lane lifestyle and struggled with substance abuse. In 1987, he tested positive for cocaine use and the following year, after failing a second drug test, received a 30-day suspension from football. In his 2003 autobiography, “L.T.: Over the Edge,” he admitted to cheating on NFL drug tests by using urine from other players. After retiring from football, the legendary linebacker’s hard-partying ways continued. He did stints in rehab and was arrested several times on drug charges before getting sober.
After hanging up his football helmet, Taylor worked as a TV sports commentator and actor, appearing in such films as Any Given Sunday and The Waterboy. In 1999, he was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame on the first ballot. He is widely considered one of the best defensive football players in history.
Here's a more detailed look at events that transpired on this date throughout history:
467 - Anthemius is elevated to Emperor of the Western Roman
Empire.
1065 - Pilgrims under bishop Gunther of Bamberg reach
Jerusalem
1111 - Pope Paschalis II crowns Henry V, Roman emperor
1204 - 4th Crusade occupies & plunders Constantinople
1229 - Queen Blanche of Castile & earl Raymond VII van
Toulouse sign peace
1545 - French king Francois I orders protestants of Vaudois
to be killed
1557 - Cuenca is founded in Ecuador.
1606 - England adopts the Union Flag, replaced in 1801 by
current Union Flag/Union Jack
1648 - University of Harderwijk Neth solemn opens
1654 - Ordinance of Union between England and Scotland
passed by the Council of State
1709 - 1st edition of Tattler magazine in England
1713 - Dutch State-Gen signs peace with France: Neth loses
Orange Princedom
1770 - Townsend Acts repealed
1776 - Halifax resolution for independence adopted by North
Carolina
1782 - Battle at Les Saintes West-Indies: British fleet
beats French
1787 - Philadelphia's Free African Society forms
1811 - 1st US colonists on Pacific coast arrive at Cape
Disappointment, WA
1820 - Alexander Ypsilantis is declared leader of Filiki
Eteria, a secret organization to overthrow Ottoman rule over Greece.
1826 - Weber's opera "Oberon," premieres in London
1844 - Texan envoys sign Treaty of Annexation with the
United States
1857 - Gustave Flaubert's "Madame Bovary"
published
1858 - 1st US billiards championship (Michael J Phelan wins
in Detroit)
1859 - Hibernia Savings & Loan Society of SF
incorporates
1861 - Fort Sumter, SC is shelled by Confederacy, starting
Civil War
1862 - James Andrews steals Confederate train (General) at
Kennesaw, GA
1862 - Union troops occupy Fort Pulaski Georgia
1863 - -14] Gunboat battle at Bayou Teche Louisiana
1864 - Battle of Blair's Landing LA
Confederate General/KKK Grand Wizard Nathan Bedford
ForrestConfederate General/KKK Grand Wizard Nathan Bedford Forrest 1864 - Confederate
Gen Nathan Bedford Forrest captures Fort Pillow, Tn
1869 - North Carolina legislature passes anti-Klan Law
1872 - Jesse James gang robs bank in Columbia, Kentucky (1
dead/$1,500)
1877 - British annex Transvaal, in South Africa
1877 - Catcher's mask 1st used in a baseball game
1883 - French troops under lt-colonel Borgnis-Desbordes
occupy Bamako Senegal
1887 - Henrik Ibsen's "Rosmersholm," premieres in
Oslo
1892 - George C Blickensderfer patents portable typewriter
1893 - Battle at Hoornkrans Southwest-Africa: German
Schutztruppen chases away Hottentotten under Hendrik Witbooi
1894 - British & Belgian secret accord on dividing
Central-Africa
1896 - Stamasia Portrisi is 1st woman to win a marathon
(5:30 in Athens)
1898 - Army transfers Yerba Buena Island in SF Bay to Navy
1905 - French Dufaux brothers test helicopter
1905 - Hippodrome arena opens (NYC)
1907 - Belgium government of De Stain de Naeyer, resigns
Outlaw Jesse JamesOutlaw Jesse James 1908 - Fire makes
17,000 homeless in Chelsea Massachusetts
1909 - Philadelphia's Shibe Park (later Connie Mack Stadium)
opens
1911 - 1st non-stop London-Paris flight (Pierre Prier in
3h56m)
1917 - Bijou Theater opens at 222 W 45th St NYC (Demolished
1982)
1917 - Domenico Scarlatti & Jeab Cocteaus ballet
premieres in Rome
1919 - British Parliament passes a 48-hour work week with
minimum wages
1926 - Dutch Catholic Radio Broadcast (KRO) forms
1927 - Gen Chiang Kai-shek begins counter revolution in
Shanghai
1930 - 4th Test Cricket WI v England ends in a draw after
nine days
1930 - Wilfred Rhodes ends Test Cricket career aged 52 years
165 days
1931 - Joe McCarthy debuts as NY Yankee manager
1931 - Spanish voters reject the monarchy
1932 - Emmanuel Chabriers & Balanchines ballet premieres
in Monte Carlo
1933 - Moffatt Field commissioned
1934 - Highest velocity wind ever recorded on Mt Washington,
NH, 231 mph
1934 - The US Auto-Lite Strike begins, culminating in a
five-day melee between Ohio National Guard troops and 6,000 strikers and
picketers.
