November 12 is the 316th day of the year (317th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 49 days remaining.

Events

• 764 - Tibetan troops occupy Chang'an, the capital of the Chinese Tang Dynasty, for fifteen days.
• 1028 - Future Byzantine empress Zoe marries Romanus Argyrus according to the wishes of dying Constantine VIII
• 1439 - Plymouth, England, becomes the first town incorporated by the English Parliament.
• 1912 - The frozen bodies of Robert Scott and his men are found on the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica.
• 1918 - Austria becomes a republic.
• 1927 - Leon Trotsky is expelled from the Soviet Communist Party, leaving Joseph Stalin with undisputed control of the Soviet Union.
• 1927 - The Holland Tunnel opens to traffic as the first Hudson River vehicular tunnel linking New Jersey to New York City.
• 1933 - Hugh Gray of the British Aluminium Company takes the first known photos of the Loch Ness Monster; four of them turn out to be blank, while the last one is later proven to be a hoax.
• 1934 - The musical Babes in Toyland debuts, featuring Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy as comic relief (see Laurel and Hardy).
• 1936 - In California, the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge opens to traffic.
• 1938 - Hermann Goering announces Nazi Germany plans to make Madagascar the "Jewish homeland", an idea that actually was first considered by 19th century journalist Theodor Herzl.
• 1941 - World War II: Temperatures around Moscow drop to -12 ° C and the Soviet Union launches ski troops for the first time against the freezing German forces near the city.
• 1942 - World War II: The Japanese and American forces begins near Guadalcanal, will last for three days.
• 1944 - World War II: The Royal Air Force launches one of the most successful precision bombing attacks of war and sinks the German battleship Tirpitz off the coast of Norway.
• 1946 - A branch of the Exchange National Bank in Chicago, Illinois opens the first ten drive-up teller windows.
• 1948 - In Tokyo, an international war crimes tribunal sentences seven Japanese military and government officials to death, including General Hideki Tojo, for their roles in World War II.
• 1969 - Vietnam War: My Lai Massacre - Independent investigative journalist Seymour Hersh breaks the My Lai story.
• 1970 - The Oregon Highway Division attempts to destroy a rotting beached Gray whale with explosives, leading to the now infamous exploding whale incident
• 1971 - Vietnam War: As part of Vietnamization, US President Richard M. Nixon sets February 1, 1972 as the deadline for the removal of another 45,000 American troops from Vietnam.
• 1979 - Iran hostage crisis: In response to the hostage situation in Tehran, US President Jimmy Carter orders a halt to all oil imports into the United States from Iran.
• 1980 - The NASA space probe Voyager I makes its closest aproach to Saturn.
• 1982 - In the Soviet Union, Yuri Andropov is selected to become the general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party's Central Committee, succeeding the late Leonid I. Brezhnev.
• 1990 - Crown Prince Akihito is formally installed as Emperor Akihito of Japan, becoming the 125th Japanese monarch.
• 1990 - Tim Berners-Lee publishes a formal proposal for the World Wide Web.
• 1991 - Dili Massacre, Indonesian forces opened fire on a crowd of student protesters in Dili, East Timor.
• 1992 - Absolutely Fabulous airs its first episode on BBC1.
• 1996 - A Saudi Arabian Airlines Boeing 747 and a Kazakh Ilyushin Il-76 cargo plane collide in mid-air near New Delhi, India killing 349.
• 1997 - Ramzi Yousef is found guilty of masterminding the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
• 1998 - Daimler-Benz completes a merger with Chrysler to form Daimler-Chrysler.
• 2001 - In New York City, an Airbus A300 carrying American Airlines Flight 587 crashes minutes after takeoff from John F. Kennedy International Airport, killing all 260 on board.
• 2001 - 2001 Attack on Afghanistan: Taliban forces abandon Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, ahead of advancing Northern Alliance troops.
• 2002 - Special Extended DVD Edition of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring is released.
• 2003 - Occupation of Iraq: In Nasiriya, Iraq, at least 23 people, among them the first Italian casualties of the 2003 Iraq war are killed in a suicide bomb attack on an Italian police base.
• 2004 - Scott Peterson is found guilty of first degree murder of his wife Laci Peterson and their unborn son Conner after a five-and-a-half month long trial.
• 2004 - Official Guided by Voices Day in Los Angeles, California.

Births

• 1493 - Bartolommeo Bandinelli, Italian sculptor (d. 1560)
• 1815 - Elizabeth Cady Stanton, women's rights activist (d. 1902)
• 1817 - Mírzá Husayn-'Alí (Bahá'u'lláh), founder of the Bahá'í Faith
• 1833 - Alexander Borodin, Russian composer (d. 1887)
• 1840 - Auguste Rodin, French sculptor (d. 1917)
• 1866 - Sun Yat-sen, first President of the Republic of China (d. 1925)
• 1889 - DeWitt Wallace, publisher (Reader's Digest) (d. 1981)
• 1896 - Salim Ali, Indian Ornithologist (d. 1987)
• 1903 - Jack Oakie, American actor (d. 1978)
• 1908 - Harry Blackmun, Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court; wrote the majority opinion in Roe v. Wade (d. 1999)
• 1910 - Kurt Hoffmann, film director
• 1915 - Roland Barthes, French writer (d. 1980)
• 1917 - Jo Stafford, singer
• 1920 - Sunset Carson, actor (d. 1990)
• 1920 - Richard Quine, actor
• 1922 - Kim Hunter, actress (d. 2002)
• 1923 - Vicco von Bülow, known as Loriot, graphic artist, actor and film director
• 1929 - Michael Ende, writer (d. 1995)
• 1929 - Grace Kelly, Princess Grace of Monaco, actress (d. 1982)
• 1930 - Ann Flood, actress
• 1934 - Charles Manson, murderer
• 1943 - Brian Hyland, singer
• 1943 - Wallace Shawn, actor, playwright
• 1944 - Booker T. Jones, musician, singer, songwriter ("Booker T and the MG's")
• 1944 - Al Michaels, sports reporter
• 1945 - Neil Young, singer, songwriter, musician
• 1961 - Nadia Comaneci, gymnast
• 1966 - David Schwimmer, actor
• 1968 - Sammy Sosa, baseball player
• 1970 - Tonya Harding, figure skating star
• 1978 - Andrew Kinlochan, singer, musician
• 1980 - Akira Hasegawa, actor
• 1982 - Michael Floersh, pilot, musician, student
• 1982 - Anne Hathaway, actress, Princess Diaries

Deaths

• 607 - Pope Boniface III
• 1035 - Canute the Great
• 1094 - Duncan II of Scotland
• 1671 - Thomas Fairfax, parliamentary general and commander-in-chief during the English Civil War
• 1865 - Elizabeth Gaskell English novelist
• 1941 - Abe "Kid Twist" Reles, mobster
• 1950 - Julia Marlowe, nee Sarah Frost, Shakesperean actress (b. 1866)
• 1955 - Alfréd Hajós, Hungarian swimmer
• 1976 - Walter Piston, composer
• 1984 - Chester Himes, author
• 1990 - Eve Arden, actress
• 1993 - H. R. Haldeman, Watergate scandal figure
• 1994 - Wilma Rudolph, runner
• 2001 - Tony Miles, chess player
• 2003 - Jonathan Brandis, actor
• 2003 - Penny Singleton, actress
• 2003 - Tony Thompson, drummer for The Power Station

Holidays and observances

• Bahá'í Faith: Holy Day, Birth of Bahá'u'lláh

November 11 - November 13 - October 12 - December 12 -- listing of all days