Today's 12 May Major Events in History

• 254 Stephan I succeeds Lucius I as Catholic Pope
• 919 Duke Henry of Saxony becomes King Henry I of Oostfrankischreich
• 1057 The Ostromir Gospel, now the oldest surviving Russian manuscript is recorded completed by its scribe Deacon Grigory [1]

• 1082 Battle at Mailberg: Vratislav II of Bohemia defeats Leopold II, Margrave of Austria

1215 English barons serve an ultimatum on King John which eventually leads to the creation and signing of the Magna Carta

• 1294 Construction of Santa Croce begins in Florence, the largest Franciscan church in the world (consecrated 1442)
• 1328 Holy Roman Emperor Louis IV and assembly of priests select Pietro Rainalducc as anti-Pope Nicolas V; consecrated in Rome by the Bishop of Venice
• 1459 Jodhpur, Sun City, founded by Rao Jodhpur in India
• 1525 Battle at Biblingen: Zwabische Union beats rebel Wurttemberg farmers
• 1534 German Duchy of Wurttemberg becomes Lutheran under Ulrich, Duke of Württemberg
• 1551 San Marcos University in Lima, Peru, opens (oldest continuously operating university in the Americas)
• 1588 Catholic League under duke Henri de Guise occupies Paris
• 1604 Spanish garrison of Aardenburg surrenders to Mauritius
• 1638 Emperor Shah Jahan commissions construction of the Red Fort at Shahjahanabad, Mughal Empire (now Dehli, India)

Revolt of the Catalans

1640 Revolt of Catalonia begins, an uprising against the Spanish King Philip IV in eastern Spain

• 1689 England & Netherlands form League of Augsburg
• 1695 English King William III departs to Netherlands

1701 Dutch province Drenthe adopts the Gregorian calendar, making the day before in Drenthe April 29, 1701

Linnaeus in Lapland

1732 Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus sets off from Uppsala on a six-month journey to Lapland

• 1733 Maria Theresa crowned Queen of Bohemia in Prague
• 1776 French First Minister of State and Controller-General of Finances Anne Robert Jacques Turgot resigns after being ordered to do so
• 1777 1st ice cream advertisement (Philip Lenzi in the NY Gazette)

Siege of Charleston

1780 American General Benjamin Lincoln surrenders Charleston to the British (Revolutionary War)

• 1784 Ratified copies of the Treaty of Paris, ending the Revolutionary War exchanged between US and Great Britain, in Paris
• 1789 Society of St Tammany is formed by Revolutionary War soldiers. It later becomes an infamous group of NYC political bosses

1789 William Wilberforce makes his first major speech on abolition in the UK House of Commons, reasoning the slave trade morally reprehensible and an issue of natural justice

Napoleon Conquers Venice

1797 First Coalition: Napoleon I of France conquers Venice

• 1797 Nore Mutiny: British Royal Navy sailors mutiny on the River Thames and blockade London
• 1821 The first major battle of the Greek War of Independence against the Turks occurs in Valtetsi
• 1832 Gaetano Donizetti's opera "L'elisir d'amore" premieres in Milan

Darwin Visits Panuncillo Mines

1835 Charles Darwin visits Alexander Caldcleugh’s copper mines at Panuncillo in northern Chile and is impressed by the extraordinary feats of labor performed by the workers

• 1862 Federal troops occupies Baton Rouge, Louisiana
• 1863 Battle of Raymond, Mississippi
• 1864 Battle of Drewry's Bluff, fought in Chesterfield County, Virginia (Peninsula Campaign), Confederate victory (US Civil War)
• 1864 Battle of Spotsylvania, fought near Courthouse, Virginia (Overland Campaign), inconclusive result (US Civil War)
• 1864 Battle of Todd's Tavern, cavalry battle fought near Todds Tavern, Virginia (Sheridan's Raid), inconclusive result (US Civil War)
• 1864 US Union colonel Emory Upton (24) promoted to brigadier general
• 1865 Last land action of Civil war at Palmito Ranch, Texas
• 1870 Royal assent passes Manitoba Act of 1870, approving Manitoba becoming a province of Canada
• 1871 Segregated street cars integrated in Louisville, Kentucky