1935 - "Your Hit Parade," debuts on radio
1935 - Germany prohibits publishing "not-Arian"
writers
1935 - Royal Proclamation sets design of Canada's new
Jubilee Silver Dollar
1935 - First flight of the Bristol Blenheim.
1937 - Sir Frank Whittle ground-tests the first jet engine
designed to power an aircraft at Rugby, England.
1938 - 1st US law requiring medical tests for marriage
licenses (NY)
1938 - Stanley Cup: Chicago Blackhawks beat Toronto Maple
Leafs, 3 games to 1
1938 - US began requiring medical tests for marriage
licenses
1940 - Italy annexes Albania
1940 - NFL cuts clipping penalty from 25 yards to 15 yards
1941 - Stanley Cup: Boston Bruins sweep Detroit Red Wings in
4 games
Dictator of Nazi Germany Adolf HitlerDictator of Nazi
Germany Adolf Hitler 1941 - Vichy-France's head of government Admiral Dalarn
consults with Hitler
1942 - 9th Golf Masters Championship: Byron Nelson wins,
shooting a 280
1942 - Japan kills about 400 Filipino officers in Bataan
1943 - Allies conquer Soussa, North-Africa
1943 - Dutch Catholic University Nijmegen closed
1944 - Lillian Hellman's "Searching Wind,"
premieres in NYC
1945 - Canadian troops liberate Nazi concentration camp
Westerbork, Neth
1945 - Harry Truman sworn in as 33rd pres
1945 - Richard Strauss completes his
"Metamorphosis"
1946 - Syria gains independence from France
1951 - Israeli Knesset officially designated April 13 as
Holocaust Day
1952 - Betsy Rawls wins LPGA Houston Weathervane Golf
Tournament
1952 - Salaheddine Baccouche forms Tunisian government
1953 - 17th Golf Masters Championship: Ben Hogan wins,
shooting a 274
1953 - KFDX TV channel 3 in Wichita Falls, TX (NBC) begins
broadcasting
33rd US President Harry Truman33rd US President Harry Truman
1953 - Keizo Yamada runs fastest marathon to date, at Boston
1954 - 18th Golf Masters Championship: Sam Snead wins,
shooting a 289
1954 - 8th NBA Championship: Min Lakers beat Syracuse
Nationals, 4 games to 3
1954 - Belgian Van Houtte government resigns
1954 - Bill Haley & Comets records "Rock Around
Clock"
1954 - Joe Turner releases "Shake, Rattle &
Roll"
1955 - 1st game in KC, KC A's beat Detroit Tigers, 6-2
1955 - Salk polio vaccine safe & effective; 4 billion
dimes marched
1956 - Bandaranaike government forms in Ceylon
1957 - Jim Spalding set a 2088 pin nine-game bowling record
1957 - USSR performs atmospheric nuclear test
1958 - 12th NBA Championship: St Louis Hawks beat Bost
Celtics, 4 games to 2
1958 - Flemish Open air museum opens in Bokrijk
1959 - 13th Tony Awards: J B & Redhead win
1959 - Betsy Rawls wins LPGA Babe Didrikson-Zaharias Golf
Open
1959 - France Observator reports torture practice by French
army in Algeria
1960 - Bert Haanstra wins Oscar for "Glass"
1960 - Bill Veeck & Chicago Comiskey Park debuts
"Exploding Scoreboard"
Musician Ray CharlesMusician Ray Charles 1961 - 3rd Grammy
Awards: Theme From a Summer Place, Ray Charles wins 4
1961 - Douglas MacArthur declines offer to become baseball
commissioner
1961 - Yuri Alexeyevich Gagarin becomes 1st person to orbit
Earth (Vostok 1)
1962 - San Mateo County withdraws from BART district (SF Bay
area)
1963 - Beatles "From Me to You" is released in UK
1963 - Birmingham police use dogs & cattle prods on
peaceful demonstrators
1964 - 28th Golf Masters Championship: Arnold Palmer wins,
shooting a 276
1964 - Sandra Haynie wins LPGA Baton Rouge Ladies' Golf Open
Invitational
1965 - 1st NL game at Houston's Astrodome (Phillies beat
Astros 2-0)
