History of Today in India – 12 May

Explore the history of today 12 May in India, including important events, famous personalities, and milestones for UPSC SSC,Banking & PSC exams.

Last updated on 12 May 2026, 04:20 AM

📜 Important Events on 12 May in World History

12 May 2024: Middle/end of the May 2024 solar storms, the most powerful set of geomagnetic storms since the 2003 Halloween solar storms. Read more
12 May 2018: Paris knife attack: A man is fatally shot by police in Paris after killing one and injuring several others. Read more
12 May 2017: The WannaCry ransomware attack impacts over 400,000 computers worldwide, targeting computers of the United Kingdom's National Health Services and Telefónica computers. Read more
12 May 2015: A train derailment in Philadelphia, United States, kills eight people and injures more than 200. Read more
12 May 2015: Massive Nepal earthquake kills 218 people and injures more than 3,500. Read more
12 May 2010: Afriqiyah Airways Flight 771 crashes on final approach to Tripoli International Airport in Tripoli, Libya, killing 103 out of the 104 people on board. Read more
12 May 2008: An earthquake (measuring around 8.0 magnitude) occurs in Sichuan, China, killing over 69,000 people. Read more
12 May 2008: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducts the largest-ever raid of a workplace in Postville, Iowa, arresting nearly 400 immigrants for identity theft and document fraud. Read more
12 May 2006: Mass unrest by the Primeiro Comando da Capital begins in São Paulo (Brazil), leaving at least 150 dead. Read more
12 May 2006: Iranian Azeris interpret a cartoon published in an Iranian magazine as insulting, resulting in massive riots throughout the country. Read more
12 May 2003: The Riyadh compound bombings in Saudi Arabia, carried out by al-Qaeda, kill 39 people. Read more
12 May 2002: Former US President Jimmy Carter arrives in Cuba for a five-day visit with Fidel Castro, becoming the first President of the United States, in or out of office, to visit the island since the Cuban Revolution. Read more
12 May 1989: The San Bernardino train disaster kills four people, only to be followed a week later by an underground gasoline pipeline explosion, which kills two more people. Read more
12 May 1982: During a procession outside the shrine of the Virgin Mary in Fátima, Portugal, security guards overpower Juan María Fernández y Krohn before he can attack Pope John Paul II with a bayonet. Read more
12 May 1978: In Zaire, rebels occupy the city of Kolwezi, the mining center of the province of Shaba (now known as Katanga); the local government asks the US, France and Belgium to restore order. Read more
12 May 1975: Indochina Wars: Democratic Kampuchea naval forces capture the SS Mayaguez. Read more
12 May 1968: Vietnam War: North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces attack Australian troops defending Fire Support Base Coral. Read more
12 May 1965: The Soviet spacecraft Luna 5 crashes on the Moon. Read more
12 May 1949: Cold War: The Soviet Union lifts its blockade of Berlin. Read more
12 May 1942: World War II: Second Battle of Kharkov: In eastern Ukraine, Red Army forces under Marshal Semyon Timoshenko launch a major offensive from the Izium bridgehead, only to be encircled and destroyed by the troops of Army Group South two weeks later. Read more
12 May 1942: World War II: The U.S. tanker SS Virginia is torpedoed in the mouth of the Mississippi River by the German submarine U-507. Read more
12 May 1941: Konrad Zuse presents the Z3, the world's first working programmable, fully automatic computer, in Berlin. Read more
12 May 1937: King George VI and Queen Elizabeth of the United Kingdom are crowned in Westminster Abbey. Read more
12 May 1933: The Agricultural Adjustment Act, which restricts agricultural production through government purchase of livestock for slaughter and paying subsidies to farmers when they remove land from planting, is signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Read more
12 May 1933: President Roosevelt signs legislation creating the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, the predecessor of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Read more
12 May 1932: Ten weeks after his abduction, Charles Jr., the infant son of Charles Lindbergh, is found dead near Hopewell, New Jersey, just a few miles from the Lindberghs' home. Read more
12 May 1926: The Italian-built airship Norge becomes the first vessel to fly over the North Pole. Read more
12 May 1926: The 1926 United Kingdom general strike ends. Read more
