This Day in History
12 Apr 1065
Pilgrims under bishop Gunther of Bamberg reach Jerusalem
12 Apr 1204
4th Crusade occupies & plunders Constantinople
12 Apr 1229
Queen Blanche of Castile & Earl Raymond VII of Toulouse sign peace
12 Apr 1545
French King Francois I orders protestants of Vaudois to be killed
More History
Bill Haley and the Comets record Rock Around The Clock
On April 12 1954 Bill Haley and the Comets recorded (Were Gonna) Rock Around The Clock. If rock and roll was a social and cultura...
President Roosevelt dies
Franklin Delano Roosevelt the longest serving president in American history dies of a cerebral hemorrhage three months into his fourth term.In 1932 at the he...
Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first man in space
On April 12 1961 aboard the spacecraft Vostok 1 Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin becomes the first human being to travel into space. During the fli...
The space shuttle Columbia is launched for the first time
The space shuttle Columbia is launched from Cape Canaveral Florida becoming the first reusable manned spacecraft to travel into space. Piloted by astronauts R...
Civil War begins as Confederate forces fire on Fort Sumter
The bloodiest four years in American history begin when Confederate shore batteries under General P.G.T. Beauregard open fire on Union-held Fort Sumter in South...
U.S. Embassy in Cambodia evacuated
In Cambodia the U.S. ambassador and his staff leave Phnom Penh when the U.S. Navy conducts its evacuation effort Operation Eagle. On April 3 1975 as the com...
White House specialist Walt W. Rostow recommends escalation of efforts in Vietnam
Walt W. Rostow senior White House specialist on Southeast Asia and a principal architect of U.S. counterinsurgency doctrine delivers a memorandum to President...
Lawrence Taylor drafted by NY Giants
On April 12 1981 the New York Giants draft University of North Carolina linebacker Lawrence Taylor as their first-round pick and the second selection overall ...
Alfred Cummings becomes Utah’s first non-Mormon governor
Salt Lake City offers an uneasy welcome to Alfred Cummings its first non-Mormon governor which signals the end of the so-called Utah War.The Mor...
Legal thriller writer Scott Turow is born
Scott Turow author of Presumed Innocent (1987) is born on this day in Chicago.Turow started writing as a child inspired by his mother who wrote articles fo...
First movie palace opens in New York City
On this day in 1914 the Mark Strand Theatre opens to the public in New York City.Located at Broadway and 47th Street in the heart of Manhattans Theate...
Fire threatens Massachusetts oil refineries
A fire in Chelsea Massachusetts leaves 12 dead 85 missing and presumed dead and more than 17000 homeless on this day in 1908. The fire nearly spread to nea...
Galileo is convicted of heresy
On this day in 1633 chief inquisitor Father Vincenzo Maculani da Firenzuola appointed by Pope Urban VIII begins the inquisition of physicist and astrono...
President Franklin D. Roosevelt dies
While on a vacation in Warm Springs Georgia President Roosevelt suffers a stroke and dies. His death marked a critical turning point in U.S. relations with th...
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