1966 - 1st B-52 bombing on North Vietnam
1966 - Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium opens; Pirates beat
Braves 3-2
1966 - Rocker Jan Berry crashes his corvette into a parked
truck
1968 - Nerve gas accident at Skull Valley, Utah.
1969 - Simon & Garfunkel releases "Boxer"
1970 - Yankees dedicate plaques to Mickey Mantle & Joe
DiMaggio
WW2 General Douglas MacArthurWW2 General Douglas MacArthur
1973 - France recognizes North Vietnam
1973 - Sudan adopts constitution
1973 - Swaziland suspends constitution
1975 - Linda Ronstadt releases "When Will I Be
Loved"
1976 - India set 403 to win by WI They get them, 6 wkts 7
overs spare
1979 - Soyuz 33 returns to Earth
1980 - BCMA, Black Consciousness Movement of Azania, forms
1980 - Milwaukee beats Boston Red Sox, 18-1 (Cooper &
Money hit grand slams)
1980 - US Olympic Committee endorses a boycott of the Moscow
Olympic games
1980 - Samuel Doe takes control of Liberia in a coup d'etat,
ending over 130 years of national democratic presidential succession.
1980 - Terry Fox begins his "Marathon of Hope" at
St. John's, Newfoundland.
1981 - 45th Golf Masters Championship: Tom Watson wins,
shooting a 280
1981 - Donna Caponi Young wins LPGA American Defender/WRAL
Golf Classic
1981 - Emmy News & Documentaries Award presentation
1981 - Maiden voyage Space Transit System-space shuttle
Columbia launched
1982 - 3 CBS employees shot to death in NYC parking lot
1983 - Harold Washington elected Chicago's 1st black mayor
1983 - USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern
Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
1985 - 16th Shuttle Mission (51D)-Discovery 4 launched-with
Senator Jake Garn
1986 - 20,000 mine workers protest closing of Hasselt
Belgium mines
1987 - 51st Golf Masters Championship: Larry Mize wins,
shooting a 285
1987 - Ahmed Salah wins 2nd World Cup marathon (2:10:55)
1987 - Ayako Okamoto wins LPGA Kyocera Inamori Golf Classic
1987 - Texaco files for bankruptcy
1988 - Devils 4-2 over Islanders-Devils lead 3-2 in 1st
round
1988 - Frank Robinson replaces Cal Ripkin as manager of Balt
Orioles
1988 - Harvard U patents genetically engineered mouse (1st
for animal life)
1988 - Sonny Bono elected mayor of Palm Springs Calif
1989 - 3rd Soul Train Music Awards: Anita Baker, Bobby Brown
win
1989 - Peter Ueberroth deal to purchase Eastern Airlines
falls through
1990 - Greyhound Bus hires new drivers to replace strikers
1990 - James Brown moves to a work-release center after
serving 15 months
1990 - 1st meeting of East German democratically elected
parliament, acknowledges responsibility for Nazi holocaust & asks for
forgivenesss
1991 - 2,500th episode of Entertainment Tonight airs
1991 - Nepalese Congress party wins general elections
1991 - US announces closing of 31 major US military bases
1992 - "Streetcar Named Desire" opens at Ethel
Barrymore NYC for 137 perfs
1992 - 2nd lowest NBA scoring game - Detroit Piston 72, NY
Knicks 61
1992 - 53rd PGA Seniors Golf Championship: Lee Trevino
1992 - 56th Golf Masters Championship: Fred Couples wins,
shooting a 275
1992 - Earthquake rocks Germany
1992 - Euro Disney opens in Marne-la-Vallee France
1992 - Lynn Gunther of California threatens to blow herself
up in front of UN
1992 - Matt Young no-hits Cleveland, but loses 2-1
1992 - NY Mets lose 1st 3 home games for 1st time since 1962
1992 - Trump Shuttle becomes US Air Shuttle
1994 - Canter & Siegel post the first commercial mass
Usenet spam.