12 May 1885: North-West Rebellion: The four-day Battle of Batoche, pitting rebel Métis against the Canadian government, comes to an end with a decisive rebel defeat. Read more
12 May 1881: In North Africa, Tunisia becomes a French protectorate. Read more
12 May 1870: The Manitoba Act is given the Royal Assent, paving the way for Manitoba to become a province of Canada on July 15. Read more
12 May 1865: American Civil War: The Battle of Palmito Ranch: The first day of the last major land action to take place during the Civil War, resulting in a Confederate victory. Read more
12 May 1864: American Civil War: The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House: Union troops assault a Confederate salient known as the "Mule Shoe", with some of the fiercest fighting of the war, much of it hand-to-hand combat, occurring at "the Bloody Angle" on the northwest. Read more
12 May 1863: American Civil War: Battle of Raymond: Two divisions of James B. McPherson's XVII Corps turn the left wing of Confederate General John C. Pemberton's defensive line on Fourteen Mile Creek, opening up the interior of Mississippi to the Union Army during the Vicksburg Campaign. Read more
12 May 1862: American Civil War: Union Army troops occupy Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Read more
12 May 1846: The Donner Party of pioneers departs Independence, Missouri for California, on what will become a year-long journey of hardship and cannibalism. Read more
12 May 1821: The first major battle of the Greek War of Independence against the Turks is fought in Valtetsi. Read more
12 May 1809: British contingents under Arthur Wellesley force a French army under general Soult to retreat in the battle of Oporto. Read more
12 May 1808: Finnish War: Swedish-Finnish troops, led by Captain Karl Wilhelm Malmi, conquer the city of Kuopio from Russians after the Battle of Kuopio. Read more

🎂 Important Births on 12 May in World History

12 May 2006: Vasilije Adžić, Montenegrin footballer Vasilije Adžić is a Montenegrin professional footballer who plays as a midfielder for Serie A club Juventus and the Montenegro national team. Read more
12 May 2005: Zach Benson, Canadian ice hockey player Zachary Ruben Benson is a Canadian professional ice hockey player who is a winger for the Buffalo Sabres of the National Hockey League (NHL). He was drafted 13th overall by the Sabres in the 2023 NHL entry draft. Read more
12 May 2001: Issa Kaboré, Burkinabé footballer Issa Kaboré is a Burkinabé professional footballer who plays as a right-back or right wing-back for EFL Championship club Wrexham, on loan from Premier League club Manchester City, and the Burkina Faso national team. Read more
12 May 1999: Hiroki Itō, Japanese footballer Hiroki Ito is a Japanese professional footballer who plays as a centre-back, left-back and defensive midfielder for Bundesliga club Bayern Munich and the Japan national team. Read more
12 May 1998: Mo Bamba, American-Ivorian basketball player Mohamed Fakaba Bamba is an Ivorian-American professional basketball player who last played for the Utah Jazz of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball for the Texas Longhorns. He was highly regarded by scouts due to his 7 ft 10 in (2.39 m) wingspan and shooting ability. He attended Cardigan Mountain School in Canaan, New Hampshire, and Westtown School in West Chester, Pennsylvania, and was considered one of the top high school prospects for the class of 2017. Read more
12 May 1997: Frenkie de Jong, Dutch footballer Frenkie de Jong is a Dutch professional footballer who plays as a midfielder for La Liga club Barcelona and the Netherlands national team. Read more
12 May 1996: Fabrice Olinga, Cameroonian footballer Fabrice Olinga Essono, known as Olinga, is a Cameroonian professional footballer who plays as a forward. Read more
12 May 1996: Kostas Tsimikas, Greek footballer Konstantinos "Kostas" Tsimikas is a Greek professional footballer who plays as a left-back for Serie A club Roma, on loan from Premier League club Liverpool, and the Greece national team. Read more
12 May 1993: Timo Horn, German footballer Timo Phil Horn is a German professional footballer who plays as a goalkeeper for 2. Bundesliga club VfL Bochum. He began his professional career with 1. FC Köln, where he spent over a decade as the club's first-choice goalkeeper and made more than 300 appearances. After leaving Köln in 2023, he had a brief spell with Red Bull Salzburg before returning to Germany with VfL Bochum in 2024. Read more
12 May 1992: Erik Durm, German footballer Erik Durm is a German former professional footballer who played as a full-back. Read more
