September 12
is the 255th day of the year (256th in
leap years). There are 110 days remaining.
*
490 BC -
Athens defeats
Persia at the
Battle of Marathon - but see
12 August; origin of the
marathon long-distance race (attributed to
Pheidippides)
*
1213 -
Albigensian Crusade:
Simon de Montfort, 5th Earl of Leicester defeats
Peter II of Aragon, the king of
Aragon at the
Battle of Muret.
*
1229 - An
Aragonese-
Catalan army under the command of
James I of Aragon disembarks at
Santa Ponça,
Mallorca, with the purpose of conquering the island.
*
1609 -
Henry Hudson discovers the
Hudson River.
*
1683 -
Austro-Ottoman War:
Battle of Vienna - Several
European armies join forces to defeat the
Ottoman Empire.
*
1814 -
Battle of North Point: An
American detachment halts the
British land advance to
Baltimore in the
War of 1812.
*
1846 -
Elizabeth Barrett elopes with
Robert Browning.
*
1847 -
Mexican-American War: The
Battle of Chapultepec begins.
U.S. Army deserters in the
Saint Patrick's Battalion who fought alongside the
Mexican army are
hanged en masse for
treason by the order of General
Winfield Scott.
*
1890 -
Salisbury,
Rhodesia, is founded.
*
1930 -
Wilfred Rhodes ends his 1110-game first-class career by taking 5 for 95 for H.D.G. Leveson Gower's XI against the Australians.
*
1933 -
Leó Szilárd, waiting for a red light on Southampton Row in
Bloomsbury, conceives the idea of the
nuclear chain reaction.
*
1938 -
Adolf Hitler demands autonomy for the
Germans of the
Sudetenland region of
Czechoslovakia.
*
1940 - Cave paintings discovered in
Lascaux,
France.
* 1940 - The Hercules Munitions Plant in
Kenvil, New Jersey explodes, killing 55 people.
*
1942 -
RMS Laconia, carrying civilians, Allied soldiers and
Italian POWs is
torpedoed off the coast of
West Africa and sinks.
*
1943 -
Benito Mussolini, dictator of
Italy, is rescued from house arrest by German commando
Otto Skorzeny*
1944 - The liberation of
Serbia from
Nazi Germany and the
Chetniks continues.
Bajina Bašta in western Serbia is among those liberated cities.
*
1947 - The U.S.
Screen Actors Guild implements an anti-
Communist loyalty oath
*
1953 -
Nikita Khrushchev is elected first secretary of the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union* 1953 -
John F. Kennedy marries
Jackie Bouvier.
*
1957 -
NORAD begins operations.
*
1959 -
Bonanza premiers. First regularly-scheduled TV program presented in color.
*
1962 - President
John F. Kennedy declares the USA will get a man on the moon, and safely bring him back, by the end of the decade.
*
1974 -
Emperor Haile Selassie of
Ethiopia, '
Messiah' of the
Rastafari movement, is deposed following a
military coup by the
Derg.
* 1974 -
Juventude Africana Amilcar Cabral is founded in
Guinea-Bissau.
*
1977 -
South African anti-
apartheid activist
Steve Biko is killed in police custody.
*
1979 -
Indonesia is hit with an
earthquake that measures 8.1 on the
Richter scale.
*
1980 - Military
coup in
Turkey*
1983 - A
Wells Fargo depot in
West Hartford, Connecticut,
United States, was robbed of approximately US$7 million by
Los Macheteros .
*
1990 - The two
German states and the
Four Powers sign the
Treaty on the Final Settlement With Respect to Germany in
Moscow, paving the way for
German re-unification.
*
1992 -
NASA launches
Space Shuttle Endeavour on
STS-47 which marked the 50th shuttle mission. On board is
Mae Carol Jemison who becomes the first African-American woman in space.
* 1992 -
Abimael Guzmán, leader of the
Shining Path, is captured by
Peruvian special forces; shortly thereafter the rest of Shining Path's leadership fell as well.
*
1993 -
NASA launches, on the 4th launch attempt,
Space Shuttle Discovery on mission
STS-51 which marked the 57th Space Shuttle mission. During this spectacular mission the ACTS was inserted into orbit as well as (temporarily) SPAS. Practice was also gained for the Hubble Space Telescope repair mission through EVA. This mission ended with the 6th night landing of the Shuttle, at The Kennedy Space Centre.
*
1994 -
Frank Eugene Corder crashes a Cessna 150 into the White House's south lawn, striking the West wing and killing himself.
