Today In History – This Day In History Funny Events

Pope John VIII was the bishop of Rome and ruler of the Papal States from 14 December 872 to his death. He is often considered one of the most able popes of the 9th century.

Pope John VIII crowns Charles the Fat, the King of Italy: Holy Roman Emperor

Sir John Fastolf was a late medieval English soldier, landowner, and knight who fought in the Hundred Years' War from 1415 to 1439, latterly as a senior commander against Joan of Arc, among others. He has enjoyed a more lasting reputation as the prototype, in some part, of Shakespeare's character Sir John Falstaff, although their careers are very different. Many historians argue, however, that he deserves to be famous in his own right, not only as a soldier, but as a patron of literature, a writer on strategy and perhaps as an early industrialist.

English forces under Sir John Fastolf defend a supply convoy carrying rations to the army besieging Orléans in the Battle of the Herrings.

Isabella I was Queen of Castile and León from 1474 until her death in 1504. She was also Queen of Aragon from 1479 until her death as the wife of King Ferdinand II. Reigning together over a dynastically unified Spain, Isabella and Ferdinand are known as the Catholic Monarchs. Her reign marked the end of the Reconquista and also the start of the Spanish Empire, allowing Spain to dominate European politics for the next century.

Isabella I issued an edict outlawing Islam in the Crown of Castile, forcing virtually all her Muslim subjects to convert to Christianity.

Vasco da Gama was a Portuguese mariner, explorer and nobleman. His discovery of the first direct maritime route between Europe and India via the Cape of Good Hope and across the Indian Ocean from Malindi in Kenya to Kozhikode was to open up European exploration of, and commerce with, India, and is considered a landmark event and a turning point in World history.

Vasco da Gama sets sail from Lisbon, Portugal, on his second voyage to India.

Santiago, also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile and one of the largest cities in the Americas. Located in the Chilean Central Valley within the Santiago Basin, between the Andes to the east and the Chilean Coastal Range to the west, it anchors the Santiago Metropolitan Region and its conurbation of Greater Santiago, which comprises more than forty communes and concentrates over a third of the national population and around 45% of Chile’s GDP. Most of the city lies between 500 and 650 m above sea level, with recent urban growth extending into the Andean foothills.

Santiago, Chile is founded by Pedro de Valdivia.

Lady Jane Grey, also known as Lady Jane Dudley after her marriage, and nicknamed as the "Nine Days Queen", was an English noblewoman who was proclaimed Queen of England and Ireland on 10 July 1553 and reigned until she was deposed by the Privy Council of England, which proclaimed her cousin, Mary I, as the new Queen on 19 July. Jane was later beheaded for high treason.

A year after claiming the throne of England for nine days, Lady Jane Grey is beheaded for treason.

The Imjin War was a series of two Japanese invasions of Korea: an initial invasion in 1592 also individually called the "Imjin War", a brief truce in 1596, and a second invasion in 1597 called the Chŏngyu War. The conflict ended in 1598 with the withdrawal of Japanese forces from the Korean Peninsula after a military stalemate in Korea's southern provinces.

Japanese invasion of Korea: Approximately 3,000 Joseon defenders led by general Kwon Yul successfully repel more than 30,000 Japanese forces in the Siege of Haengju.

The English Convention was an assembly of the Parliament of England which met between 22 January and 12 February 1689 and transferred the crowns of England and Ireland from James II to William III and Mary II.

The Convention Parliament declares that the flight to France in 1688 by James II, the last Roman Catholic British monarch, constitutes an abdication.

Lieutenant-General James Edward Oglethorpe was a British Army officer, Tory politician and colonial administrator best known for founding the Province of Georgia in British North America. As a social reformer, he hoped to resettle Britain's "worthy poor" in the New World, initially focusing on those in debtors' prisons.

Englishman James Oglethorpe founds Georgia, the 13th colony of the Thirteen Colonies, and its first city at Savannah (known as Georgia Day).

Gustav III, also called Gustavus III, was King of Sweden from 1771 until his assassination in 1792. He was the eldest son of King Adolf Frederick and Queen Louisa Ulrika of Sweden.

