September 12

Events
Up to 1900
1185 Byzantine Emperor Andronikos I Komnenos is brutally put to death in Constantinople.
1309 First Siege of Gibraltar during the Spanish Reconquista.
1556 Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor gives up the throne for his brother, Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor.
1609 Henry Hudson explores the Hudson River.
1683 Battle of Kahlenberg: Forces of John III Sobieski of Poland surprise Ottoman Empire forces under Kara Mustafa, defeating them decisively.
1689 Tsar Peter I of Russia assumes absolute power.
1814 War of 1812: Battle of North Point - An American detachment halts the British land advance to Baltimore, Maryland.
1847 Mexican-American War: The Battle of Chapultepec begins.
1848 Switzerland becomes a federal state.
1857 The ship SS America sinks about 160 miles off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, with 426 people drowning. It was carrying gold from the California Gold Rush
1861 American Civil War: Battle of Cheat Pike in Virginia.
1885 Arbroath F.C. 36-0 Bon Accord: This scoreline in Scotland is the highest-recorded in professional football.
1890 Salisbury, Rhodesia (now Harare, Zimbabwe) is founded.
1901 2000
1905 Japanese battleship Mikasa sinks after a munitions explosion. Out of the 935 men on board, 256 are killed and 343 injured.
1905 Copenhagen town hall is inaugurated in Denmark.
1906 Newport Transporter Bridge is opened in Newport, south Wales.
1910 First performance of Gustav Mahler's Symphony Number 8, in Munich.
1918 British passenger ship Galway Castle is torpedoed by a German U-boat off Land's End, Cornwall, England, killing 143 people.
1920 The 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp begins.
1928 A hurricane in Guadeloupe kills 1,200 people.
1933 Leo Szilard has the idea of a nuclear chain reaction.
1940 World-famous cave paintings are discovered in the Lascaux in southern France.
1940 An explosion at the Hercules Powder Company plant in Kenil, New Jersey kills 51 and injures over 200.
1942 World War II: RMS Laconia, carrying civilians, Allied soldiers, and Italian POWs, is torpedoed off the coast of West Africa, with a heavy loss of life.
1942 World War II: First Day of the Battle of Edson's Ridge during the Guadalcanal Campaign. US Marines protecting Henderson Field in Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands, are attacked by Imperial Japanese forces.
1943 World War II: Benito Mussolini is rescued from house arrest on the Gran Sasso in Abruzzi, led by German commandos under Otto Skorzeny.
1944 World War II: American troops enter Germany near Trier.
1948 Invasion of the State of Hyderabad by the Indian army on the day after the death of Pakistan's leader Muhammad Ali Jinnah.
1949 Theodor Heuss becomes the 1st President of the Federal Republic of Germany.
1953 John F. Kennedy marries Jacqueline Lee Bouvier in Newport, Rhode Island.
1958 Jack Kilby demonstrates the first integrated circuit.
1959 Showing of the first episode of Bonanza, first regularly scheduled television programme presented in colour.
1959 The Soviet Union launches the Lunik II rocket.
1959 Heinrich Lubke becomes the 2nd President of the Federal Republic of Germany.
1961 The African and Malagasy Union is founded.
1964 The Canyonlands National Park in Utah is created.
1966 Gemini 11, of NASA's Gemini program, is launched.
1970 Palestinian terrorists blow up three hijacked airliners in Jordan. Passengers are held at secret locations in the capital city, Amman.
1974 Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie I is deposed in a military coup.
1977 Anti-Apartheid activist Steve Biko dies in police custody.
1979 Indonesia is struck by a magnitude 8.1 earthquake.
1980 A military coup occurs in Turkey.
1988 Hurricane Gilbert hits Jamaica.
1990 The Faroe Islands national football team scores a surprise 1-0 win over the Austria national football team. The Faroese players are celebrated as heroes after their return home from the match.
