Events on August 12 39
Year 1099
First Crusade: Battle of Ascalon Crusaders under the command of Godfrey of Bouillon defeat Fatimid forces led by Al-Afdal Shahanshah. This is considered the last engagement of the First Crusade.
Year 1121
Battle of Didgori: The Georgian army under King David IV wins a decisive victory over the famous Seljuk commander Ilghazi.
Year 1164
Battle of Harim: Nur ad-Din Zangi defeats the Crusader armies of the County of Tripoli and the Principality of Antioch.
Year 1323
Signature of the Treaty of Nöteborg between Sweden and Novgorod Republic, that regulates the border between the two countries for the first time.
Year 1492
Christopher Columbus arrives in the Canary Islands on his first voyage to the New World.
Year 1624
The president of Louis XIII of France's royal council is arrested, leaving Cardinal Richelieu in the role of the King's principal minister.
Year 1676
Praying Indian John Alderman shoots and kills Metacomet, the Wampanoag war chief, ending King Philip's War.
Year 1765
Treaty of Allahabad is signed. The Treaty marks the political and constitutional involvement and the beginning of Company rule in India.
Year 1793
The Rhône and Loire départments are created when the former département of Rhône-et-Loire is split into two.
Year 1806
Santiago de Liniers, 1st Count of Buenos Aires re-takes the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina after the first British invasion.
Year 1831
French intervention forces William I of the Netherlands to abandon his attempt to suppress the Belgian Revolution.
Year 1883
The last quagga dies at the Natura Artis Magistra, a zoo in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Year 1898
The Hawaiian flag is lowered from ʻIolani Palace in an elaborate annexation ceremony and replaced with the flag of the United States to signify the transfer of sovereignty from the Republic of Hawaii to the United States.
Year 1914
World War I: The United Kingdom declares war on Austria-Hungary; the countries of the British Empire follow suit.
Year 1914
World War I: The Battle of Halen a.k.a. Battle of the Silver Helmets a clash between large Belgian and German cavalry formations at Halen, Belgium.
Year 1944
Nazi German troops end the week-long Wola massacre, during which time at least 40,000 people were killed indiscriminately or in mass executions.
Year 1944
Alençon is liberated by General Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque, the first city in France to be liberated from the Nazis by French forces.
Year 1950
Korean War: Bloody Gulch massacre: American POWs are massacred by North Korean Army.
Year 1952
The Night of the Murdered Poets: Thirteen prominent Jewish intellectuals are murdered in Moscow, Russia, Soviet Union.
Year 1953
The first testing of a real thermonuclear weapon (not test devices): The Soviet atomic bomb project continues with the detonation of "RDS-6s" (Joe 4), the first Soviet thermonuclear bomb.
Year 1953
The 7.2 Ms Ionian earthquake shakes the southern Ionian Islands with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (Extreme). Between 445 and 800 people were killed.
Year 1964
South Africa is banned from the Olympic Games due to the country's racist policies.
Year 1969
Violence erupts after the Apprentice Boys of Derry march in Derry, Northern Ireland, resulting in a three-day communal riot known as the Battle of the Bogside.
Year 1976
Between 1,000 and 3,500 Palestinians are killed in the Tel al-Zaatar massacre, one of the bloodiest events of the Lebanese Civil War
Year 1977
The Sri Lanka Riots:, targeting the minority Sri Lankan Tamils, begin, less than a month after the United National Party came to power. Over 300 Tamils are killed.
Year 1985
Japan Airlines Flight 123 crashes into Osutaka ridge in Gunma Prefecture, Japan, killing 520, to become the worst single-plane air disaster.
Year 1990
Sue, the largest and most complete Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton found to date, is discovered by Sue Hendrickson in South Dakota.
Year 1992
Canada, Mexico and the United States announce completion of negotiations for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
Year 1994
Major League Baseball players go on strike, forcing the cancellation of the 1994 World Series.
Year 2000
The Russian Navy submarine Kursk explodes and sinks in the Barents Sea during a military exercise, killing her entire 118-man crew.
Year 2015
At least two massive explosions kill 173 people and injure nearly 800 more in Tianjin, China.