Gustav III becomes the King of Sweden.

Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country located in the southern cone of South America and with a claimed portion of Antarctica. It covers an area of 2,780,085 km2 (1,073,397 mi2), making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourth-largest country in the Americas, and the eighth-largest country in the world. Argentina shares the bulk of the Southern Cone with Chile to the west, and is also bordered by Bolivia and Paraguay to the north, Brazil to the northeast, Uruguay and the South Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Drake Passage to the south. Argentina is a federal state subdivided into twenty-three provinces, and one autonomous city, which is the federal capital and largest city of the nation, Buenos Aires. The provinces and the capital have their own constitutions, but exist under a federal system. Argentina claims sovereignty over the Falkland Islands, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, the Southern Patagonian Ice Field, and a part of Antarctica.

An Argentine/Chilean patriotic army, after crossing the Andes, defeats Spanish troops on the Battle of Chacabuco.

Bernardo O'Higgins Riquelme was a Chilean independence leader who freed Chile from Spanish rule in the Chilean War of Independence. He was a wealthy landowner of Basque-Spanish and Irish ancestry. Although he was the second Supreme Director of Chile (1817–1823), he is considered one of Chile's founding fathers, as he was the first holder of this title to head a fully independent Chilean state.

Bernardo O'Higgins formally approves the Chilean Declaration of Independence near Concepción, Chile.

The Muscogee, Mvskoke or Mvskokvlke, also known as Muscogee Creek or just Creek, are a group of related Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands in the United States. Their historical homelands are in what now comprises southern Tennessee, much of Alabama, western Georgia and parts of northern Florida.

The Creek cede the last of their lands in Georgia to the United States government by the Treaty of Indian Springs, and migrate west.

Ecuador, officially the Republic of Ecuador, is a country in northwestern South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and the Pacific Ocean on the west. It also includes the Galápagos Province which contains the Galápagos Islands in the Pacific, about 1,000 kilometers (621 mi) west of the mainland. The country's capital is Quito and its largest city is Guayaquil.

Ecuador annexes the Galápagos Islands.

Edward Hammond Hargraves was an Australian gold prospector who led an expedition in the Macquarie River region of New South Wales in 1851, and publicised the resulting finds, starting the New South Wales gold rush.

Edward Hargraves announces he has found gold in Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia, starting the Australian gold rushes.

Michigan State University is a public land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan, United States. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the first of its kind in the country. After the introduction of the Morrill Act in 1862, the state designated the college a land-grant institution in 1863, making it the first of the land-grant colleges in the United States. The college became coeducational in 1870. Michigan State has facilities across the state, and over 634,000 alumni.

Michigan State University is established.

Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that seeks to abolish all institutions that perpetuate authority, coercion, or hierarchy, primarily targeting the state and capitalism. Anarchism advocates for the replacement of the state with stateless societies and voluntary free associations. A historically left-wing movement, anarchism is usually described as the libertarian wing of the socialist movement.

Anarchist Émile Henry hurls a bomb into the Cafe Terminus in Paris, killing one person and wounding 20.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is an American civil rights organization formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E. B. Du Bois, Mary White Ovington, Moorfield Storey, Ida B. Wells, Lillian Wald, Emil G. Hirsch and Henry Moskowitz. Over the years, leaders of the organization have included Thurgood Marshall and Roy Wilkins. The NAACP is the largest and oldest civil rights group in America.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is founded.

SS Penguin was a New Zealand inter-island ferry steamer that sank off the southwest coast of Wellington after striking a rock near Sinclair Head in poor weather on 12 February 1909. Penguin's sinking caused the deaths of 75 people, leaving only 30 survivors. This was New Zealand's worst maritime disaster of the 20th century.

New Zealand's worst maritime disaster of the 20th century happens when the SS Penguin, an inter-island ferry, sinks and explodes at the entrance to Wellington Harbour.

Puyi was the last emperor of China, reigning as the eleventh monarch of the Qing dynasty from 1908 to 1912, and a brief return in 1917, when he was forced to abdicate. Later, he sided with Imperial Japan and was made ruler of Manchukuo—Japanese-occupied Manchuria—in hopes of regaining power as China's emperor. After over 10 years of imprisonment for war crimes following the end of World War II, Puyi worked for four years as a gardener in Beijing, China.