1998 - 62nd Golf Masters Championship: Mark O'Meara wins,
shooting a 279
1998 - An earthquake in Slovenia, measuring 5.6 on the
Richter scale occurs near the town of Bovec.
42nd US President Bill Clinton42nd US President Bill Clinton
1999 - US President Bill Clinton is cited for contempt of court for giving
"intentionally false statements" in a sexual harassment civil
lawsuit.
2002 - Pedro Carmona becomes interim President of Venezuela
during the military coup against Hugo Chávez.
2002 - Palestinian suicide bomber (female) kills 7 and
injures 104 (among them 9 Arabs) at the Mahane Yehuda Market in Jerusalem.
2009 - U.S. Navy rescues captain Richard Phillips, killing
three pirates and capturing a fourth.
2009 - President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian National
Authority makes a courtesy phone call to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of
Israel, restarting the Palestinian-Israeli dialogue
2009 - 73rd Golf Masters Championship: Ángel Cabrera wins,
shooting a 276
2010 - A train derailed near Merano, Italy, after running
into a landslide, causing nine deaths and injuring 28 people.
2012 - A ceasefire in the 2011-2012 Syrian uprising comes
into effect
2012 - Bodleian, Oxford University and Vatican libraries
announce over 1.5 million pages of ancient texts will be made available across
the internet
2012 - Civilian rule in Mali is returned after Dioncounda
Traore is sworn in as interim president
2013 - 11 people are killed and 30 are injured in mosque
attacks across Iraq
2013 - A man-made 32-foot and 60 tonne monument that is
dates around 2000 BC is discovered in the see of Galilee
1096 - Peter the Hermit gathered his army in Cologne. 1204 - The Fourth Crusade sacked Constantinople. 1606 - England adopted the original Union Jack as its flag. 1770 - The British Parliament repealed the Townsend Acts. 1782 - The British navy won its only naval engagement against the colonists in the American Revolution at the Battle of Saints, off Dominica. 1799 - Phineas Pratt patented the comb cutting machine. 1811 - The first colonists arrived at Cape Disappointment, Washington. 1833 - Charles Gaylor patented the fireproof safe. 1861 - Fort Sumter was shelled by Confederacy, starting America's Civil War. 1864 - Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest captured Fort Pillow, in Tennessee and slaughters the black Union troops there. 1877 - A catcher's mask was used in a baseball game for the first time by James Alexander Tyng. 1892 - Voters in Lockport, New York, became the first in the U.S. to use voting machines. 1905 - The Hippodrome opened in New York City. 1911 - Pierre Prier completed the first non-stop London-Paris flight in three hours and 56 minutes. 1916 - American cavalrymen and Mexican bandit troops clashed at Parrel, Mexico. 1927 - The British Cabinet came out in favor of women voting rights. 1934 - F. Scott Fitzgerald novel "Tender Is the Night" was first published. 1938 - The first U.S. law requiring a medical test for a marriage license was enacted in New York. 1944 - The U.S. Twentieth Air Force was activated to begin the strategic bombing of Japan. 1945 - In New York, the organization of the first eye bank, the Eye Bank for Sight Restoration, was announced. 1945 - U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt died in Warm Spring, GA. He died of a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 63. Harry S Truman became president. 1955 - The University of Michigan Polio Vaccine Evaluation Center announced that the polio vaccine of Dr. Jonas Salk was "safe, effective and potent." 1961 - Soviet Yuri Alexeyevich Gagarin became first man to orbit the Earth. 1963 - Police used dogs and cattle prods on peaceful civil rights demonstrators in Birmingham, AL. 1966 - Emmett Ashford became the first African-American major league umpire. 1967 - Jim Brown made his TV acting debut on the NBC show "I Spy." 1969 - Lucy and Snoopy of the comic strip "Peanuts" made the cover of "Saturday Review." 