Coronation of Oscar II

1873 Oscar II Fredrik is crowned King of Sweden

• 1874 US Assay Office in Helena, Montana, authorized
• 1877 Ottawa Rough Riders 1st outside competition vs Britannia
• 1881 Treaty of Bardo, Tunisia becomes a French protectorate

Battle of Batoche

1885 Battle of Batoche: Louis Riel and the Metis defeated by Frederick Middleton, leads to collapse of Provincial Government of Saskatchewan and surrender of Riel

• 1888 Crouching start first used in track and field by Charles Sherrill of Yale
• 1890 Louisiana legalizes prize fighting
• 1891 Riot against tax increase in Paramaribo, Suriname
• 1894 Ludwig Englander's musical "Passing Show" premieres in NYC
• 1897 A 1,800 to 1,900-year-old fossil known as the Girl of Yde is found in Drenthe, Netherlands
• 1897 Battle at Thessalie: Turkish army beats Greece
• 1898 Louisiana adopts new constitution with "grandfather clause" designed to eliminate black voters
• 1900 Boer attack under Sarel Eloff, about 70 killed
• 1900 Lord Roberts' British forces occupy Crown city during Boer War
• 1901 US President William McKinley visits San Francisco
• 1902 140,000 miners of anthracite coal in Pennsylvania go out on a strike called by the United Mine Workers after the owners have refused to recognize the UMW, negotiate or submit to arbitration
• 1908 George Bernard Shaw's play "Getting Married" premieres in London
• 1908 Wireless Radio Broadcasting is patented by Nathan B. Stubblefield
• 1910 Philadelphia Athletics pitcher Charles "Chief" Bender no-hits Cleveland Naps, 4-0

Second NAACP Conference

1910 Second NAACP conference takes place in New York City

• 1911 1st Inter-Empire Championships open in London
• 1911 American economic expert W. Morgan Schuster arrives by invitation to assume almost dictatorial power over Persia's finances; a move resented by Russia
• 1913 English runner Harry Green runs world record marathon 2:38:16.2 in the Polytechnic Marathon in London, England
• 1915 Croatians plunder Armenia, killing 250
• 1915 Franklin K. Mathiews first presents idea of "Book Week"
• 1916 James Connolly and Sean McDermott are executed following their involvement in the Easter Rising in Dublin
• 1919 New York Yankees and Washington Senators play second straight extra inning tie, 4-4 in 15 innings at the Polo Grounds; 0-0 in 12 the previous day
• 1919 The Transvaal British Indian Association calls a mass meeting to organise opposition to the proposed Asiatics (Land and Trading) Amendment Act; in the Act, Transvaal Indians are prohibited from owning shares in limited companies
• 1921 National Hospital Day 1st observed in the United States

Canonization of Jean Vianney

1925 French priest Jean Vianney (1786-1859) canonized as Saint John Vianney by Pope Pius XI

• 1925 Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan become autonomous Soviet republics

1st Flight Over the North Pole

1926 Airship Norge is the first vessel to fly over North Pole, led by Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen and piloted by the craft's Italian designer Umberto Nobile

• 1926 British General Strike ends after 9 days, coal mine workers stay on strike

May Coup

1926 General Józef Piłsudski returns to power in Poland after coup d'état against the Witos regime

Chancellor Luther Resigns

1926 German Chancellor Hans Luther resigns for the second time after a no-confidence vote against his minority government

Mussolini Ends Women's Suffrage

1928 Benito Mussolini announces moves to end women's suffrage in a speech to the Senate in Italy

• 1928 Second Opium Law introduced - international law to control drugs
• 1929 Pulitzer prize awarded to Julia Peterkin (Scarlet Sister Mary)

Pulitzer Prize

1930 Pulitzer Prize for Drama awarded to Marc Connelly for "Green Pastures)"

• 1933 Federal Emergency Relief Administration & Agricultural Adjustment Administration form to help the needy & farmers

• 1936 Ralph Vaughan Williams' opera "Poisoned Kiss" premieres in London

Coronation of George VI

1937 Coronation of King George VI of Great Britain (and his other realms and territories beyond the sea) at Westminster Abbey, London