12 May 1990: Florent Amodio, French figure skater Florent Amodio is a French figure skating coach and former competitor. He is the 2011 European champion, a four-time French national champion, and the 2008 JGP Final champion. He has represented France at two Winter Olympics. Read more
12 May 1990: Etika, American YouTuber and live streamer (died 2019) Desmond Daniel Amofah, better known as Etika, was an American YouTuber and live streamer. Amofah became known online for his dramatic reactions to Super Smash Bros. character trailers, Nintendo Direct presentations, and for playing and reacting to various games. He resided in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, his father is the Ghanaian politician Owuraku Amofah and his granduncle is the former Ghanaian president Nana Akufo-Addo. Starting his online career in 2007, Amofah created his main YouTube channel, "EWNetwork", in 2012. His fanbase was dubbed the "JOYCONBOYZ" in reference to the Nintendo Switch controller, the Joy-Con. He garnered popularity following the release of Super Smash Bros. 4, primarily stemming from his reaction videos of news surrounding the game. His content consisted of playthroughs of various video games, reaction videos, and pre-recorded material. Across his multiple YouTube channels, he amassed over 1 million subscribers and 146 million views. Read more
12 May 1989: Eleftheria Eleftheriou, Greek Cypriot singer, musician, and actress Eleftheria Eleftheriou is a Greek Cypriot singer. She came to prominence through her participation in the second season of the Greek version of The X Factor. Shortly after her elimination, Sony Music Greece signed her and submitted her as a candidate to represent Greece in the Eurovision Song Contest 2010. She was later disqualified from the national final, following the leak of her song onto the internet by an unknown party. Read more
12 May 1988: Marcelo, Brazilian footballer Marcelo Vieira da Silva Júnior, known as Marcelo, is a Brazilian former professional footballer who played as a left-back. Widely regarded as one of the greatest left-backs of all time, he is known for his attacking capabilities. He spent most of his career with La Liga club Real Madrid and is one of the club’s most decorated players, winning 25 trophies. Read more
12 May 1987: Lance Lynn, American baseball player Michael Lance Lynn is an American former professional baseball pitcher. Between 2011 and 2024, he played 13 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the St. Louis Cardinals, Minnesota Twins, New York Yankees, Texas Rangers, Chicago White Sox, and Los Angeles Dodgers. Read more
12 May 1987: Kieron Pollard, Trinidadian cricketer Kieron Adrian Pollard is a Trinidadian cricketer, who captained the West Indies cricket team in limited overs cricket. He used to play in various T20 leagues around the globe as an all-rounder. He also used to captain MI Cape Town, MI Emirates and MI New York in the SA20, ILT20 and MLC respectively. He is currently playing for the Trinbago Knight Riders in the Caribbean Premier League. He is also the batting coach of the Mumbai Indians in the Indian Premier League and was the assistant coach of the England cricket team for the ICC Men's T20 World Cup 2024. He was part of the 2012 ICC World Twenty20 winning team for West Indies. During his period, he was one of the most aggressive batsmen and he also has the record of six 6s in an over against Sri Lanka. Read more
12 May 1987: Darren Randolph, Irish footballer Darren Edward Andrew Randolph is an Irish former professional footballer who played as a goalkeeper. He represented the Republic of Ireland national team in football, and Ireland at basketball. Read more
12 May 1986: Emily VanCamp, Canadian actress Emily Irene VanCamp is a Canadian actress. She gained acclaim and international recognition for portraying the lead role of Emily Thorne on the ABC series Revenge (2011–2015). She also starred on the Fox medical drama series The Resident (2018–2021). Read more
12 May 1983: Domhnall Gleeson, Irish actor Domhnall Gleeson is an Irish actor and screenwriter. The son of actor Brendan Gleeson, he studied media arts at the Dublin Institute of Technology. He began his career by directing and writing short films, and garnered a Tony Award nomination in 2006 for his role in the Broadway production The Lieutenant of Inishmore. He had a supporting role in Never Let Me Go (2010) and became known to a wider audience for his portrayal of Bill Weasley in the Harry Potter film series (2010–2011). Read more
