August 12 is the 224th day of the year (225th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. There are 141 days remaining.

Events

1000-1899

• 1099 -- First Crusade: Battle of Ascalon - Crusaders defeat Saracens and the Kingdom of Jerusalem is established under Godfrey of Bouillon.
• 1323 - Treaty of Nöteborg - Sweden and Novgorod (Russia) regulates the border for the first time
• 1332 - Battle of Dupplin Moor - Scots under the Earl of Mar routed by Edward Balliol
• 1676 - King Philip's War ends
• 1851 - Isaac Singer granted a patent for his sewing machine
• 1854 - Count Gaston de Raousset Boulbon is executed by shooting, in regard to the Battle of Guaymas.
• 1877 - Asaph Hall discovers Deimos
• 1883 - The last quagga dies at the Artis Magistra zoo in Amsterdam
• 1898 - Armistice ends the Spanish-American War
• 1898 - The Hawaiian flag is lowered from Iolani Palace in an elaborate annexation ceremony and replaced with the American flag to signify the transfer of sovereignty from the Republic of Hawaii to the United States.

1900-1999

• 1908 - First Model T Ford built
• 1914 - Great War - Britain declares war on Austria-Hungary; British Empire countries automatically included.
• 1953 - Nuclear testing: The Soviet Union detonates its first hydrogen bomb.
• 1960 - Echo I, the first communications satellite, launched
• 1981 - The personal computer, is introduced
• 1985 - Japan Airlines flight 123 Boeing 747 jumbo jet crashes into Mount Ogura, Japan killing 520, in world's worst single-plane air disaster
• 1992 - Canada, Mexico and the United States announce completion of negotiations for NAFTA.
• 1994 - Woodstock '94 rock concert
• 1994 - Major League Baseball players go on strike. The work stoppage will force the cancellation of the World Series.

2000-2099

• 2000 - Russian submarine Kursk sinks in the Barents Sea
• 2004 - Sweden's 9th million inhabitant is born and well.
• 2004 - Lee Hsien Loong is sworn in as Singapore's 3rd Prime Minister

Births

1500-1899

• 1503 - Christian III of Denmark and Norway (d. 1559)
• 1604 - Tokugawa Iemitsu, 3rd Tokugawa shogun (d. 1651)
• 1629 - Tsar Alexei I of Russia (d. 1676)
• 1774 - Robert Southey, poet, biographer (d. 1843)
• 1831 - Helena Blavatsky, author (d. 1891)
• 1859 - Katherine Lee Bates, poet, author of America the Beautiful (d. 1929)
• 1876 - Mary Roberts Rinehart, author (d. 1958)
• 1880 - Christy Mathewson, member of the Baseball Hall of Fame (d. 1925)
• 1880 - Radclyffe Hall, British author (d. 1943)
• 1881 - Cecil B. DeMille, director (d. 1959)
• 1883 - Pauline Frederick, stage actress & film star (d.1938)
• 1887 - Erwin Schrödinger, physicist (d. 1961)
• 1892 - Alfred Lunt, actor (d. 1977)

1900-1999

• 1904 - Alexei Nikolaevich Romanov, Tsarevich, heir to the throne of Russia (d. 1918)
• 1906 - Pauline Frederick, journalist (d. 1990)
• 1907 - Joe Besser, actor, comedian; member of the Three Stooges (d. 1988)
• 1911 - Cantinflas (Mario Moreno Reyes), actor (d. 1993)
• 1911 - Jane Wyatt, actress
• 1924 - Muhammad Zia ul-Haq, Leader of Pakistan, (d. 1988)
• 1926 - John Derek, actor (d. 1998)
• 1927 - Mstislav Rostropovich, cellist
• 1927 - Porter Wagoner, country and western singer
• 1928 - Dan Curtis, movie and television producer and director
• 1929 - Buck Owens, country and western singer
• 1930 - George Soros American businessman
• 1931 - William Goldman, screenwriter
• 1933 - Parnelli Jones, auto racer
• 1939 - George Hamilton, actor
• 1949 - Mark Knopfler, musician
• 1954 - Pat Metheny, guitarist
• 1971 - Pete Sampras, tennis player
• 1972 - Rebecca Gayheart, actress
• 1972 - Takanohana Kōji, sumo wrestler (65th yokozuna)
• 1973 - Richard Reid, alleged Al-Qaida operative; "the shoe bomber"
• 1976 - Antoine Walker, basketball player
• 1977 - Plaxico Burress, American football player
• 1988 - Leah Pipes, actress

Deaths

800-1899

• 875 - Louis II Holy Roman Emperor
• 1484 - Pope Sixtus IV
• 1484 - George of Trebizond, philosopher
• 1612 - Giovanni Gabrieli, Italian composer
• 1633 - Jacopo Peri, composer
• 1689 - Pope Innocent XI
• 1827 - William Blake, poet and printmaker
• 1848 - George Stephenson, locomotive designer
• 1864 - Sakuma Shōzan, reformist of the late Tokugawa shogunate (b. 1811)

1900-1999

• 1914 - John Philip Holland, early submarine designer (b. 1840)
• 1918 - Anna Held, actress amd singer, (b. 1872)
• 1923 - Vatrslav Jagić - Croatian philologist (b. 1838)
• 1928 - Leos Janacek, Czech composer
• 1948 - Harry Brearley, inventor of stainless steel
• 1955 - Thomas Mann, German author
• 1964 - Ian Fleming, British novelist
• 1968 - Angus Walters, schooner captain
• 1982 - Henry Fonda, American actor
• 1982 - Joe Tex (Joseph Arrington), singer
• 1982 - Salvador Sanchez world champion boxer
• 1985 - Manfred Winkelhock, auto racing driver
• 1985 - Kyu Sakamoto, singer (b. 1941)
• 1989 - William Shockley, physicist
• 1992 - John Cage, American composer
• 1997 - Luther Allison, blues musician, guitarist

2000-2099

• 2000 - Loretta Young, actress
• 2002 - Enos Slaughter, baseball Hall of Famer
• 2002 - Ed Headrick, developer of the Frisbee
• 2004 - Sir Godfrey Hounsfield, inventor of computed axial tomography
• 2004 - Peter Woodthorpe, British character actor

Holidays and observations

• Glorious Twelfth at the Yorkshire Dales
• Zaraday (Discordianism)

August 11 - August 13 - July 12 - September 12 -- listing of all days