Events on February 12 45
Year 1429
English forces under Sir John Fastolf defend a supply convoy carrying rations to the army besieging Orléans in the Battle of the Herrings.
Year 1502
Isabella I issued an edict outlawing Islam in the Crown of Castile, forcing virtually all her Muslim subjects to convert to Christianity.
Year 1554
A year after claiming the throne of England for nine days, Lady Jane Grey is beheaded for treason.
Year 1593
Japanese invasion of Korea: Approximately 3,000 Joseon defenders led by general Kwon Yul successfully repel more than 30,000 Japanese forces in the Siege of Haengju.
Year 1689
The Convention Parliament declares that the flight to France in 1688 by James II, the last Roman Catholic British monarch, constitutes an abdication.
Year 1733
Englishman James Oglethorpe founds Georgia, the 13th colony of the Thirteen Colonies, and its first city at Savannah (known as Georgia Day).
Year 1817
An Argentine/Chilean patriotic army, after crossing the Andes, defeats Spanish troops on the Battle of Chacabuco.
Year 1818
Bernardo O'Higgins formally approves the Chilean Declaration of Independence near Concepción, Chile.
Year 1825
The Creek cede the last of their lands in Georgia to the United States government by the Treaty of Indian Springs, and migrate west.
Year 1851
Edward Hargraves announces he has found gold in Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia, starting the Australian gold rushes.
Year 1894
Anarchist Émile Henry hurls a bomb into the Cafe Terminus in Paris, killing one person and wounding 20.
Year 1909
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is founded.
Year 1909
New Zealand's worst maritime disaster of the 20th century happens when the SS Penguin, an inter-island ferry, sinks and explodes at the entrance to Wellington Harbour.
Year 1921
Bolsheviks launch a revolt in Georgia as a preliminary to the Red Army invasion of Georgia.
Year 1924
George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue received its premiere in a concert titled "An Experiment in Modern Music", in Aeolian Hall, New York, by Paul Whiteman and his band, with Gershwin playing the piano.
Year 1935
USS Macon, one of the two largest helium-filled airships ever created, crashes into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California and sinks.
Year 1946
World War II: Operation Deadlight ends after scuttling 121 of 154 captured U-boats.
Year 1946
African American United States Army veteran Isaac Woodard is severely beaten by a South Carolina police officer to the point where he loses his vision in both eyes. The incident later galvanizes the Civil Rights Movement and partially inspires Orson Welles' film Touch of Evil.
Year 1947
The largest observed iron meteorite until that time creates an impact crater in Sikhote-Alin, in the Soviet Union.
Year 1947
Christian Dior unveils a "New Look", helping Paris regain its position as the capital of the fashion world.
Year 1954
Lyons's LEO produces a payroll report. It is the first time in history a computer is used in business.
Year 1965
Malcolm X visits Smethwick following the racial charged 1964 general election.[1]
Year 1974
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1970, is exiled from the Soviet Union.
Year 1983
One hundred women protest in Lahore, Pakistan against military dictator Zia-ul-Haq's proposed Law of Evidence. The women were tear-gassed, baton-charged and thrown into lock-up. The women were successful in repealing the law.
Year 1990
Carmen Lawrence becomes the first female Premier in Australian history when she becomes Premier of Western Australia.
Year 1993
Two-year-old James Bulger is abducted from New Strand Shopping Centre by two ten-year-old boys, who later torture and murder him.
Year 1994
Four thieves break into the National Gallery of Norway and steal Edvard Munch's iconic painting The Scream.
Year 1999
United States President Bill Clinton is acquitted by the United States Senate in his impeachment trial.
Year 2001
NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft touches down in the "saddle" region of 433 Eros, becoming the first spacecraft to land on an asteroid.
Year 2002
The trial of Slobodan Milošević, the former President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, begins at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands. He dies four years later before its conclusion.
Year 2002
An Iran Airtour Tupolev Tu-154 crashes in the mountains outside Khorramabad, Iran while descending for a landing at Khorramabad Airport, killing 119.
Year 2004
The city of San Francisco begins issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples in response to a directive from Mayor Gavin Newsom.
Year 2009
Colgan Air Flight 3407 crashes into a house in Clarence Center, New York while on approach to Buffalo Niagara International Airport, killing all on board and one on the ground.