12 May 1983: Yujiro Kushida, Japanese wrestler and mixed martial artist Yujiro Kushida is a Japanese professional wrestler and former mixed martial artist, better known by his mononymous ring name Kushida. He is signed to New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW), and also makes appearances for Major League Wrestling (MLW), where he is a member of Contra Unit. Read more
12 May 1981: Rami Malek, American actor Rami Said Malek is an American actor. He gained recognition for portraying Queen lead singer Freddie Mercury in the biographical film Bohemian Rhapsody (2018), for which he won numerous accolades, including the Academy Award for Best Actor in 2019, becoming the first actor of Egyptian heritage to win in that category. He played computer hacker Elliot Alderson in the USA Network television series Mr. Robot (2015–2019), for which he received the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series. Read more
12 May 1980: Rishi Sunak, English politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Rishi Sunak is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2022 to 2024. Following his defeat to Keir Starmer's Labour Party in the 2024 general election, he became Leader of the Opposition, serving in this role from July to November 2024. He previously held two Cabinet positions under Boris Johnson, latterly as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 2020 to 2022. Sunak is the Member of Parliament (MP) for Richmond and Northallerton, previously Richmond (Yorks), since 2015. Read more
12 May 1979: Steve Smith Sr., American football player Stevonne Latrall Smith Sr., better known as Steve Smith, is an American former professional football wide receiver who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 16 seasons, primarily with the Carolina Panthers. He played college football for the Utah Utes and was selected by the Panthers in the third round of the 2001 NFL draft. Smith spent 13 seasons in Carolina and three with the Baltimore Ravens. After retiring from the NFL, Smith became a sports analyst and show host for NFL Network. Read more
12 May 1978: Malin Åkerman, Swedish-Canadian model, actress, and singer Malin Maria Åkerman, often anglicised to Malin Akerman, is a Swedish-American actress. She first appeared in smaller parts in both Canadian and American productions, including The Utopian Society (2003) and Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle (2004). Following a main role on the HBO mockumentary series The Comeback (2005), Akerman co-starred in the commercially successful romantic comedies The Heartbreak Kid (2007) and 27 Dresses (2008). She gained wider recognition for her role as Silk Spectre II in the 2009 superhero film Watchmen, for which she received a Saturn Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Read more
12 May 1978: Jason Biggs, American actor and comedian Jason Matthew Biggs is an American actor. He is best known for his lead role as Jim Levenstein in the American Pie film series (1999–2012). His other notable lead credits include Loser (2000), Saving Silverman (2001), Anything Else (2003), My Best Friend's Girl (2008), Life Happens (2011), Grassroots (2012), and Best. Christmas. Ever! (2023). Read more
12 May 1977: Graeme Dott, Scottish snooker player and coach Graeme Dott is a Scottish former professional snooker player from Glasgow. He turned professional in 1994, first entered the top 16 in 2001, and reached his first world final at the 2004 World Championship, losing 8–18 to Ronnie O'Sullivan. Two years later, he defeated Peter Ebdon 18–14 in the final of the 2006 World Championship, winning his first world title and first ranking title. He claimed his second ranking title at the 2007 China Open, defeating Jamie Cope 9–5 in the final, and reached his career highest ranking of second in the 2007–08 rankings. Read more
12 May 1977: Maryam Mirzakhani, Iranian mathematician (died 2017) Maryam Mirzakhani was an Iranian mathematician and a professor of mathematics at Stanford University. Her research topics included Teichmüller theory, hyperbolic geometry, ergodic theory, and symplectic geometry. On 13 August 2014, Mirzakhani was honored with the Fields Medal, the most prestigious award in mathematics, becoming the first woman to win the prize, as well as the first Iranian. The award committee cited her work in "the dynamics and geometry of Riemann surfaces and their moduli spaces". Mirzakhani was considered a leading force in the fields of hyperbolic geometry, topology and dynamics. Read more