1990 East Germany's national football team plays its last-ever match, winning 2-0 against the Belgium national football team.
1992 NASA's Space Shuttle Endeavour is launched on the STS-47 mission. On board are Mae Carol Jemison (first African American woman in space), Mamoru Mohri (first Japanese citizen on a US spaceship), and Mark Lee and Jan Davis (first married couple in space).
1992 Shining Path leader Abimael Guzman is arrested in Peru, by special forces.
1994 Frank Eugene Corder crashes a single-engine Cessna 150 light aircraft into the West Wing of the White House in Washington, DC, killing himself.
1999 Indonesia announces it will allow international peacekeepers into East Timor.
From 2001
2003 The UN lifts sanctions against Libya.
2003 US Forces mistakenly shoot and kill eight Iraqi police officers in Fallujah.
2005 Hong Kong Disneyland opens.
2007 Former President of the Philippines Joseph Estrada is convicted of plunder.
2008 The Chatsworth train collision occurs in Los Angeles, California, between a Metrolink commerce train and a Union Pacific Freight train, killing 25 people.
2011 About 100 people are killed by an oil pipeline explosion in Nairobi, Kenya.
2011 Russian ice hockey player Alexander Galimov dies, as the 44th, and final, victim of the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl plane crash, which occurred on September 7. The whole team was killed.
2015 Jeremy Corbyn is elected leader of the British Labour Party.
2015 An explosion in Petlawad in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh kills at least 105 people.
2018 The European Parliament votes by a two-thirds majority to trigger possible sanctions (punishments) against the government of Hungary, over issues of democracy, human rights, judicial freedom and journalistic freedom.
Births
Up to 1900
1492 Lorenzo II de' Medici, Duke of Urbino (d. 1519)
1494 King Francis I of France (d. 1547)
1575 Henry Hudson, English explorer (d. 1611)
1605 William Dugdale, English antiquarian (d. 1686)
1649 Giuseppe Maria Tomasi, Italian cardinal (d. 1713)
1652 Frederick Charles, Duke of Wurttemberg-Winnental (d. 1697)
1688 Ferdinand Brokoff, Czech sculptor (d. 1731)
1690 Peter Dens, Belgian Catholic theologian (d. 1775)
1725 Guillaume Le Gentil, French astronomer (d. 1792)
1736 Hsinbyushin, King of Burma (d. 1776)
1740 Johann Heinrich Jung, German writer (d. 1817)
1759 Maximilian von Montgelas, Bavarian politician (d. 1838)
1768 Benjamin Carr, American composer, singer, teacher and publisher (d. 1831)
1800 Pierre Charles Fournier de Saint-Amant, French chess player (d. 1872)
1812 Richard Hoe, American inventor and industrialist (d. 1886)
1818 Richard Gatling, American weapons inventor (d. 1903)
1818 Theodor Kullak, German pianist and composer (d. 1915)
1829 Anselm Feuerbach, German painter (d. 1880)
1830 William Sprague, 72nd Governor of Rhode Island (d. 1915)
1837 Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse (d. 1892)
1838 Arthur Auwers, German astronomer (d. 1915)
1852 H. H. Asquith, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1928)
1855 William Sharp, Scottish writer (d. 1905)
1855 Simon-Napoleon Parent, 12th Premier of Quebec (d. 1920)
1857 Manuel Espinosa Batista, Panamanian politician and businessman (d. 1919)
