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April 12 is the 102nd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (103rd in leap years). There are 263 days remaining.
Events
up to 19th century
467 - Anthemius is elevated to Emperor of the Western Roman Empire
1204 - The Fourth Crusade sacks Constantinople
1606 - The Union Jack is adopted as the national flag of Great Britain.
1633 - The formal interrogation by the Inquisition of Galileo Galilei begins.
1815 - Mount Tambora blows its top during an eruption event that started on April 5. 92,000 are killed during this eruption.
1861 - American Civil War: The war begins with Confederate forces firing on Fort Sumter, in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina
1864 - American Civil War: Fort Pillow massacre: Confederate forces under General Nathan Bedford Forrest kill most of the African American soldiers who had surrendered at Fort Pillow, Tennessee
1865 - American Civil War: Mobile, Alabama falls to the Union Army
1877 - The United Kingdom annexes the Transvaal.
20th century
1926 - By a vote of 45 to 41, the United States Senate unseats Iowa Senator Smith W. Brookhart and seats Daniel F. Steck, after Brookhart had already served for over one year.
1937 - Sir Frank Whittle ground-tests the first jet engine designed to power an aircraft, at the British Thomson-Houston factory in Rugby, England
1945 - Harry S. Truman is inaugurated as the 33rd President of the United States.
1946 - Syria gains independence from France
1961 - Yuri Gagarin becomes the first man to fly in space.
1968 - Nerve gas accident at Skull Valley, Utah
1975 - Vietnam War: The United States embassy in Phnom Penh, Cambodia is evacuated as Khmer Rouge troops encircle the city
1981 - The first launch of a Space Shuttle: Columbia launches on the STS-1 mission.
1990 - Christian Bernard, F.R.C., becomes Imperator of AMORC
1992 - EuroDisney opens in Marne-la-Vallee, France.
21st century
2002 - Coup d'Etat against Hugo Chávez in Venezuela
Births
up to 19th century
599 BC - Mahavira, founder of Jainism (d. 527 BC)
812 - Muhammad at-Taqi, Shia Imam (d. 835)
1748 - Antoine Laurent de Jussieu (d. 1836)
1777 - Henry Clay, American statesman and orator (d. 1852)
1799 - Henri Druey, member of the Swiss Federal Council (d. 1855)
1832 - Hugo Adolph Steinheil, optician (d. 1893)
1856 - William Martin Conway, English art critic and mountaineer (d. 1937)
1867- Sindo Garay, Cuban singer and musician (d. 1968)
1884 - Otto Meyerhof, biochemist, winner of Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1922) (d. 1951)
1888 - Cecil Kimber, founder of MG
1892 - Johnny Dodds, jazz musician (d. 1940)
1895 - Lily Pons, opera soprano (d. 1976)
20th century
1900s-1960s
1902 - Louis Beel, Prime Minister of the Netherlands (d. 1977)
1903 - Sally Rand, fan dancer (d. 1979)
1904 - Paul Dahlke, actor (d. 1984)
1907 - Felix de Weldon, sculptor (d. 2003)
1913 - Lionel Hampton, musician (d. 2002)
1916 - Beverly Cleary, writer
1922 - Tiny Tim, English musician (d. 1996)
1928 - Jean-François Paillard, French conductor
1933 - Montserrat Caballé, Catalan soprano
1939 - Alan Ayckbourn, writer
1940 - Herbie Hancock, musician
1941 - Bobby Moore, English national football team captain (d. 1993)
1944 - John Kay, of Steppenwolf
1946 - Ed O'Neill, actor
1947 - Tom Clancy, author
1947 - David Letterman, talk show host
1948 - Joschka Fischer, foreign minister of Germany
1948 - Sandra "Lois" Reeves, singer, member of Martha & the Vandellas
1949 - Scott Turow, writer
1950 - David Cassidy, singer, actor
1952 - Ralph Wiley, sports journalist (d. 2004)
1956 - Andy Garcia, actor
1956 - Herbert Grönemeyer, singer, pianist and actor
1957 - Vince Gill, country musician
1961 - Lisa Gerrard, singer, film composer
1971 - Shannen Doherty, actress
1971 - Nicholas Brendon, actor
1979 - Claire Danes, actress
1982 - Deen, Bosnian singer
Deaths
65 - Lucius Annaeus Seneca, philosopher, dramatist, statesman (b. c. 3 BC)
238 - Roman emperors Gordian I (suicide) and Gordian II (killed in battle)
1850 - Adoniram Judson, pioneer Baptist missionary to India and Burma (b. 1788)
1912 - Clara Barton, nurse and Red Cross advocate (b. 1821)
1938 - Feodor Chaliapin, operatic bass (b. 1873)
1945 - Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States (b. 1882)
1962 - Sir Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya, Indian politician and engineer, dies at 101
1975 - Josephine Baker, dancer (b. 1906)
1980 - Clark McConachy, billiards and snooker player (b. 1895)
1981 - Joe Louis, boxer (b. 1914)
1988 - Alan Paton, novelist (b. 1903)
1989 - Sugar Ray Robinson, multiple time world champion boxer (b. 1921)
1989 - Abbie Hoffman, radical leader (b. 1936)
2001 - Harvey Ball, inventor of the Smiley (b. 1921)
2003 - Cecil H. Green, Texas Instruments Founder (b. 1900)
Holidays and observances
The Roman holiday of Cerealia begins.
Yuri's Night, an international celebration of the first human in space, Yuri Gagarin.
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From "Lines in Praise of a Date Made Praiseworthy Solely by Something Very Nice That Happened to It", by Ogden Nash:
"As through the calendar I delve
I pause to rejoice in April twelve.
Yea, be I in sickness or be I in health
My favorite date is April twealth.
..."
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April 11 - April 13 - March 12 - May 12 -- listing of all days
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