12 May 1976: Bruno Lage, Portuguese football manager Bruno Miguel Silva do Nascimento, known as Bruno Lage, is a Portuguese football manager who last managed Primeira Liga club Benfica. Read more
12 May 1975: Jonah Lomu, New Zealand rugby player (died 2015) Jonah Tali Lomu was a New Zealand professional rugby union player. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential players in the history of the sport, and as one of the most talented sportsmen of all time. Lomu is widely considered to have been the first true global superstar of rugby, and consequently had a huge impact on the game. Read more
12 May 1972: Rhea Seehorn, American actress Deborah Rhea Seehorn is an American actress and director. She is best known for playing attorney Kim Wexler in the AMC legal crime drama series Better Call Saul (2015–2022) and novelist Carol Sturka in the Apple TV science fiction thriller series Pluribus (2025–present). Read more
12 May 1970: Jim Furyk, American golfer James Michael Furyk is an American professional golfer who plays on the PGA Tour and the PGA Tour Champions. In 2010, he was the FedEx Cup champion and PGA Tour Player of the Year. He has won one major championship, the 2003 U.S. Open. Furyk holds the record for the lowest score in PGA Tour history, a round of 58 which he shot during the final round of the 2016 Travelers Championship, and has earned notoriety for his unorthodox golf swing. Read more
12 May 1970: Samantha Mathis, American actress Samantha Mathis is an American actress and trade union leader who served as the Vice President, Actors/Performers of SAG-AFTRA from 2015 to 2019. The daughter of actress Bibi Besch, Mathis made her film debut in Pump Up the Volume (1990), and later co-starred or appeared in such films as FernGully: The Last Rainforest (1992), Super Mario Bros. (1993), The Thing Called Love (1993), Little Women (1994), The American President (1995), Jack and Sarah (1995), Broken Arrow (1996), American Psycho (2000), The Punisher (2004), and Atlas Shrugged: Part II (2012). She has also had recurring roles on The Strain as New York City Councilwoman Justine Feraldo, and on Billions as Taylor Mason Capital COO Sara Hammon. Read more
12 May 1970: Mike Weir, Canadian golfer Michael Richard Weir, is a Canadian professional golfer. He currently plays on the PGA Tour Champions. He spent over 110 weeks in the top-10 of the Official World Golf Ranking between 2001 and 2005. He plays golf left-handed and is best known for winning the Masters Tournament in 2003, making him the only Canadian man to ever win a major championship. Read more
12 May 1969: Kim Fields, American actress Kim Fields Morgan is an American actress and director. She first gained fame as a child actress on the television series Good Times (1978–1979), and rose to greater prominence for her role as Dorothy "Tootie" Ramsey on the NBC sitcom Diff'rent Strokes (1979–1981), as well as its spin-off The Facts of Life (1979–1988). Read more
12 May 1968: Tony Hawk, American skateboarder and actor Anthony Frank Hawk, nicknamed Birdman, is an American professional skateboarder, entrepreneur, and the owner of the skateboard company Birdhouse. A pioneer of modern vertical skateboarding, Hawk completed the first documented "900" skateboarding trick in 1999. He also licensed a skateboarding video game series named after him, published by Activision that same year. Hawk, who retired from competing professionally in 2003, is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential skateboarders of all time. Read more
12 May 1967: Bill Shorten, Australian politician William Richard Shorten is an Australian former politician and trade unionist who served as the leader of the Opposition and the leader of the Labor Party from 2013 to 2019, and served as a cabinet minister in the Gillard, Rudd and Albanese governments. Read more
12 May 1966: Stephen Baldwin, American actor Stephen Andrew Baldwin is an American actor. He has appeared in the films Born on the Fourth of July (1989), Posse (1993), 8 Seconds, Threesome, The Usual Suspects (1995), Bio-Dome (1996) and The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas (2000). Baldwin also starred in the television series The Young Riders (1989–1992) and as himself in the reality shows Celebrity Big Brother 7, in which he placed 9th in the United Kingdom, and The Celebrity Apprentice. In 2004, he directed Livin' It, a Christian-themed skateboarding DVD. He is the youngest of the four Baldwin brothers. Read more
