TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – FEB 12
1554 Lady Jane Grey, the Queen of England for thirteen days, is beheaded on Tower Hill. She was barely 17 years old.
1700 The Great Northern War begins in Northern Europe between Denmark–Norway, Saxony and Russia and the Swedish Empire.
1709 Alexander Selkirk, the Scottish seaman whose adventures inspired the creation of Daniel Dafoe’s Robinson Crusoe, is taken off Juan Fernandez Island after more than four years of living there alone.
1733 Led by philanthropist James Edward Oglethorpe, the first English colonists arrived in Georgia, at the site of Savannah.
1793 The first fugitive slave law, requiring the return of escaped slaves, is passed.
1836 Mexican General Santa Anna crosses the Rio Grande en route to the Alamo.
1870 The Utah Territory granted women the right to vote (revoked in 1887).
1879 The first artificial ice rink opened in North America. It was at Madison Square Garden in New York City, NY.
1909 The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is formed.
1912 The last Emperor of China abdicates at the age of 6
1924 George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” premieres
1924 Calvin Coolidge became the first U.S. president to deliver an address by radio. This was the first day that radio programming had included commercials.
1931 Japan makes its first television broadcast–a baseball game.
1934 The Export-Import Bank was incorporated.
1935 The Macon, the last U.S. Navy dirigible, crashes off the coast of California, killing two people.
1940 The Soviet Union signs a trade treaty with Germany to aid against the British blockade.
1949 Muslim Brotherhood chief Hassan el Banna is shot to death in Cairo.
1953 The Soviets break off diplomatic relations with Israel after the bombing of Soviet legation.
1972 Senator Edward Kennedy advocates amnesty for Vietnam draft resisters.
1973 As part of the Vietnam cease-fire agreement, the first U.S. prisoners of war were released by North Vietnam.
1974 The Symbionese Liberation Army asks the Hearst family for $230 million in food for the poor.
1987 A Court in Texas upholds $8.5 billion of a fine imposed on Texaco for the illegal takeover of Getty Oil.
1993 Two 10-year-old boys lured 2-year-old James Bulger from his mother at a shopping mall in Liverpool, England, then beat him to death.
1999 The U.S. Senate fails to pass two articles of impeachment against President Bill Clinton. He had been accused of perjury and obstruction of justice by the House of Representatives.
2002 Pakistan charged three men in connection with the kidnapping of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in Karachi.
2002 Kenneth Lay, former Enron CEO, exercised his constitutional rights and refused to testify to the U.S. Congress about the collapse of Enron
2002 The trial of Slobodan Milošević begins at The Hague The former President of Yugoslavia and Serbia died 4 years later, before the trial’s conclusion.
2003 The U.N. nuclear agency declared North Korea in violation of international treaties. The complaint was sent to the Security Council.
2007 A lone gunman ( Sulejman Talovic ) armed with a shotgun and handgun kills five bystanders and wounds four others during a shooting spree at the Trolley Square Mall in Salt Lake City, Utah.
2013 North Korea allegedly conducts its third nuclear test, saying it was a nuclear device that could be weaponized
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