The Xuantong Emperor, the last Emperor of China, abdicates.

The Lincoln Memorial is a U.S. national memorial honoring Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, located on the western end of the National Mall of Washington, D.C. The memorial is built in a neoclassical style in the form of a classical temple. The memorial's architect was Henry Bacon. In 1920, Daniel Chester French designed the large interior Abraham Lincoln statue, which was carved in marble by the Piccirilli brothers. Jules Guérin painted the interior murals, and the epitaph above the statue was written by Royal Cortissoz. Dedicated on May 30, 1922, it is one of several memorials built to honor an American president. It has been a major tourist attraction since its opening, and over the years, has occasionally been used as a symbolic center focused on race relations and civil rights.

In Washington, D.C., the first stone of the Lincoln Memorial is put into place.

The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the Second Party Congress in 1903. The Bolshevik party, formally established in 1912, seized power in Russia in the October Revolution of 1917 and was later renamed the Russian Communist Party, All-Union Communist Party, and ultimately the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Its ideology, based on Leninist and later Marxist–Leninist principles, became known as Bolshevism.

Bolsheviks launch a revolt in Georgia as a preliminary to the Red Army invasion of Georgia.

George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist whose compositions spanned jazz, popular and classical music. Among his best-known works are the songs "Swanee" (1919) and "Fascinating Rhythm" (1924), the orchestral compositions Rhapsody in Blue (1924) and An American in Paris (1928), the jazz standards "Embraceable You" (1928) and "I Got Rhythm" (1930) and the opera Porgy and Bess (1935), which included the hit "Summertime". His Of Thee I Sing (1931) was the first musical to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue received its premiere in a concert titled "An Experiment in Modern Music", in Aeolian Hall, New York, by Paul Whiteman and his band, with Gershwin playing the piano.

USS Macon (ZRS-5) was a rigid airship built and operated by the United States Navy for scouting and served as a "flying aircraft carrier", carrying up to five single-seat Curtiss F9C Sparrowhawk parasite biplanes for scouting or two-seat Fleet N2Y-1s for training. In service for less than two years, the Macon was damaged in a storm and lost off California's Big Sur coast in February 1935, though most of the crew were rescued. The wreckage is listed as the USS Macon Airship Remains on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.

USS Macon, one of the two largest helium-filled airships ever created, crashes into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California and sinks.

Operation Deadlight was the code name for the Royal Navy operation of November 1945 – February 1946 to scuttle German U-boats surrendered to the Allies after the defeat of Germany near the end of World War II. After the surrender, political discussions continued between the Allies concerning the final disposal of the surviving German naval vessels, the result of which was an agreement to retain 30 U-boats in total, to be divided equally between the United Kingdom, the United States and the Soviet Union. The remainder would be scuttled.

World War II: Operation Deadlight ends after scuttling 121 of 154 captured U-boats.

African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly called Afro-Americans, or, historically, Negroes or Colored, are an American racial and ethnic group who, as defined by the United States census, consists of Americans who have ancestry from "any of the Black racial groups of Africa". African Americans constitute the second largest racial and ethnic group in the U.S. after White Americans. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of Africans enslaved in the United States. According to annual estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau, as of July 1, 2024, the Black population was estimated at 42,951,595, representing approximately 12.63% of the total U.S. population.

African American United States Army veteran Isaac Woodard is severely beaten by a South Carolina police officer to the point where he loses his vision in both eyes. The incident later galvanizes the Civil Rights Movement and partially inspires Orson Welles' film Touch of Evil.

In southeastern Russia, an iron meteorite fell on the Sikhote-Alin mountains in 1947. Large iron meteorite falls have been witnessed, and fragments have been recovered, but never before in recorded history has a fall of this magnitude occurred. An estimated 23 tonnes of fragments survived the fiery passage through the atmosphere and reached the Earth.

The largest observed iron meteorite until that time creates an impact crater in Sikhote-Alin, in the Soviet Union.