1857 George Hendrik Breitner, Dutch painter (d. 1923)
1865 Sophus Claussen, Danish writer (d. 1931)
1866 Freeman Freeman-Thompson, 1st Marquess of Willingdon, 13th Governor General of Canada (d. 1941)
1875 Matsunosuke Onoe, Japanese actor (d. 1926)
1880 H. L. Mencken, American journalist and writer (d. 1956)
1885 Heinrich Hoffmann, German photographer (d. 1957)
1887 Yusif Vazir Chamanzaminli, Azerbaijani writer and statesman (d. 1943)
1888 Maurice Chevalier, French singer and actor (d. 1972)
1889 Ugo Pasquale Mifsud, 3rd Prime Minister of Malta (d. 1942)
1891 Don Pedro Albizu Campos, advocate for Puerto Rican independence (d. 1965)
1891 Fred Kelly, American athlete (d. 1974)
1891 Arthur Hays Sulzberger, American publisher (d. 1968)
1892 Alfred A. Knopf, American publisher (d. 1984)
1894 Friedrich Ebert, Jr., German politician (d. 1979)
1894 Billy Gilbert, American actor and composer (d. 1971)
1897 Irene Joliot-Curie, French physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (d. 1956)
1898 Salvador Bacarisse, Spanish composer (d. 1963)
1901 1950
1901 Ben Blue, Canadian actor and comedian (d. 1975)
1901 Shmuel Horowitz, Russian-Israeli agronomist (d. 1999)
1902 Juscelino Kubitschek de Oliveira, President of Brazil (d. 1976)
1904 Gavriil Popov, Russian composer (d. 1972)
1904 Istvan Horthy, Hungarian admiral (d. 1942)
1907 Roger Bonvin, Swiss Federal Councillor (d. 1982)
1912 Frances Lennon, English artist (d. 2015)
1913 Jesse Owens, American athlete, four-time Olympic champion (d. 1980)
1913 Eiji Toyoda, Japanese industrialist (d. 2013)
1914 Desmond Llewelyn, Welsh actor (d. 1999)
1915 Frank McGee, American journalist (d. 1974)
1916 Tony Bettenhausen, American race car driver (d. 1961)
1921 Stanislaw Lem, Polish writer (d. 2006)
1922 Antonio Cafiero, Argentine politician (d. 2014)
1924 Amilcar Cabral, Cape Verdean-Guinea-Bissauan politician (d. 1973)
1925 Stan Lopata, American baseball player (d. 2013)
1925 Dickie Moore, American actor (d. 2015)
1927 Mathe Altery, French soprano and actress
1928 Ernie Vandeweghe, American basketball player (d. 2014)
1930 Gunder Gundersen, Norwegian skier (d. 2005)
1930 Akira Suzuki, Japanese chemist
1931 Sir Ian Holm, English actor
1931 George Jones, American singer (d. 2013)
1931 Adrian Rogers, American religious leader (d. 2005)
1932 Atli Dam, 5th Prime Minister of the Faroe Islands (d. 2005)
1933 Tatiana Doronina, Russian actress
1934 Jaegwon Kim, Korean-American philosopher
1934 Glenn Davis, American athlete (d. 2009)
1937 George Chuvalo, Canadian boxer
1938 Claude Ruel, French-Canadian ice hockey coach (d. 2015)
1939 Nobuyuki Oishi, Japanese footballer
1939 Henry Waxman, United States Congressman
1940 Joachim Frank, German-American biophysicist, joint 2017 Nobel Prize in Chemistry winner
1940 Mickey Lolich, American baseball player
1940 Linda Gray, American actress
1943 Maria Muldaur, American singer
1943 Michael Ondaatje, Sri Lankan-born writer
1944 Leonard Peltier, Native American activist
1944 Yoshio Kikugawa, Japanese footballer
1944 Barry White, American singer (d. 2003)
1944 Vladimir Spivakov, Russian violinist and conductor
1944 Colin Young, American singer
1949 Irina Rodnina, Russian figure skater
1949 Charles Burlingame, American pilot (d. 2001)
1951 1975
1951 Joe Pantoliano, American actor
