September 12Birthdays & History

On this day: September 12 in history

Oldest first. Tap a year to see it on the World Chronicle timeline.

1. 490 BCBattle of Marathon: The conventionally accepted date for the Battle of Marathon. The Athenians and their Plataean allies defeat the first Persian invasion force of Greece.Middle EastEurope
2. 372Sixteen Kingdoms: Sima Yao, age 10, succeeds his father Emperor Jianwen as Emperor Xiaowu of the Eastern Jin dynasty.Asia
3. 1185Isaac Angelos is crowned Byzantine emperor following the deposition of Andronikos I Komnenos and after the crowd rejects the coronation of Isaac's uncle John Doukas.Europe
4. 1213Albigensian Crusade: Simon de Montfort, 5th Earl of Leicester, defeats Peter II of Aragon at the Battle of Muret.Europe
5. 1229Battle of Portopí: The Aragonese army under the command of James I of Aragon disembarks at Santa Ponça, Mallorca, with the purpose of conquering the island.Europe
6. 1297The Treaty of Alcañices, mediated by the pope, between the king Denis of Portugal and king Ferdinand IV of Castile defines the border between the two countries and establishes an alliance of friendship.Europe
7. 1309The first siege of Gibraltar takes place in the context of the Spanish Reconquista, pitting the forces of the Kingdom of Castile against the Emirate of Granada and resulting in a Castilian victory.Europe
8. 1609Henry Hudson begins his exploration of the Hudson River while aboard the Halve Maen.North America
9. 1634A gunpowder factory explodes in Valletta, Malta, killing 22 people and damaging several buildings.Europe
10. 1683Austro-Ottoman War: Battle of Vienna: Several European armies join forces to defeat the Ottoman Empire.Middle EastEurope
11. 1723Iran and Russia sign the treaty of Saint Petersburg. Iran is forced to cede all lands on the western and southern coast of the Caspian Sea and Russia pledges to provide military support against the Ottoman Empire.Middle EastEurope
12. 1814Battle of North Point: an American detachment halts the British land advance to Baltimore in the War of 1812.North AmericaEurope
13. 1847Mexican–American War: the Battle of Chapultepec begins.Latin AmericaNorth America
14. 1848A new constitution marks the establishment of Switzerland as a federal state.Europe
15. 1857The SS Central America sinks about 160 miles east of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, drowning a total of 426 passengers and crew, including Captain William Lewis Herndon. The ship was carrying 13–15 tons of gold from the California gold rush.Latin AmericaNorth America
16. 1885Arbroath 36–0 Bon Accord, a world record scoreline in professional association football.Europe
17. 1890Salisbury, Rhodesia, is founded.Africa
18. 1897Tirah campaign: In the Battle of Saragarhi, ten thousand Pashtun tribesmen suffer several hundred casualties while attacking 21 Sikh soldiers in British service.Europe
19. 1906The Newport Transporter Bridge is opened in Newport, South Wales by Viscount Tredegar.Europe
20. 1910Premiere performance of Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 8 in Munich (with a chorus of 852 singers and an orchestra of 171 players. Mahler's rehearsal assistant conductor was Bruno Walter).Europe
21. 1915French soldiers rescue over 4,000 Armenian genocide survivors stranded on Musa Dagh.Europe
22. 1923Southern Rhodesia, today called Zimbabwe, is annexed by the United Kingdom.AfricaEurope
23. 1933Leó Szilárd, waiting for a red light on Southampton Row in Bloomsbury, conceives the idea of the nuclear chain reaction.Europe
24. 1938Adolf Hitler demands autonomy and self-determination for the Germans of the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia.Europe
25. 1940The Hercules Powder plant disaster in the United States kills 51 people and injures over 200.North America
26. 1940Cave paintings are discovered in Lascaux, France.Europe
27. 1942World War II: First day of the Battle of Edson's Ridge during the Guadalcanal Campaign. U.S. Marines protecting Henderson Field are attacked by Imperial Japanese Army troops.OceaniaNorth AmericaAsia
28. 1942World War II: RMS Laconia, carrying civilians, Allied soldiers and Italian POWs is torpedoed off the coast of West Africa and sinks with a heavy loss of life.EuropeAfrica
29. 1943World War II: Benito Mussolini is rescued from house arrest by German commando forces led by Otto Skorzeny.Europe
30. 1944World War II: The liberation of Yugoslavia from Axis occupation continues. Bajina Bašta in western Serbia is among the liberated cities.Europe
31. 1953U.S. Senator and future President John Fitzgerald Kennedy marries Jacqueline Lee Bouvier at St. Mary's Church in Newport, Rhode Island.North America
32. 1958Jack Kilby demonstrates the first working integrated circuit while working at Texas Instruments.North America
33. 1959The Soviet Union launches a large rocket, Lunik II, at the Moon.Europe
34. 1959Bonanza, the first regularly scheduled TV program presented in color, is launched in the United States.North America
35. 1961Air France Flight 2005 crashes near Rabat–Salé Airport, in Rabat, Morocco, killing 77 people.EuropeAfrica
