August 12

Events

Pre-1600

*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.
* 1121 – Battle of Didgori: The Georgian army under King David IV wins a decisive victory over the famous Seljuk commander Ilghazi.
* 1164 – Battle of Harim: Nur ad-Din Zangi defeats the Crusader armies of the County of Tripoli and the Principality of Antioch.
* 1323 – The Treaty of Nöteborg between Sweden and Novgorod Republic is signed, regulating the border between the two countries for the first time.
*1492 – Christopher Columbus arrives in the Canary Islands on his first voyage to the New World.
* 1499 – First engagement of the Battle of Zonchio between Venetian and Ottoman fleets.

1601–1900

*1624 – Charles de La Vieuville is arrested and replaced by Cardinal Richelieu as the French king's chief advisor.
* 1676 – Praying Indian John Alderman shoots and kills Metacomet, the Wampanoag war chief, ending King Philip's War.
* 1687 – Battle of Mohács: Charles of Lorraine defeats the Ottoman Empire.
*1765 – Treaty of Allahabad is signed. The Treaty marks the political and constitutional involvement and the beginning of Company rule in India.
* 1788 – The Anjala conspiracy is signed.
* 1793 – The Rhône and Loire '' départments'' are created when the former ''département'' of Rhône-et-Loire is split into two.
*1806 – Santiago de Liniers, 1st Count of Buenos Aires re-takes the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina after the first British invasion.
* 1831 – French intervention forces William I of the Netherlands to abandon his attempt to suppress the Belgian Revolution.
*1851 – Isaac Singer is granted a patent for his sewing machine.
*1865 – Joseph Lister, British surgeon and scientist, performs 1st antiseptic surgery.
*1883 – The last quagga dies at the Natura Artis Magistra, a zoo in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
*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.

1901–present

* 1914 – World War I: The United Kingdom and the British Empire declare war on Austria-Hungary.
* 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.
*1944 – Waffen-SS troops massacre 560 people in Sant'Anna di Stazzema.
* 1944 – Nazi German troops end the week-long Wola massacre, during which time at least 40,000 people are killed indiscriminately or in mass executions.
* 1944 – Alençon is liberated by General Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque, the first city in France to be liberated from the Nazis by French forces.
*1948 – Babrra massacre: About 600 unarmed members of the Khudai Khidmatgar movement are shot dead on the orders of the Chief Minister of the North-West Frontier Province, Abdul Qayyum Khan Kashmiri, on Babrra ground in the Hashtnagar region of Charsadda District, North-West Frontier Province (now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa), Pakistan.
* 1950 – Korean War: Bloody Gulch massacre: 75 American POWs are massacred by the North Korean Army.
*1952 – The Night of the Murdered Poets: Thirteen prominent Jewish intellectuals are murdered in Moscow, Russia, Soviet Union.
*1953 – First thermonuclear bomb test: The Soviet atomic bomb project continues with the detonation of "RDS-6s" (''Joe 4'') using a " layered" scheme.
* 1953 – The 7.2 Ionian earthquake shakes the southern Ionian Islands with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (''Extreme''). Between 445 and 800 people are killed.
*1960 – ''Echo 1A'', NASA's first successful communications satellite, is launched.
* 1964 – South Africa is banned from the Olympic Games due to the country's racist policies.
*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.
* 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.
*1977 – The first free flight of the .
* 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.
* 1981 – The IBM Personal Computer is released.
*1985 – Japan Airlines Flight 123 crashes into Osutaka ridge in Gunma Prefecture, Japan, killing 520, to become the worst single-plane air disaster.
*1990 – Sue, the largest and most complete ''Tyrannosaurus rex'' skeleton found to date, is discovered by Sue Hendrickson in South Dakota.
*1992 – Canada, Mexico and the United States announce completion of negotiations for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
*1994 – Major League Baseball players go on strike, eventually forcing the cancellation of the 1994 World Series.
*2000 – The Russian Navy submarine explodes and sinks in the Barents Sea during a military exercise, killing her entire 118-man crew.
*2015 – At least two massive explosions kill 173 people and injure nearly 800 more in Tianjin, China.
*2016 – Syrian civil war: The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) capture the city of Manbij from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
*2018 – Thirty-nine civilians, including a dozen children, are killed in an explosion at a weapons depot in Sarmada, Syria.
*2021 – Six people,five victims and the perpetrator are killed in the worst mass shooting in the UK since 2010 in Keyham, Plymouth.

Births

Pre-1600

* 1452 – Abraham Zacuto, Jewish astronomer, astrologer, mathematician, rabbi and historian (d. 1515)
*1503 – Christian III of Denmark (d. 1559)
* 1506 – Franciscus Sonnius, Dutch counter-Reformation theologian (d. 1576)
* 1591 – Louise de Marillac, co-founder of the Daughters of Charity (d. 1660)
*1599 – Sir William Curtius FRS, German magistrate, English baronet (d. 1678)