1951 Bertie Ahern, Irish politician and former Taoiseach
1951 Ali-Ollie Woodson, American singer and musician (d. 2010)
1952 Neil Peart, Canadian musician and writer (Rush) (d. 2020)
1952 Gerry Beckley, American musician
1953 Fiona Mactaggart, Scottish politician
1954 Peter Scolari, American actor
1956 Leslie Cheung, Hong Kong singer (d. 2003)
1956 Ricky Rudd, American race car driver
1956 Sam Brownback, American politician, 46th Governor of Kansas
1956 Brian Robertson, Scottish singer-songwriter and guitarist
1957 Hans Zimmer, German composer
1957 Rachel Ward, English actress
1958 Wilfredo Benitez, American boxer
1959 Sigmar Gabriel, German politician
1959 Scott Brown, United States Senator
1959 Hisashi Kaneko, Japanese footballer
1960 Stefanos Korkolis, Greek songwriter and pianist
1961 Mylene Farmer, French singer-songwriter
1962 Amy Yasbeck, American actress
1964 Dieter Hecking, German footballer
1966 Ben Folds, American musician
1966 Vezio Sacratini, Italian ice hockey player
1967 Mirko Slomka, German footballer and manager
1967 Pat Listach, American baseball player
1968 Paul F. Tompkins, American comedian, actor and screenwriter
1969 Mika Myllyla, Finnish cross-country skier (d. 2011)
1969 Angel Cabrera, Argentine golfer
1969 Shigeki Maruyama, Japanese golfer
1971 Chandra Sturrup, Bahamanian athlete
1973 Darren Campbell, British athlete
1973 Martin Lapointe, Canadian ice hockey player
1973 Paul Walker, American actor (d. 2013)
1974 Caroline Aigle, French pilot (d. 2007)
1974 Nuno Valente, Portuguese footballer
From 1976
1976 Maciej Zurawski, Polish footballer
1976 2 Chainz, American rapper
1976 Lauren Stamile, American actress
1977 Nathan Bracken, Australian cricketer
1977 James McCartney, British musician
1978 Ruben Studdard, American singer
1980 Sean Burroughs, American baseball player
1980 Josef Vasicek, Czech ice hockey player (d. 2011)
1980 Yao Ming, Chinese basketball player
1981 Jennifer Hudson, American singer and actress
1983 Sergio Parisse, Argentine-born Italian rugby player
1984 September, Swedish singer
1985 Hiroki Mizumoto, Japanese footballer
1986 Yuto Nagatomo, Japanese footballer
1986 Joanne Jackson, British swimmer
1986 Emmy Rossum, American actress and singer
1987 Yaroslava Shvedova, Kazakhstani tennis player
1988 Amanda Jenssen, Swedish singer-songwriter and guitarist
1989 Freddie Freeman, American baseball player
1992 Sviatlana Pirazhenka, Belarussian tennis player
1993 Kelsea Ballerini, American singer
1994 Elina Svitolina, Ukrainian tennis player
1994 Mhairi Black, Scottish politician
1996 Colin Ford, American actor
Deaths
Up to 1900
640 Sak K'uk', Maya Queen of Palenque
1185 Andronikos I Komnenos, Byzantine Emperor (b. 1118)
1213 Peter II of Aragon (b. 1174)
1348 Joan the Lame, Queen of France (b. 1293)
1362 Pope Innocent VI (b. 1295)
1369 Blanche of Lancaster (b. 1345)
1500 Albert III, Duke of Saxony (b. 1443)
1612 Tsar Vasili IV of Russia (b. 1552)
1660 Jacob Cats, Dutch poet, jurist and politician (b. 1577)
1683 King Afonso VI of Portugal (b. 1643)
1691 John George III, Elector of Saxony (b. 1647)
1764 Jean-Philippe Rameau, French composer (b. 1683)
1829 Juan Ignacio Molina, Chilean naturalist (b. 1740)
1870 Fitz Hugh Ludlow, American writer (b. 1836)
1874 Francois Guizot, 22nd Prime Minister of France (b. 1787)