*
2001 -
NATO Article V of the NATO agreement is invoked for the first time in response to the
September 11, 2001 attacks against the
United States of America.
*
2003 - The
United Nations lifted
sanctions against
Libya after that country agreed to accept responsibility and recompense the families of victims in the
1988 bombing of
Pan Am Flight 103*
2005 - The
red-green coalition, led by
Jens Stoltenberg, wins the
Norwegian parliamentary election, taking 87 of 169 seats in the
parliament.
* 2005 -
Israel completes its withdrawal of all troops and settlers from the
Gaza Strip.
* 2005 - A blackout in
Los Angeles affects millions of Californians.
* 2005 -
Hong Kong Disneyland opens in
Penny's Bay,
Lantau Island,
Hong Kong.
*
1492 -
Lorenzo II de' Medici, Duke of Urbino (d.
1519)
*
1494 - King
Francis I of France (d.
1547)
*
1575 -
Henry Hudson, English explorer
*
1605 -
William Dugdale, English antiquarian (d.
1686)
*
1688 -
Ferdinand Brokoff, Czech sculptor (d.
1731)
*
1690 -
Peter Dens, Belgian Catholic theologian (d.
1775)
*
1725 -
Guillaume Le Gentil, French astronomer (d.
1792)
*
1740 -
Johann Heinrich Jung, German author (d.
1817)
*
1812 -
Richard Hoe, American inventor and industrialist (d.
1886)
*
1818 -
Richard Gatling, American weapons inventor (d.
1903)
*
1880 -
H. L. Mencken, American journalist and author (d.
1956)
*
1888 -
Maurice Chevalier, French singer and actor (d.
1972)
*
1891 - Don
Pedro Albizu Campos, advocate for Puerto Rican independence (d.
1965)
*
1892 -
Alfred A. Knopf, American publisher (d.
1984)
*
1897 -
Irene Joliot-Curie, French physicist, recipient of the
Nobel Prize in Chemistry (d.
1956)
*
1901 -
Ben Blue, Canadian actor and comedian (d.
1975)
*
1902 -
Juscelino Kubitschek de Oliveira, President of Brazil (d.
1976)
*
1907 -
Louis MacNeice, Northern Irish poet (d.
1963*
1913 -
Jesse Owens, American athlete (d.
1980)
*
1914 -
Desmond Llewelyn, Welsh actor (d.
1999)
*
1915 -
Frank McGee, American journalist (d.
1974)
*
1916 -
Tony Bettenhausen, American race car driver (d.
1961)
*
1921 -
Stanisław Lem, Polish writer
*
1922 -
Ellen Demming, American actress
*
1925 -
Stan Lopata, American baseball player
*
1931 - Sir
Ian Holm, English actor
*
1931 -
George Jones, American country singer
*
1934 -
Glenn Davis, American athlete
*
1937 -
George Chuvalo, Canadian boxer
*
1940 -
Mickey Lolich, baseball player
*
1942 -
Linda Gray, American actress
*
1943 -
Maria Muldaur, American singer
* 1943 -
Michael Ondaatje, Sri Lankan-born writer
*
1944 -
Leonard Peltier, Native American activist
* 1944 -
Barry White, American singer (d.
2003)
*
1951 -
Joe Pantoliano, American actor
* 1951 -
Bertie Ahern, Irish politician
*
1952 -
Neil Peart, Canadian drummer and author (
Rush)
*
1954 -
Peter Scolari, American actor
*
1956 -
Leslie Cheung, Hong Kong singer (d.
2003)
* 1956 -
Ricky Rudd, American race car driver
* 1956 -
Barry Andrews, British musician and songwriter
*
1957 -
Rachel Ward, English actress
* 1957 -
Road Warrior Hawk, wrestler (d.
2003)
*
1958 -
Wilfredo Benitez, American boxer
*
1962 -
Dino Merlin, Bosnian singer/songwriter
*
1963 -
Amy Yasbeck, American actress
*
1965 -
John Norwood Fisher, American musician
*
1966 -
Ben Folds, American musician
*
1967 -
Pat Listach, baseball player
*
1968 -
Ler LaLonde, American Guitarist (
Primus)
* 1968 -
John Stutz, American photographer
* 1968 -
Paul F. Tompkins, American comedian
*
1973 -
Darren Campbell, British athlete
* 1973 -
Paul Walker, American actor
*
1974 -
Nuno Valente, Portuguese footballer
*
1976 -
Maciej Zurawski, Polish footballer
*
1977 -
Nathan Bracken, Australian cricketer
* 1977 -
David Thomspon, English footballer
* 1977 -
James McCartney, British musician
*
1978 -
Ruben Studdard, American singer
* 1978 -
Benjamin McKenzie, American actor (The O.C.)