• 1937 St Louis Cards beat Philadelphia Phillies, 15-3
• 1938 Arthur Honegger and Paul Claudel's oratorio "Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher" (Joan of Arc at the Stake) premieres in Basel, Switzerland
• 1938 Sandoz Labs begins manufacturing LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide)
• 1940 French marines occupy St Maarten
• 1940 German tanks conquer Moerdijk bridges, Netherlands
• 1940 Nazi blitzkrieg and conquest of France begins with German forces crossing the Muese River
• 1941 British forces march into Alexandria, Egypt
• 1941 Konrad Zuse presents the Z3, the world's first working programmable, fully automatic computer, in Berlin

• 1942 1,500 Jews gassed in Auschwitz
• 1942 Nazi U-boat sinks American cargo ship at mouth of Mississippi River
• 1942 Russia occupies Crackow, until Aug 23, 1943
• 1943 Axis forces in North Africa surrender

• 1943 German troops in Tunisia, North Africa, surrender
• 1944 900+ 8th US Air Force bombers attack Zwikau, Bohlen & Brux
• 1944 Crimea purged of Nazi troops
• 1944 German police arrest Dutch resistance member Gerrit van der Veen and later execute him

• 1949 The Soviet Union lifts its blockade of West Berlin after the US, the UK, and their allies successfully supply the city during the Berlin Airlift
• 1950 Darius Milhaud's opera "Bolivar" premieres in Paris
• 1952 Charlton Playground named in Bronx
• 1952 Gaj Singh is crowned Maharaja of Jodhpur at the age of four after the death of his father Hanwant Singh in a plane crash
• 1953 KUHT TV channel 8 (PBS) in Houston, TX, begins broadcasting
• 1955 Chicago Cub Sam "Toothpick" Jones is 1st African-American to pitch a no-hitter, winning 4-0 over Pittsburgh Pirates, at Wrigley Field, Chicago
• 1956 Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher Carl Erskine's throws 2nd career no-hitter, beats NY Giants, 3-0, at Ebbetts Field in Brooklyn, NYC
• 1956 East Pakistan struck by cyclone and tidal waves
• 1958 "Nee Nee Na Na Na Na Nu Nu" by Dicky Doo & The Don'ts hits #40
• 1958 US & Canada form North American Air Defense Command (NORAD)
• 1958 US performs atmospheric nuclear test at Enewetak Atoll in the Marshall Islands

Elvis and Sinatra Crossover

1960 Elvis Presley appears on a Frank Sinatra television special; Elvis sings Sinatra's 1957 Cy Coleman hit "Witchcraft", and Frank performs Presley's 1956 classic "Love Me Tender"

• 1961 Russian Mikhail Botvinnik wins World Chess Championship for his third time
• 1962 Grevelingen dam closes in major project to protect the southwest of the Netherlands from flooding
• 1962 US performs atmospheric nuclear test at Christmas Island

Dylan walks off the Ed Sullivan Show

1963 Bob Dylan walks out of "The Ed Sullivan Show" over a dispute about his song choice

• 1963 Race riot in Birmingham, Alabama
• 1964 Italian diplomat and politician Manlio Brosio chosen as secretary-general of NATO
• 1965 Israel and West Germany establish diplomatic relations with an exchange of letters

(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction

1965 The Rolling Stones record their smash hit single "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction"

• 1966 St Louis' Busch Memorial Stadium opens, Braves lose to Cards 4-3 in 12 innings
• 1967 20th Cannes Film Festival: "Blowup" directed by Michelangelo Antonioni wins the Grand Prix du Festival International du Film

Good Times

1967 Columbia Pictures releases "Good Times" a musical comedy western starring Sonny & Cher and George Sanders; Cher's 1st starring role is also the feature debut of director William Friedkin

• 1967 H. Rap Brown replaces Stokely Carmichael as chairman of Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)

Quadraphonic Sound

1967 Pink Floyd holds the first quadraphonic concert at the Games for May event in London

Are You Experienced

1967 Track Records releases "Are You Experienced" album by the Jimi Hendrix Experience - one of the most influential debut albums ever