1885 Ranbir Singh, 2nd Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir (b. 1830)
1901 2000
1903 Duncan Gillies, Australian politician, 14th Premier of Victoria (b. 1834)
1907 Ilia Chavchavadze, Georgian poet, journalist and lawyer (b. 1837)
1918 George Reid, 4th Prime Minister of Australia (b. 1845)
1919 Leonid Andreyev, Russian writer (b. 1871)
1929 Rainis, Latvian poet, playwright and politician (b. 1865)
1938 Prince Arthur of Connaught (b. 1883)
1945 Hajime Sugiyama, Japanese general (b. 1880)
1956 Hans Carossa, German writer (b. 1878)
1956 Sandor Festetics, Hungarian politician (b. 1882)
1960 Dino Borgioli, Italian tenor (b. 1891)
1977 Steve Biko, South African anti-Apartheid activist (b. 1946)
1977 Robert Lowell, American poet (b. 1917)
1981 Eugenio Montale, Italian poet (b. 1896)
1982 Federico Moreno Torroba, Spanish composer (b. 1891)
1986 Jacques Henri Lartigue, French photographer (b. 1894)
1992 Anthony Perkins, American actor (b. 1932)
1993 Raymond Burr, Canadian actor (b. 1917)
1994 Boris Yegorov, Russian physician and cosmonaut (b. 1937)
1995 Jeremy Brett, English actor (b. 1933)
1995 Yasutomo Nagai, Japanese motorcycle racer (b. 1965)
1996 Ernesto Geisel, President of Brazil (b. 1907)
2000 Gary Olsen, English actor (b. 1957)
From 2001
2001 Victor Wong, Chinese-American actor (b. 1927)
2003 Johnny Cash, American country music singer (b. 1932)
2004 Max Abramowitz, American architect (b. 1908)
2008 David Foster Wallace, American writer (b. 1962)
2009 Norman Borlaug, American agronomist (b. 1914)
2009 Jack Kramer, American tennis player (b. 1921)
2009 Willy Ronis, French photographer (b. 1910)
2010 Claude Chabrol, French movie director (b. 1930)
2011 Alexander Galimov, Russian ice hockey player (b. 1985)
2012 Sid Watkins, British neurosurgeon (b. 1928)
2012 Derek Jameson, British tabloid journalist and broadcaster (b. 1929)
2013 Erich Loest, German writer (b. 1926)
2013 Otto Sander, German actor (b. 1941)
2013 Ray Dolby, American engineer and inventor (b. 1933)
2014 Atef Ebeid, Prime Minister of Egypt (b. 1932)
2014 Ian Paisley, Northern Irish religious and political leader (b. 1926)
2014 John Bardon, English actor (b. 1939)
2014 Joe Sample, American pianist and composer (b. 1939)
2014 Antony Kidman, Australian psychologist, biochemist and writer (b. 1938)
2015 Adrian Frutiger, Swiss typeface designer (b. 1928)
2016 Gunilla Bernadotte, Swedish duchess (b. 1923)
2016 Ellen Burka, Canadian-Dutch figure skater (b. 1921)
2016 Stanley Steinbaum, American activist (b. 1920)
2017 Heiner Geissler, German politician (b. 1930)
2017 Alex Hawkins, American football player (b. 1937)
2017 Siegfried Kohler, German conductor (b. 1923)
2017 Allan MacEachen, Canadian politician (b. 1921)
2017 Edith Windsor, American LGBT rights activist and technological manager at IBM (b. 1929)
2018 Henry Kalis, American politician (b. 1937)
2018 Hans Kloss, German artist and graphic designer (b. 1938)
2018 Walter Mischel, Austrian-American psychologist (b. 1930)
2018 Billy O'Dell, American baseball player (b. 1933)
2018 Shen Chun-shan, Taiwanese physicist and academic (b. 1932)
2018 Rachid Taha, Algerian singer, songwriter and activist (b. 1958)
Observances
National Day of Cape Verde
Ethiopian New Year
Day of Conception (Russia)
Defenders Day (Maryland)
Days of the year