12 November

Events

• 1439 - Plymouth, England becomes the first town incorporated by the English Parliament.
• 1918 - Austria becomes a republic.
• 1927 - Leon Trotsky is expelled from the Soviet Communist Party, leaving Joseph Stalin with undisputed control of the Soviet Union.
• 1927 - The Holland Tunnel opens to traffic as the first Hudson River vehicular tunnel linking New Jersey to New York City.
• 1934 - The musical Babes in Toyland debuts, featuring Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy as comic relief (see Laurel and Hardy).
• 1936 - In California, the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge opens to traffic.
• 1941 - World War II: Temperatures around Moscow drop to -12 ° C and the Soviet Union launches ski troops for the first time against the freezing German forces near the city.
• 1942 - World War II: Battle of Guadalcanal begins - A naval battle near Guadalcanal starts between Japanese and American forces.
• 1944 - World War II: The Royal Air Force launches one of the most successful precision bombing attacks of war and sinks the German battleship Tirpitz off the coast of Norway.
• 1946 - A branch of the Exchange National Bank in Chicago, Illinois opens the first ten drive-up teller windows.
• 1948 - In Tokyo, an international war crimes tribunal sentences seven Japanese military and government officials to death, including General Hideki Tojo, for their roles in World War II.
• 1969 - Vietnam War: My Lai Massacre - Independent investigative journalist Seymour Hersh breaks the My Lai story.
• 1971 - Vietnam War: Vietnamization - US President Richard M. Nixon sets February 1, 1972 as the deadline for the removal of another 45,000 American troops from Vietnam.
• 1979 - Iran hostage crisis: In response to the hostage situation in Tehran, US President Jimmy Carter orders a halt to all oil imports into the United States from Iran.
• 1980 - Voyager program: The NASA space probe Voyager I makes its closest aproach to Saturn when it flies within 77,000 miles of the planet's cloud-tops and sends the first high resolution images of the world back to scientists on Earth.
• 1982 - In the Soviet Union, Yuri Andropov is selected to become the general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party's Central Committee, succeeding the late Leonid I. Brezhnev.
• 1990 - Crown Prince Akihito becomes the 125th Japanese monarch and takes the title Emperor Akihito of Japan.
• 1990 - Tim Berners-Lee publishes a more formal proposal for the World Wide Web. [1]
• 1996 - A Saudi Arabian Airlines Boeing 747 and a Kazakh Ilyushin-76 cargo plane collide in mid-air near New Delhi, India killing 349
• 1997 - Ramzi Yousef is found guilty of masterminding the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
• 1998 - Daimler-Benz completes a merger with Chrysler to form Daimler-Chrysler.
• 2001 - In New York City, an Airbus A300 carrying American Airlines Flight 587 crashes minutes after takeoff from John F. Kennedy International Airport, killing all 260 on-board.
• 2001 - 2001 Attack on Afghanistan: Taliban forces abandon Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, ahead of advancing Northern Alliance troops.
• 2003 - Occupation of Iraq: In Nasiriya, Iraq, at least 23 people, among them the first Italian casualties of the 2003 Iraq war are killed in a suicide bomb attack on an Italian police base.

Births

• 1493 - Bartolommeo Bandinelli, Italian sculptor († 1560)
• 1815 - Elizabeth Cady Stanton, women's rights activist († 1902)
• 1817 - Mírzá Husayn-'Alí (Bahaullah, founder of the Bahá'í Faith
• 1833 - Alexander Borodin, Russian composer († 1887)
• 1840 - Auguste Rodin, French sculptor († 1917)
• 1866 - Sun Yat-sen, first President of the Republic of China († 1925)
• 1889 - DeWitt Wallace, publisher ("Reader's Digest") († 1981)
• 1903 - Jack Oakie, American actor († 1978)
• 1908 - Harry Blackmun, Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court; wrote the majority opinion in Roe v. Wade († 1999)
• 1910 - Kurt Hoffmann, film director
• 1915 - Roland Barthes, French writer († 1980)
• 1917 - Jo Stafford, singer
• 1920 - Richard Quine, actor
• 1922 - Sunset Carson, actor
• 1922 - Kim Hunter, actress († 2002)
• 1923 - Vicco von Bülow, known as Loriot, graphic artist, actor and film director
• 1929 - Grace Kelly, Princess Grace of Monaco, actress († 1982)
• 1929 - Michael Ende, writer († 1995)
• 1930 - Ann Flood, actress
• 1934 - Charles Manson, murderer
• 1943 - Brian Hyland, singer
• 1943 - Wallace Shawn, actor, playwright
• 1944 - Booker T. Jones, musician (Booker T and the MG's)
• 1944 - Al Michaels, sports reporter
• 1945 - Neil Young, singer, songwriter, musician
• 1961 - Nadia Comaneci, gymnast
• 1966 - David Schwimmer, actor
• 1968 - Sammy Sosa, baseball player
• 1970 - Tonya Harding, figure skating star

Deaths

• 1035 - Canute the Great
• 1094 - Duncan II of Scotland
• 1955 - Alfréd Hajós, Hungarian swimmer
• 1976 - Walter Piston, composer
• 1984 - Chester Himes, author
• 1990 - Eve Arden, actress
• 1993 - H. R. Haldeman, Watergate scandal figure
• 1994 - Wilma Rudolph, runner
• 2001 - Tony Miles, chess player
• 2003 - Jonathan Brandis, actor

Holidays and Observances

See Also

November 11 - November 13 - October 12 - December 12 -- listing of all days

January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December

Referenced By