36. 1961The African and Malagasy Union is founded.Africa
37. 1962US President John F. Kennedy delivers his "We choose to go to the Moon" speech at Rice University.North America
38. 1966Gemini 11, the penultimate mission of NASA's Gemini program, and the current human altitude record holder (except for the Apollo lunar missions and Artemis II).North America
39. 1969Philippine Air Lines Flight 158 crashes in Antipolo, near Manila International Airport in the Philippines, killing 45 people.Asia
40. 1970Dawson's Field hijackings: Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorists blow up three hijacked airliners in Zarqa, Jordan, continuing to hold the passengers hostage in various undisclosed locations in Amman.Middle East
41. 1974Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, 'Messiah' of the Rastafari movement, is deposed following a military coup by the Derg, ending a reign of 58 years.Africa
42. 1977South African anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko dies in police custody.Africa
43. 1980Florida Commuter Airlines Flight 65 crashes into the Atlantic Ocean off West End, Bahamas, killing 34 people.North AmericaLatin America
44. 1980The 43rd government of Turkey is overthrown in a coup d'état led by General Kenan Evren.Middle East
45. 1983The USSR vetoes a United Nations Security Council Resolution deploring the Soviet destruction of Korean Air Lines Flight 007.EuropeAsia
46. 1983A Wells Fargo depot in West Hartford, Connecticut, United States, is robbed of approximately US$7 million by Los Macheteros.North America
47. 1984Dwight Gooden sets the baseball record for strikeouts in a season by a rookie with 276, previously set by Herb Score with 246 in 1954. Gooden's 276 strikeouts that season, pitched in 218 innings, set the current record.North America
48. 1988Hurricane Gilbert devastates Jamaica; it turns towards Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula two days later, causing an estimated $5 billion in damage.Latin America
49. 1990The Red Cross organizations of mainland China and Taiwan sign the Kinmen Agreement on repatriation of illegal immigrants and criminal suspects after two days of talks in Kinmen, Fujian Province in response to the two tragedies in repatriation in the previous two months. It is the first agreement reached by private organizations across the Taiwan Strait.Asia
50. 1990The two German states and the Four Powers sign the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany in Moscow, paving the way for German reunification.Europe
51. 1991NASA launches Space Shuttle Discovery on STS-48 to deploy the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite.North America
52. 1992NASA launches Space Shuttle Endeavour on STS-47, which marks the 50th shuttle mission. On board are Mae Carol Jemison, the first African-American woman in space, Mamoru Mohri, the first Japanese citizen to fly in a US spacecraft, and Mark Lee and Jan Davis, the first married couple in space.North AmericaAfricaAsia
53. 1992Abimael Guzmán, leader of the Shining Path, is captured by Peruvian special forces; shortly thereafter the rest of Shining Path's leadership fell as well.Latin America
54. 1993NASA launches Space Shuttle Discovery on STS-51.North America
55. 1994Frank Eugene Corder fatally crashes a single-engine Cessna 150 into the White House's south lawn, striking the West Wing. There were no other casualties.North America
56. 2001Ansett Australia, Australia's first commercial interstate airline, collapses due to increased strain on the international airline industry, leaving 10,000 people unemployed.Oceania
57. 2003The United Nations lifts sanctions against Libya after that country agreed to accept responsibility and recompense the families of victims in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103.Africa
58. 2003Iraq War: In Fallujah, U.S. forces mistakenly shoot and kill eight Iraqi police officers.Middle EastNorth America
59. 2003Typhoon Maemi, the strongest recorded typhoon to strike South Korea, made landfall near Busan.Asia
60. 2005Israeli–Palestinian conflict: the Israeli disengagement from Gaza is completed, leaving some 2,530 homes demolished.Middle East
61. 2007Former Philippine President Joseph Estrada is convicted of plunder.Asia
62. 2007Two earthquakes measuring 8.4 and 7.9 on the Richter Scale hits the Indonesian island of Sumatra, killing 25 people and injuring 161.Asia
63. 2008The 2008 Chatsworth train collision in Los Angeles between a Metrolink commuter train and a Union Pacific freight train kills 25 people.North America
64. 2012Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky Air Flight 251 crashes on approach to Palana Airport, killing 10 and injuring four.Europe
65. 2013NASA confirms that its Voyager 1 probe has become the first manmade object to enter interstellar space.North America
66. 2014The Synagogue Church building collapse results in the deaths of 115 people and several injured, in the Church run by Nigeria's T. B. Joshua.Africa
67. 2021Siberian Light Aviation Flight 51 crashes short of the runway at Kazachinskoye Airport, killing four.Europe

Source: Wikipedia "September 12" / CC BY-SA 4.0