1601–1900

*1604 – Tokugawa Iemitsu, Japanese shōgun (d. 1651)
* 1626 – Giovanni Legrenzi, Italian composer (d. 1690)
* 1629 – Archduchess Isabella Clara of Austria, Austrian archduchess (d. 1685)
* 1644 – Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber, Bohemian-Austrian violinist and composer (d. 1704)
* 1686 – John Balguy, English philosopher and author (d. 1748)
*1696 – Maurice Greene, English organist and composer (d. 1755)
*1762 – George IV of the United Kingdom (d. 1830)
* 1773 – Karl Faber, Prussian historian and academic (d. 1853)
*1774 – Robert Southey, English poet and author (d. 1843)
* 1831 – Helena Blavatsky, Russian theosophist and scholar (d. 1891)
*1852 – Michael J. McGivney, American priest and founder of the Knights of Columbus (d. 1890)
*1856 – Diamond Jim Brady, American businessman and philanthropist (d. 1917)
*1857 – Ernestine von Kirchsberg, Austrian painter and educator (d. 1924)
* 1859 – Katharine Lee Bates, American poet and author (d. 1929)
*1860 – Klara Hitler, Austrian mother of Adolf Hitler (d. 1907)
*1866 – Jacinto Benavente, Spanish playwright, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1954)
* 1866 – Henrik Sillem, Dutch target shooter, mountaineer, and jurist (d. 1907)
* 1867 – Edith Hamilton, German-American author and educator (d. 1963)
*1870 – Henry Reuterdahl, Swedish-American artist (d. 1925)
*1871 – Gustavs Zemgals, Latvian politician, 2nd President of Latvia (d. 1939)
*1876 – Mary Roberts Rinehart, American author and playwright (d. 1958)
*1877 – Albert Bartha, Hungarian general and politician, Hungarian Minister of Defence (d. 1960)
*1880 – Radclyffe Hall, English poet, author, and activist (d. 1943)
* 1880 – Christy Mathewson, American baseball player and manager (d. 1925)
* 1881 – Cecil B. DeMille, American director and producer (d. 1959)
*1883 – Martha Hedman, Swedish-American actress and playwright (d. 1974)
* 1883 – Marion Lorne, American actress (d. 1968)
*1885 – Jean Cabannes, French physicist and academic (d. 1959)
* 1885 – Keith Murdoch, Australian journalist (d. 1952)
* 1885 – Juhan Simm, Estonian composer and conductor (d. 1959)
* 1887 – Erwin Schrödinger, Austrian physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1961)
* 1889 – Zerna Sharp, American author and educator (d. 1981)
*1891 – C. E. M. Joad, English philosopher and academic (d. 1953)
* 1891 – John McDermott, American golfer (d. 1971)
* 1892 – Alfred Lunt, American actor and director (d. 1977)
* 1897 – Maurice Fernandes, Guyanese cricketer (d. 1981)
* 1899 – Ben Sealey, Trinidadian cricketer (d. 1963)

1901–present

*1902 – Mohammad Hatta, Indonesian statesman, 1st Vice President of Indonesia (d. 1980)
*1904 – Idel Jakobson, Latvian-Estonian NKVD officer (d. 1997)
* 1904 – Tamás Lossonczy, Hungarian painter (d. 2009)
* 1904 – Alexei Nikolaevich, Tsarevich of Russia (d. 1918)
* 1906 – Harry Hopman, Australian tennis player and coach (d. 1985)
* 1906 – Tedd Pierce, American animator, producer, and screenwriter (d. 1972)
*1907 – Gladys Bentley, American blues singer (d. 1960)
* 1907 – Joe Besser, American actor (d. 1988)
* 1907 – Boy Charlton, Australian swimmer (d. 1975)
* 1907 – Benjamin Sheares, Singaporean physician and politician, 2nd President of Singapore (d. 1981)
*1909 – Bruce Matthews, Canadian general and businessman (d. 1991)
*1910 – Yusof bin Ishak, Singaporean journalist and politician, 1st President of Singapore (d. 1970)
* 1910 – Jane Wyatt, American actress (d. 2006)
*1911 – Cantinflas, Mexican actor, screenwriter, and producer (d. 1993)
*1912 – Samuel Fuller, American actor, director, and screenwriter (d. 1997)
*1913 – Richard L. Bare, American director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 2015)
* 1914 – Gerd Buchdahl, German-English philosopher and author (d. 2001)
* 1914 – Ruth Lowe, Canadian pianist and songwriter (d. 1981)
*1915 – Michael Kidd, American dancer and choreographer (d. 2007)
*1916 – Ioan Dicezare, Romanian general and pilot (d. 2012)
* 1916 – Edward Pinkowski, American writer, journalist and Polonia historian (d. 2020)
* 1917 – Oliver Crawford, American screenwriter and author (d. 2008)
*1918 – Sid Bernstein, American record producer (d. 2013)
* 1918 – Guy Gibson, Anglo-Indian commander and pilot, Victoria Cross recipient (d. 1944)
*1919 – Margaret Burbidge, English-American astrophysicist and academic (d. 2020)
* 1919 – Vikram Sarabhai, Indian physicist and academic (d. 1971)
*1920 – Charles Gibson, American ethnohistorian (d. 1985)
* 1920 – Percy Mayfield, American R&B singer-songwriter (d. 1984)
*1922 – Fulton Mackay, Scottish actor and playwright (d. 1987)
* 1922 – Miloš Jakeš, Czech communist politician (d. 2020)
* 1923 – John Holt, Jamaican cricketer (d. 1997)
*1924 – Derek Shackleton, English cricketer, coach, and umpire (d. 2007)
* 1924 – Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, Pakistani general and politician, 6th President of Pakistan