On August 12th...

Links will open in a new window.
* indicates a link to an external website

1484 Pope Sixtus IV died.

1508 Ponce de Leon arrived in Puerto Rico.

1658 The first police force in America was organized in New Amsterdam.

1684 Violinmaker Nicolo Amati died.

1689 Pope Innocent XI died.

1762 King George IV of England was born.

1801 Chocolatier John Cadbury was born.

1813 American politician Samuel Osgood died.

1833 Chicago, Illinois was founded.

1848 Inventor George Stephenson died.

1849 Albert Gallatin, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, died.

1851 Isaac Singer received a patent for his sewing machine.
1851 The U.S. schooner America beat the British yacht Aurora to win the first ever America's Cup.

1856 Anthony Fass patented the accordion.
1856 Businessman James Buchanan "Diamond Jim" Brady was born.

1859 Poet Katharine Lee Bates was born.

1862 Philanthropist Julius Rosenwald was born.

1864 Twelve nations signed the Geneva Convention, establishing the International Committee of the Red Cross.

1865 Joseph Lister performed the first antiseptic surgery.

1866 Dramatist Jacinto Benavente was born.

1877 Thomas Edison invented the Edisonphone.

1880 Baseball pitcher Christopher "Christie" Mathewson was born.

1881 Film director Cecil B. DeMille was born.

1882 Painter and lithographer George Bellows was born.

1891 Poet James Russell Lowell died.

1898 A ceasefire was declared in the Spanish-American War.
1898 The United States annexed Hawaii.

1912 Independent film director Samuel Fuller was born.

1914 The United Kingdom declared war on Austra-Hungary.

1922 The Washington, D.C., home of Frederick Douglass was dedicated as a national shrine.

1925 Norris McWhirter, co-founder of Guiness Book of World Records, was born.

1927 Wings,* the only silent film to win an Oscar for best picture, opened.
1927 Singer Porter Wagoner was born.

1929 Singer Buck Owens was born.

1930 Clarence Birdseye was granted a patent for his apparatus and method for freezing food.

1933 Auto racer Parnelli Jones was born.

1939 Actor George Hamilton was born.

1949 Musician Mark Knopfler was born.

1954 Jazz musician Pat Metheny was born.

1955 The national minimum wage was raised from 75 cents to $1 an hour.

1959 Basketball player Lynette Woodard was born.

1960 Echo 1, the world's first communications satellite capable of relaying signals from one point on Earth to another, was launched.

1964 Author Ian Fleming died.

1965 Elizabeth Lane became the first female British Supreme Court justice.
1965 Herbert Hoover National Historic Site was established.

1966 The Learjet Model 25 made its first flight.

1971 Tennis player Pete Sampras was born.

1974 Yankees Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford became the first team mates inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame on the same day.

1978 China and Japan signed a ten-year treaty of peace and friendship.

1981 IBM introduced its first personal computer.*

1982 Actor Henry Fonda died.

1988 The movie Last Temptation of Christ was released.

2007 Talk show host Merv Griffin died.

Questions or comments about this page?

This page was last updated on August 12, 2018.