12 May 1965: Mark Thomas, British sprinter Mark Thomas is a British former sprinter specializing in the 400 metres. He was the 1988 AAA Indoor Championships winner in his event, and he won the silver medal representing the U.K. at the 1987 World Athletics Championships by virtue of running in the heats and semi-finals. Read more
12 May 1962: Emilio Estevez, American actor Emilio Estevez is an American actor and filmmaker. The son of actor Martin Sheen and the older brother of Charlie Sheen, he made his film debut with an uncredited role in Badlands (1973). He later received his first credited appearance with a supporting role in the coming-of-age film Tex (1982). Read more
12 May 1962: Brett Gurewitz, American guitarist and songwriter Brett W. Gurewitz, nicknamed Mr. Brett, is an American musician and record producer, best known as the co-founder and guitarist of the punk band Bad Religion. He is also the owner of the music label Epitaph Records and a number of sister labels. He has produced albums for Bad Religion as well as Epitaph Records labelmates NOFX, Rancid, and Pennywise, among others. Gurewitz also had a project called Error, which also featured Atticus Ross, Leopold Ross, and Greg Puciato. He is also the co-founder of comic book and graphic novel publisher, Black Mask Studios. Read more
12 May 1959: Ving Rhames, American actor Irving Rameses Rhames is an American actor. Born and raised in Harlem, New York City, he studied drama at SUNY Purchase before transferring to the Juilliard School, graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1983. After early stage work in Shakespeare and contemporary plays, he made his screen debut in 1985 and gained attention through roles in Jacob's Ladder (1990), The People Under the Stairs (1991), and as Marsellus Wallace in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction (1994). Rhames achieved further recognition as Luther Stickell in the Mission: Impossible film series, appearing in all eight installments. Read more
12 May 1957: Lou Whitaker, American baseball player Louis Rodman Whitaker Jr., nicknamed "Sweet Lou", is an American former professional baseball second baseman. Whitaker spent his entire career with the Detroit Tigers. From 1977 to 1995, he appeared in 2,390 games for the Tigers, third most in franchise history behind Ty Cobb and Al Kaline. He helped the Tigers win the 1984 World Series, was selected as an American League All-Star five consecutive years (1983–1987) and won four Silver Slugger Awards and three Gold Glove Awards (1983–1985). The Tigers retired his No. 1 jersey in August 2022. Read more
12 May 1952: Domingos Maubere, East Timorese Catholic priest and activist (died 2025) Domingos da Silva Soares, popularly known as Padre Maubere or Amu Du, was an East Timorese Roman Catholic priest, activist, and independence leader. Born in Letefoho in what was then Portuguese Timor, he attended seminary in Portugal and was ordained in 1978. In 1980, he returned to East Timor and became involved in the resistance against the Indonesian occupation (1975–1999), often supporting the guerrillas and coordinating with the movement's leaders. As a pastor in Timor-Leste, he served in parishes in Ossu, Letefoho, Ermera, Suai, and Becora, Dili. Read more
12 May 1951: George Karl, American basketball player and coach George Matthew Karl is an American former professional basketball coach and player. After spending five years as a player for the San Antonio Spurs, he became an assistant with the team before being appointed as a head coach in 1980 with the Montana Golden Nuggets of the Continental Basketball Association (CBA). Three years later, Karl became one of the youngest National Basketball Association (NBA) head coaches in history when he was named coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers at age 33. By the time his coaching career came to an end in 2016, Karl coached nine different teams in three different leagues, which included being named Coach of the Year three combined times with one championship roster in the FIBA Saporta Cup. He is one of nine coaches in NBA history to have won 1,000 NBA games and was named NBA Coach of the Year for the 2012–13 season. While he never won an NBA championship, Karl made the postseason 22 times with five different teams, which included a trip to the 1996 NBA Finals with the Seattle SuperSonics. Read more
12 May 1950: Bruce Boxleitner, American actor and author Bruce William Boxleitner is an American actor and science fiction and suspense writer. He is known for his leading roles in the television series: How the West Was Won, Bring 'Em Back Alive, Scarecrow and Mrs. King and Babylon 5 .
