1912

1912 (MCMXII) was a leap year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar.

Events 
 January 1 – Establishment of Republic of China.
 January 5 – Prague Party Conference
 January 6 – New Mexico is admitted as the 47th U.S. state.
 January 17 – British polar explorer Robert Falcon Scott and a team of four begin the second expedition to reach the South Pole.
 January 23 – The International Opium Convention is signed at The Hague.
 February 8 – Mexican Revolution – Military rebellion against the rule of Francisco Madero begins in Mexico City. Battles last for 10 days
 February 12 – Republic of China adopts the Gregorian calendar
 February 14 – Arizona is admitted as the 48th U.S. state.
 February 14 – In Groton, Connecticut, the first diesel-powered submarine is commissioned.
 February 18 – Francisco Madero is forced to resign – battle ends. All members of Madero's government are arrested.
 February 19 – Prizes are included in Cracker Jack candy boxes for the first time
 February 22 – Francisco Madero and Pino Suarez are shot, allegedly when they "tried to escape"
 March 1 – Albert Berry makes the first parachute jump from a moving airplane.
 March 1 – Georg Ritter von Trapp, head of the famous Austrian singing family memorialized in the musical The Sound of Music marries Agathe
 March 5 – Italian forces are the first to use airships for a military purpose by using them for reconnaissance west of Tripoli behind Turkish lines.
 March 7 – Roald Amundsen announces discovery of the South Pole
 March 7 – French aviator Henri Seimet makes the first non-stop flight from Paris to London in three hours
 March 12 – The Girl Guides (later renamed the Girl Scouts) are founded.
 March 16 – Lawrence Oates, ill member of Scott's South Pole expedition leaves the tent saying, "I am just going outside and may be some time"
 March 27 – Mayor Yukio Ozaki of Tokyo gives 3,000 cherry blossom trees to be planted in Washington, D.C. to symbolize the friendship between the two countries.
 March 30 – France establishes a protectorate over Morocco.
 April 14–15 – The R.M.S Titanic sank after hitting an iceberg in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Over 1500 people died.
 Alexis Carrel, French surgeon, won the 1912 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

Births

January 

 January 8 – José Ferrer, Puerto Rican actor and theatre and film director (d. 1992)
 January 28 – Jackson Pollack, American artist (d. 1956)

February 
 February 19 – Anton Buttigieg, 2nd President of Malta (d. 1983)

March 

 March 5 – Jack Marshall, Prime Minister of New Zealand (d. 1988)
 March 12 – Pat Nixon, 39th First Lady of the United States (d. 1993)
 March 22 – Karl Malden, American actor (d. 2009)
 March 27 — James Callaghan, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 2005)

April 

 April 8 – Sonja Henie, Norwegian figure skater (d. 1969)
 April 15 – Kim Il-sung, Supreme Leader of North Korea (d. 1994)

May 

 May 9 – Pedro Armendáriz, Mexican actor (d. 1963)

June 

 June 23 – Alan Turing, English mathematician (d. 1954)

July

August 

 August 13 – Salvador Luria, Italian American microbiologist (d. 1991)
 August 23 – Gene Kelly, American dancer, actor, singer, director, producer and choreographer (d. 1996)
 August 25 – Erich Honecker, East German leader (d. 1994)

September 

 September 5 – John Cage, American composer (d. 1992)
 September 21 – Chuck Jones, American animator, cartoon artist, screenwriter, producer, and director of animated films (d. 2002)

October 

 October 7 – Fernando Belaúnde Terry, 49th and 52nd President of Peru (d. 2002)
 October 17 – Pope John Paul I (d. 1978)

November

December 

 December 2 – Boun Oum, 4th Prime Minister of Laos (d. 1980)
 December 22 – Lady Bird Johnson, 38th First Lady of the United States (d. 2007)

Deaths 
 February 12 – Gerhard Armauer Hansen, Norwegian doctor and scientist (b. 1841)
 May 30 – Wilbur Wright of the Wright brothers, American co-inventor of the airplane.
 April 15 – Over 1500 people die on the R.M.S Titanic
 December 11 - James Otis, American children's writer

Art, music, theatre, literature, movies 
 May 29 - Premiere of Nijinsky's ballet The Afternoon of a Faun in Paris