Christian Ernest Dior was a French fashion designer and founder of one of the world's top fashion houses, Christian Dior SE. His fashion house is known all around the world, having gained prominence "on five continents in only a decade."

Christian Dior unveils a "New Look", helping Paris regain its position as the capital of the fashion world.

J. Lyons & Co. was a British restaurant chain store, food manufacturing, and hotel conglomerate founded in 1884 by Joseph Lyons and his brothers in law, Isidore and Montague Gluckstein. Lyons' first teashop opened in Piccadilly, London in 1894, and from 1909 they developed into a chain of teashops, with the firm becoming a staple of the High Street in the UK. At its peak the chain numbered around 200 cafes. The teashops provided for tea and coffee, with food choices consisting of hot dishes and sweets, cold dishes and sweets, and buns, cakes and rolls.

Lyons's LEO produces a payroll report. It is the first time in history a computer is used in business.

Venera 1, also known as Venera-1VA No.2 and occasionally in the West as Sputnik 8, was the first spacecraft to perform an interplanetary flight and the first to fly past Venus, as part of the Soviet Union's Venera programme. Launched in February 1961, it was intended as an impactor, but flew past Venus on 19 May of the same year; however, radio contact with the probe was lost before the flyby, resulting in it returning no data.

Soviet Union launches Venera 1 towards Venus.

The Gateway Arch is a 630-foot-tall (192 m) monument in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. Clad in stainless steel and built in the form of a weighted catenary arch, it is the world's tallest arch and Missouri's tallest accessible structure. Some sources consider it the tallest human-made monument in the Western Hemisphere. Built as a monument to the westward expansion of the United States and officially dedicated to "the American people", the Arch, commonly referred to as "The Gateway to the West", is a National Historic Landmark in Gateway Arch National Park and has become a popular tourist destination, as well as an internationally recognized symbol of St. Louis.

Construction begins on the Gateway Arch in St. Louis.

Malcolm X was an African American revolutionary and human rights activist who founded Muslim Mosque, Inc. (MMI) and the Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU). He was also a prominent figure during the civil rights movement until his assassination in 1965. A spokesman and minister for the Nation of Islam (NOI) from 1952 until 1964, after which he left, he was a vocal advocate for Black empowerment and the promotion of Islam within the African American community. A controversial figure accused of preaching violence, Malcolm X is also a celebrated figure with Black people and Muslims worldwide for his pursuit of racial justice.

Malcolm X visits Smethwick following the racial charged 1964 general election.[1]

The Phong Nhị and Phong Nhất massacre was a massacre of unarmed civilians in the villages of Phong Nhị and Phong Nhất, Điện Bàn District of Quảng Nam Province in South Vietnam reported to have been conducted by the 2nd Marine Brigade of the Republic of Korea Marines (ROKMC) during the Vietnam War on 12 February 1968.

Phong Nhị and Phong Nhất massacre.

Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn was a Soviet and Russian author and dissident who helped to raise global awareness of political repression in the Soviet Union, especially the Gulag prison system. He was awarded the 1970 Nobel Prize in Literature "for the ethical force with which he has pursued the indispensable traditions of Russian literature". His nonfiction work The Gulag Archipelago "amounted to a head-on challenge to the Soviet state" and sold tens of millions of copies.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1970, is exiled from the Soviet Union.

Lahore is the capital and largest city of the Pakistani province of Punjab. It is the second-largest city in Pakistan, after Karachi, and 27th largest in the world, with a population of over 14 million. Lahore is one of Pakistan's major industrial, educational and economic hubs. It has been the historic capital and cultural centre of the wider Punjab region, and is one of Pakistan's most socially liberal, progressive, and cosmopolitan cities.

One hundred women protest in Lahore, Pakistan against military dictator Zia-ul-Haq's proposed Law of Evidence. The women were tear-gassed, baton-charged and thrown into lock-up. The women were successful in repealing the law.