1981 - The space shuttle Columbia blasted off from Cape Canaveral, FL, on its first test flight. 1982 - The British Navy began enforcing a blockade around the Falkland Islands. 1982 - Three CBS employees were shot to death in a New York City parking lot. 1983 - Harold Washington was elected the first black mayor of Chicago. 1984 - Astronauts aboard the space shuttle Challenger made the first satellite repair in orbit by returning the Solar Max satellite to space. 1984 - Israeli troops stormed a bus that had been hijacked the previous evening by four Arab terrorists. All the passengers were rescued and 2 of the hijackers were killed. 1985 - U.S. Senator Jake Garn of Utah became the first senator to fly in space as the shuttle Discovery lifted off from Cape Canaveral, FL. 1985 - In Spain, an explosion in a restaurant near a U.S. base killed 17 people. 1985 - Federal inspectors declared that four animals of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus were not unicorns. They were goats with horns that had been surgically implanted. 1987 - Texaco filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy after it failed to settle a legal dispute with Pennzoil Co. 1988 - Harvard University won a patent for a genetically altered mouse. It was the first patent for a life form. 1988 - The Chinese government named a new array of younger leaders to ensure economic reform. 1989 - In the U.S.S.R, ration cards were issued for the first time since World War II. The ration was prompted by a sugar shortage. 1992 - Disneyland Paris opened in Marne-La-Vallee, France. 1993 - NATO began enforcing a no-fly zone over Bosnia and Herzegovina. 2000 - More than 1,500 anti-drug agents raided four cities in Colombia and arrested 46 members of the "most powerful" heroin ring. 2000 - Robert Cleaves, 71, was convicted of second degree murder and was sentenced to 16 years in prison. Cleaves had repeatedly run over Arnold Guerreiro on September 30, 1998 with his car after the two had an argument. 2000 - Israel's High Court ordered the release of eight Lebanese detainees that had been held for years without a trial. 2002 - A first edition version of Beatrix Potter's "Peter Rabbit" sold for $64,780 at Sotheby's. A signed first edition of J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit" sold for $66,630. A copy of "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone," signed by J.K. Rowling sold for $16,660. A 250-piece collection of rare works by Charles Dickens sold for $512,650. 2002 - It was announced that the South African version of "Sesame Street" would be introducing a character that was HIV-positive. 2002 - JCPenney Chairman Allen Questrom rang the opening bell to start the business day at the New York Stock Exchange as part of the company's centennial celebrations. James Cash (J.C.) Penney opened his first retail store on April 14, 1902.
1861 The Civil War began when Fort Sumter was attacked. 1862 James J. Andrews led the raiding party that stole the Confederate locomotive "The General," inspiring the 1926 Buster Keaton movie. 1945 President Franklin Roosevelt died. 1955 The polio vaccine of Dr. Jonas Salk was called "safe, effective, and potent." 1961 Soviet cosmonaut Yuri A. Gagarin became the first human in space and also the first human to orbit the earth in a spacecraft. 1981 The first space shuttle, Columbia, took its first test flight. 1983 Harold Washington was elected Chicago’s first African-American mayor. 1999 Arkansas federal judge Susan Webber Wright found President Clinton in contempt of court for lying about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky.
The following links are to web sites that were used to complete this blog entry:
http://www.historyorb.com/today/events.php
http://on-this-day.com/onthisday/thedays/alldays/apr12.htm
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history
http://www.infoplease.com/dayinhistory
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