12 November History


Month:                           Date:     

  • 1035    -    King Canute of Norway dies.
  • 1276    -    Suspicious of the intentions of Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, the Prince of Wales, English King Edward I resolves to invade Wales.
  • 1859    -    The first flying-trapeze circus act is performed by Jules Leotard at the Circus Napoleon.
  • 1863    -    Confederate General James Longstreet arrives at Loudon, Tennessee, to assist the attack on Union General Ambrose Burnside's troops at Knoxville.
  • 1867    -    Mount Vesuvius erupts.
ADVERTISEMENTS
  • 1903    -    The Lebaudy brothers of France set an air-travel distance record of 34 miles in a dirigible.
  • 1923    -    Adolf Hitler is arrested for his attempted German coup.
  • 1927    -    Canada is admitted to the League of Nations.
  • 1928    -    The ocean liner Vestris sinks off the Virginia cape with 328 aboard, killing 111.
  • 1938    -    Mexico agrees to compensate the United States for land seizures.
  • 1941    -    Madame Lillian Evanti and Mary Cardwell Dawson establish the National Negro Opera Company.
ADVERTISEMENTS
  • 1944    -    U.S. fighters wipe out a Japanese convoy near Leyte, consisting of six destroyers, four transports and 8,000 troops.
  • 1944    -    The German battleship Tirpitz is sunk in a Norwegian fjord.
  • 1948    -    Hikedi Tojo, Japanese prime minister, and seven others are sentenced to hang by an international tribunal.
  • 1951    -    The U.S. Eighth Army in Korea is ordered to cease offensive operations and begin an active defense.
  • 1960    -    The satellite Discoverer XVII is launched into orbit from California's Vandenberg AFB.
  • 1968    -    The U.S. Supreme Court voids an Arkansas law banning the teaching of evolution in public schools.
ADVERTISEMENTS
  • 1971    -    President Richard Nixon announces the withdrawal of about 45,000 U.S. troops from Vietnam by February.
  • 1987    -    Boris Yeltsin is fired as head of Moscow's Communist Party for criticizing the slow pace of reform.

  • 12 November Birthdays

  • 1815    -    Elizabeth Cady Stanton, political reformer and founder of the Women's Rights Convention.
  • 1817    -    Mirza Hoseyn 'Ali Nuri (Baha' Ullah), founder of the Baha'i faith.
  • 1840    -    Auguste Rodin, French sculptor.
  • 1866    -    Sun Yat-Sen, Chinese revolutionary who founded the Nationalist Party.
  • 1889    -    DeWitt Wallace, founder of Reader's Digest.
  • 1911    -    Buck Clayton, jazz trumpeter.
  • 1922    -    Charlotte MacLeod, mystery writer (Rest You Merry, Maid of Honor).
  • 1929    -    Grace Kelly, American actress and Princess of Monaco.
  • 1945    -    Tracy Kidder, writer (Among Schoolchildren, Old Friends).