• 1968 WSKG TV channel 46 (PBS) in Binghamton, NY, begins broadcasting
• 1969 Pilot Ken Wallis sets a speed record for autogyros at 179 km/h
• 1970 Ernie Banks hits his 500th home run
• 1970 KTVM TV channel 6 in Butte, MT (NBC/ABC) begins broadcasting
• 1970 Race riots in Augusta Georgia; 6 blacks killed (5 by cops)
• 1970 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
• 1972 Milwaukee Brewers beat Minnesota Twins, 4-3, in 22 innings (completed 5/13)

• 1973 "Dueling Tubas" novelty single by Martin Mull hits #92
• 1975 US merchant ship Mayaguez seized by Cambodian forces
• 1978 US Commerce Department says hurricane names will no longer be only female

Evert's Clay Streak Ends

1979 Chris Evert's 125-match winning streak on clay comes to an end

• 1980 1st non-stop trans-North American balloon flight lands at Sainte-Félicité, Quebec. Maxie Anderson and son Kristian piloted the Kitty Hawk for five days.
• 1981 NY Islanders tie their own record with two shorthanded playoff goals in a period vs Minnesota North Stars

Assassination Attempt on John Paul II

1982 In Fatima Portugal, a Spanish Traditionalist priest who opposed Vatican II reforms and saw Pope John Paul II as a perpetrator of them, is stopped prior to his attempt to attack the Pope with a bayonet

• 1982 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction is awarded to John Updike for novel 'Rabbit Is Rich'
• 1982 US Football League forms
• 1984 Discovery moves to Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center (Florida) for mating of STS 41-D
• 1984 France performs nuclear test
• 1984 Joe Lucius scores his 13th hole-in-one on same hole

• 1984 White Horse by Laid Back hits #26
• 1984 World of Rivers world exposition opens in New Orleans
• 1985 Amy Eilberg is ordained in NY as 1st woman Conservative rabbi
• 1986 Fred Markham (US), unpaced & unaided by wind, is 1st to pedal 65 mph on a level course, Big Sand Flat, California
• 1986 President Reagan appoints Dr James C. Fletcher NASA Administrator
• 1989 "Entertainment Tonight" makes its 2,000th TV performance
• 1989 Last graffiti covered NYC subway car retired
• 1989 Retired British pilot Jack Mann is kidnapped by Islamic fundamentalists
• 1990 Comic Relief USA '90 (4th one) raises $4.7 million
• 1990 Nora Dunn and Sinéad O'Connor boycott "Saturday Night Live" to protest Andrew Dice Clay's hosting which was perceived as sexist; the show uses a time delay for the third time in its history
• 1991 A new cancer drug is announced which can only be found in bark of a rare tree in the Pacific Northwest
• 1992 1st Belgian woman (Ingrid Baeyens) to ascend Mount Everest
• 1993 Final episode of 6 year run of ABC's "Wonder Years" in Netherlands

• 1994 WIBC Bowling Queens won by Anne Marie Duggan
• 1995 Dow Jones Industrial Average sets a new record for 5th straight day of the week (4430.59)
• 1995 Jose Mesa gets 1st of his M.L. record 37 consecutive saves
• 1995 Martin Brodeur ties NHL record getting his 3rd playoff shutout in 4
• 1996 Yankees losing 8-0 to Chicago White Sox, come back to win 9-8

It's Your Love

1997 "It's Your Love" single released by Time McGraw and Faith Hill

• 1997 14 North Koreans defect to South Korea
• 1997 Angels scores 13 in 7th vs White Sox
• 1997 Australian Susie Maroney becomes first to swim from Cuba to Florida
• 1997 Russia & Chechnya sign peace deal after 400 years of conflict
• 1997 Tornado narrowly misses downtown Miami
• 1999 David Steel becomes the first Presiding Officer (speaker) of the modern Scottish Parliament
• 2000 Ringo Starr's sixth All-Starr Band debuts in concert; members include: Todd Rundgren, Jack Bruce, Gary Brooker, Simon Kirke, and Timmy Cappello
• 2000 Tate Modern art gallery opens in the redesigned Bankside Power Station by Herzog & de Meuron in London, now the world's most visited contemporary art museum [1]
• 2001 Ringo Starr's seventh All-Starr Band debuts in concert; members include: Roger Hodgson, Ian Hunter, Howard Jones, Greg Lake, Sheila E., and Mark Rivera

Carter Visits Cuba

2002 Former US President Jimmy Carter arrives in Cuba for a five-day visit with Fidel Castro, becoming the first President of the United States, in or out of office, to visit the island since Castro's 1959 revolution.