*
1980 -
Gus G., Greek guitarist (Firewind, ex-
Dream Evil)
* 1980 -
Josef Vasicek, Czech ice hockey player
* 1980 -
Sean Burroughs, baseball player
* 1980 -
Yao Ming, Chinese basketball player
*
1986 -
Emmy Rossum, American actress and singer
*
1986 -
Adam Fein, American humorist and satirist
*
413 -
Marcellinus of Carthage, Christian saint
*
1185 -
Andronicus I Comnenus (tortured by the City mob)
*
1213 - King
Peter II of Aragon (killed in battle) (b.
1174)
*
1362 -
Pope Innocent VI*
1369 -
Blanche of Lancaster, wife of
John of Gaunt (plague) (b.
1345)
*
1500 -
Albert, Duke of Saxony (b.
1443)
*
1612 - Tsar
Vasili IV of Russia (b.
1552)
*
1642 -
Henri Coiffier de Ruzé, Marquis of Cinq-Mars, French conspirator (b.
1620)
*
1660 -
Jacob Cats, Dutch poet, jurist, and politician (b.
1577)
*
1665 -
Jean Bolland, Flemish Jesuit writer (b.
1596)
*
1672 -
Tanneguy Lefebvre, French classical scholar (b.
1615)
*
1683 - King
Afonso VI of Portugal (b.
1643)
*
1691 -
John George III, Elector of Saxony (b.
1647)
*
1695 -
Jacob Abendana, scholar (b.
1630)
*
1712 -
Jan van der Heyden, Dutch painter (b.
1637)
*
1733 -
François Couperin, French composer (b.
1668)
*
1764 -
Jean-Philippe Rameau, French composer (b.
1683)
*
1779 -
Richard Grenville-Temple, 2nd Earl Temple, English politician (b.
1711)
*
1819 -
Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher, Prussian general (b.
1742)
*
1836 -
Christian Dietrich Grabbe, German writer (b.
1801)
*
1870 -
Fitz Hugh Ludlow, American author (b.
1836)
*
1874 -
François Guizot, French historian and statesman (b.
1787)
*
1918 -
George Reid, fourth
Prime Minister of Australia (b.
1845)
*
1919 -
Leonid Andreyev, Russian writer (b.
1871)
*
1923 -
Jules Violle, French physicist and inventor (b.
1841)
*
1927 -
Sarah Frances Whiting, American physicist and astronomer (b.
1847)
*
1929 -
Rainis, Latvian poet and playwright (b.
1865)
*
1941 -
Hans Spemann, German embryologist, recipient of the
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b.
1869)
*
1945 -
Hajime Sugiyama, Japanese general (committed
suicide, b.
1880)
*
1953 -
Hugo Schmeisser, German weapons designer (b.
1884)
*
1956 -
Hans Carossa, German writer (b.
1878)
*
1961 -
Carl Hermann, German physicist (b.
1898)
*
1968 -
Tommy Armour, Scottish golfer (b.
1894)
*
1972 -
William Boyd, American actor (b.
1895)
*
1977 -
Steve Biko, South African anti-apartheid activist (b.
1946)
*
1981 -
Eugenio Montale, Italian poet,
Nobel Prize laureate (b.
1896)
*
1991 -
Chris Von Erich, Professional wrestler
*
1992 -
Anthony Perkins, American actor (b.
1932)
*
1993 -
Raymond Burr, Canadian actor (b.
1917)
* 1993 -
Willie Mosconi, American billiards player (b.
1913)
*
1994 -
Tom Ewell, American actor (b.
1909)
* 1994 -
Boris Yegorov, cosmonaut (b.
1937)
* 1994 -
Frank Eugene Corder, suicide pilot crashed into the White House lawn (b.
1956)
*
2001 -
Victor Wong, Chinese-American actor (b.
1927)
*
2003 -
Johnny Cash, American singer and guitarist (b.
1932)
*
RC Saints - Holy Name of Mary
* Also see
September 12 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)*
Cape Verde -
National Day*
Ethiopia - National Revolution Day (
1974)
*
Maryland (
United States) -
Defenders Day*
BBC: On This Day*
An online video game developed to "explore some aspects of the war on terror" See also: September 11 -
September 13 -
August 12 -
October 12 –
listing of all daysInsert non-formatted text here
