TODAY HISTORY LESSON: FEBRUARY 12
1502 Granada Moslems forced to convert to Catholicism
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.
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.
1818 Chile gains independence from Spain.
1825 Creek Indian treaty signed; Tribal chiefs agree to turn over all their land in Georgia to the government & migrate west by Sept 1, 1826
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 is founded in the U.S.
1912 China’s boy emperor Hsuan T’ung announced that he was abdicating, ending the Manchu Ch’ing dynasty. Subsequently, the Republic of China was established.
1915 Cornerstone laid for Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC
1924 George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” premieres
1931 Japan makes its first television broadcast–a baseball game.
1940 Mutual Radio presented the first broadcast of the radio play “The Adventures of Superman.”
1940 The Soviet Union signs a trade treaty with Germany to aid against the British blockade.
1953 The Soviets break off diplomatic relations with Israel after the bombing of Soviet legation.
1973 The first release of American prisoners of war from the Vietnam war took place.
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 In Liverpool, England, a 2-year-old boy, James Bulger, was lured away from his mother at a shopping mall and beaten to death. Two ten-year-old boys were responsible.
1998 US district judge T Hogan declares line-item veto law unconstitutional
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.
2001 NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft touchdown in the “saddle” region of 433 Eros becoming the first spacecraft to land on an asteroid.
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.
2004 Mattel announced that “Barbie” and “Ken” were breaking up. The dolls had met on the set of their first television commercial together in 1961.
2013 North Korea allegedly conducts its third nuclear test, saying it was a nuclear device that could be weaponized
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