• 2003 Fifty-nine Democratic lawmakers bring the Texas Legislature to a standstill by going into hiding in a dispute over a Republican congressional redistricting plan
• 2003 The Riyadh compound bombings, carried out by Al Qaeda, 26 killed
• 2006 A major rebellion occurs in São Paulo as members of criminal organization Primeiro Comando da Capital attack police officers and stations, eventually escalating to several prisons in Brazil leaving around 130 dead
• 2007 Riots in Karachi, Pakistan are started by the arrival at Karachi's airport of independently minded Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and go on to kill 48 people
• 2008 Wenchuan earthquake, measuring 7.8 in magnitude occurs in Sichuan, China, killing over 87,000, injuring 374,643 and leaving homeless between 4.8 million and 11 million people
• 2010 An Afriqiyah Airways Flight crashes and kills everyone but one person on board
• 2012 The discovery of a missing Mayan calendar piece disproves 2012 Armageddon
• 2013 Paris Saint-Germain win the Ligue 1 French football title

Martyrs of Otranto

2013 Pope Francis canonizes the 813 martyrs of Otranto as Saints

• 2014 Voters in Eastern Ukraine vote for self-rule in referendum

• 2017 Brazil declares end to Zika national emergency as cases decrease

• 2018 Insurgent group attacks the town of Muse, Myanmar, killing at least 19 people, Ta’ang National Liberation Army claim responsibility
• 2019 Cuba announced more rationing of products such as rice and beans due to US trade embargo and hoarding
• 2019 Gunman kill five people and a priest in a Catholic church in Dablo, Burkina Faso, before setting fire to and looting nearby buildings
• 2019 Manchester City beats Brighton, 4-1 to claim back-to-back English Premier League titles with 98 points, 1 ahead of runners-up, Liverpool

Economic Rescue Package

2020 Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announces a $260 million economic rescue package, worth 10% of GDP

• 2020 Militants storm a hospital and a funeral in Kabul, Afghanistan, shooting an estimated 40 people dead including new mothers and their babies
• 2020 Russia's confirmed cases of COVID-19 reach 232,000, 2nd highest in the world, a day after President Vladimir Putin eased the country's lockdown
• 2020 US coronavirus task force testifies to the Senate that the US "is not out of the woods yet" that the pandemic is not under control and risks surge in cases if reopens too soon
• 2020 Wuhan, epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak, draws up plans to test all 11 million residents after it records a new cluster of 6 cases

Liz Cheney Demoted

2021 US Republicans vote to demote their number three Liz Cheney from party leadership after she publicly rebuked Donald Trump for lies about the election

• 2022 "Fat Ham" an adaption of William Shakespeare's Hamlet by James Ijames opens off-Broadway at The Public Theater in New York (Pulitzer Prize for Drama 2022)
• 2022 First images published of the supermassive blackhole Sagittarius A* that lies at the heart of the Milky Way captured by the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration [1]
• 2022 North Korea orders a national lockdown after confirming its first COVID-19 cases with the Omicron variant. International experts doubt these the first, express concern for its unvaccinated 25 million population [1]
• 2022 Very early Californian wildfire called "a dangerous new normal" by local fire chief after 24 houses destroyed and 900 homes evacuated in Laguna Niguel, Orange County [1]

Linda Yaccarino Joins Twitter

2023 Elon Musk announces NBCUniversial executive Linda Yaccarino will replace him as CEO of Twitter [1]

• 2023 US pandemic-era expulsion policy Title 42, which expelled most migrants, expires [1]
• 2024 Flash flood kills at least 300 people in northern Afghanistan and destroys nearly 2000 homes [1]
• 2025 Rock band Foo Fighters fire drummer Josh Freese after two years with the group
• 2025 US and China agree to a 90-day trade deal in which tariffs on most Chinese imports will drop from 145% to 30%, and tariffs on US imports will drop from 125% to 10% [1]