Carmen Mary Lawrence is an Australian academic and former politician who was the premier of Western Australia from 1990 to 1993, the first woman to become the premier of an Australian state. To date she is the only female premier of Western Australia. A member of the Labor Party, she later entered federal politics as a member of the House of Representatives from 1994 to 2007, and served as a minister in the Keating government.

Carmen Lawrence becomes the first female Premier in Australian history when she becomes Premier of Western Australia.

The Constitution of Mongolia was adopted on 13 January 1992, put into force on 12 February, with amendments made in 1999, 2000, 2019, 2022, and 2023. The constitution established a representative democracy in Mongolia, enshrining core functions of the government, including the separation of powers and election cycle, and guaranteeing human rights, including freedom of religion, travel, expression, and private property. The document was written after the Mongolian Revolution of 1990, effectively dissolving the Mongolian People's Republic and ending the one-party rule.

The current Constitution of Mongolia comes into effect.

On 12 February 1993 in Merseyside, England, two 10-year-old boys, Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, abducted, tortured, and murdered a two-year-old boy, James Patrick Bulger. Thompson and Venables led Bulger away from the New Strand Shopping Centre in Bootle, where Bulger was visiting shops with his mother. His mutilated body was found on a railway line 2+1⁄2 miles away in Walton, Liverpool, two days later.

Two-year-old James Bulger is abducted from New Strand Shopping Centre by two ten-year-old boys, who later torture and murder him.

The National Gallery is a gallery in Oslo, Norway. Since 2003 it is administratively a part of the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design.

Four thieves break into the National Gallery of Norway and steal Edvard Munch's iconic painting The Scream.

William Jefferson Clinton is an American politician and lawyer who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the attorney general of Arkansas from 1977 to 1979 and as the governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981, and again from 1983 to 1992. His centrist "Third Way" political philosophy became known as Clintonism, which dominated his presidency and the succeeding decades of Democratic Party history.

United States President Bill Clinton is acquitted by the United States Senate in his impeachment trial.

Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous – Shoemaker, renamed after its 1996 launch in honor of planetary scientist Eugene Shoemaker, was a robotic space probe designed by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory for NASA to study the near-Earth asteroid Eros from close orbit over a period of a year. It was the first spacecraft to orbit an asteroid and land on it successfully. In February 2000, the mission closed in on the asteroid and orbited it. On February 12, 2001, Shoemaker touched down on the asteroid and was terminated just over two weeks later.

NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft touches down in the "saddle" region of 433 Eros, becoming the first spacecraft to land on an asteroid.

The war crimes trial of Slobodan Milošević, the former President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) lasted for just over four years from 2002 until his death in 2006. Milošević faced 66 counts of crimes against humanity, genocide, and war crimes committed during the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s. He pleaded not guilty to all the charges.

The trial of Slobodan Milošević, the former President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, begins at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands. He dies four years later before its conclusion.

Iran Airtour is a privately owned Iranian airline that was launched in 1973. Its main base is Mashhad Airport.

An Iran Airtour Tupolev Tu-154 crashes in the mountains outside Khorramabad, Iran while descending for a landing at Khorramabad Airport, killing 119.

San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the fourth-most populous city in California and the 17th-most populous in the United States, with a population of 827,526 in 2024. Among U.S. cities with over 300,000 residents, San Francisco is ranked second by population density, first by per capita income, and sixth by aggregate income as of 2023. 4.6 million residents live in the city's metropolitan statistical area, the 13th-largest in the United States. 9.2 million live in the broader combined statistical area, the fifth-largest in the nation.

The city of San Francisco begins issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples in response to a directive from Mayor Gavin Newsom.

Colgan Air Flight 3407 was a scheduled passenger flight from Newark, New Jersey, to Buffalo, New York, on February 12, 2009. Approaching Buffalo, the aircraft, a Bombardier Q400, entered an aerodynamic stall from which it did not recover and crashed into a house at 6038 Long Street in Clarence Center, New York, at 10:17 pm EST, about 5 miles from the end of the runway, killing all 49 passengers and crew on board and one person inside the house.

Colgan Air Flight 3407 crashes into a house in Clarence Center, New York while on approach to Buffalo Niagara International Airport, killing all on board and one on the ground.