Today In History: February 12
1554 β A year after claiming the throne of England for nine days, Lady Jane Grey is beheaded for treason.
1689 β The Convention Parliament convenes and declares that the flight to France in 1688 by James II, the last Roman Catholic British monarch, constitutes an abdication.
1733 β Englishman James Oglethorpe founds Georgia, the 13th colony of the Thirteen Colonies, and its first city at
Savannah (known as Georgia Day).
1832 β Ecuador annexes the GalΓ‘pagos Islands.
1855 β Michigan State University is established.
1870 β Women gain the right to vote in the Utah Territory.
1879 β The first artificial ice rink in North America opens at Gilmore’s Park in New York City.
1894 β Anarchist Γmile Henry hurls a bomb into Paris’s Cafe Terminus, killing one and wounding 20.
1909 β The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is founded.
1912 β Xuantong Emperor of the Manchu Qing dynasty, the last Emperor of China, abdicates.
1912 β The Republic of China adopts the Gregorian calendar.
1914 β In Washington, D.C., the first stone of the Lincoln Memorial is put into place.
1924 β Calvin Coolidge becomes the first President of the United States to deliver a political speech on radio.
1946 β World War II: Operation Deadlight ends after scuttling 121 of 154 captured U-boats.
1961 β U.S.S.R. launches Venera 1 towards Venus.
1973 β Vietnam War: The first United States prisoners of war are released by the Viet Cong.
1974 β Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, winner of the Nobel Prize in literature in 1970, is exiled from the Soviet Union.
1999 β President Bill Clinton is acquitted by the United States Senate in his impeachment trial.
2001 β NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft touchdown in the “saddle” region of 433 Eros becoming the first spacecraft to land on an asteroid.
2002 β The trial of former President of Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Slobodan MiloΕ‘eviΔ begins at the United
Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague. He dies four years later before its conclusion.
2002 β US Secretary of Energy makes the decision that Yucca Mountain is a suitable site for a deep geological
repository for the United States.
2004 β The city of San Francisco, California begins issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples in response to a
directive from Mayor Gavin Newsom.
2006 β A powerful winter storm blankets the Northeastern United States dumping 1 to 2 feet of snow from Washington D.C. to Boston, Massachusetts. The storm dumps a record 26.9 inches of snow in New York City.
Born on February 12:
1606 β John Winthrop, the Younger, Governor of Connecticut (d. 1676)
1775 β Louisa Adams, First Lady of the United States, wife of John Quincy Adams (d. 1852)
1809 β Charles Darwin, English naturalist (d. 1882)
1809 β Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States (d. 1865)
1876 β Thubten Gyatso, 13th Dalai Lama (d. 1933)
1880 β John L. Lewis, American labor union leader (d. 1969)
1930 β Arlen Specter, U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania
1938 β Judy Blume, American author
1939 β Ray Manzarek, American keyboardist (The Doors)
1955 β Arsenio Hall, American actor and talk show host
1980 β Christina Ricci, American actress
Today in Alaska History:
1940 Plans to construct Elmendorf Air Force Base at Anchorage were announced in Washington D.C.
1979 Seventy mph winds and near zero temperatures ravaged Anchorage .