He is also known for his dual role as the characters Alan Bradley and Tron in the 1982 Walt Disney Pictures film Tron, a role which he reprised in the 2003 video game Tron 2.0, the 2006 Square-Enix/Disney crossover game Kingdom Hearts II, the 2010 film sequel, Tron: Legacy and the animated series Tron: Uprising. He co-starred in most of the Gambler films with Kenny Rogers, where his character provided comic relief. He also voiced General Moss in the films AniMen: Triton Force and AniMen: The Galactic Battle. Read more
12 May 1950: Gabriel Byrne, Irish actor, director, and producer Gabriel James Byrne is an Irish actor. He has received a Golden Globe Award as well as nominations for a Grammy Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards and two Tony Awards. Byrne was awarded the Irish Film and Television Academy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018 and was listed at number 17 on The Irish Times list of Ireland's greatest film actors in 2020. In 2009 The Guardian named him one of the best actors never to have received an Academy Award nomination. Read more
12 May 1950: Billy Squier, American singer-songwriter and guitarist William Haislip Squier is an American rock musician, singer, and songwriter who had a string of hits in the early 1980s. His best-known songs include "The Stroke", "Lonely Is the Night", "My Kinda Lover", "In the Dark", "Rock Me Tonite", "Everybody Wants You", "Emotions in Motion", "Love Is the Hero", and "Don't Say You Love Me". Squier's best-selling album, 1981's Don't Say No, is considered a landmark release of arena rock, bridging the gap between power pop and hard rock. Read more
12 May 1948: Dave Heineman, American politician, 39th Governor of Nebraska David Eugene Heineman is an American politician who served as the 39th governor of Nebraska from 2005 to 2015. A member of the Republican Party, he was the 39th treasurer of Nebraska from 1995 to 2001 and 37th lieutenant governor of Nebraska from 2001 to 2005 under governor Mike Johanns. Heineman took over the governorship after Johanns resigned to become the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture. Read more
12 May 1948: Steve Winwood, English singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Stephen Lawrence Winwood is an English musician and songwriter whose genres include blue-eyed soul, rhythm and blues, blues rock, and pop rock. Though primarily a guitarist, keyboard player, and vocalist prominent for his distinctive soulful high tenor voice, Winwood also plays instruments including mandolin, bass, drums and percussion. Read more
12 May 1947: Michael Ignatieff, Canadian journalist and politician Michael Grant Ignatieff is a Canadian author, academic and former politician who served as leader of the Liberal Party and leader of the Opposition from 2008 until 2011. Known for his work as a historian, Ignatieff has held senior academic posts at the universities of Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard, and Toronto. Most recently, he was rector and president of Central European University; he held this position from 2016 to 2021. Read more
12 May 1946: Daniel Libeskind, American architect, designed the Imperial War Museum North and Jewish Museum Daniel Libeskind is a Polish and American architect, artist, professor, and set designer. Libeskind founded Studio Daniel Libeskind in 1989 with his wife, Nina, and is its principal design architect. He is known for the design and completion of the Jewish Museum in Berlin, Germany, that opened in 2001. In 2003, Libeskind received further international attention after he won the competition to be the master plan architect for the reconstruction of the World Trade Center site in Lower Manhattan. Read more
12 May 1945: Alan Ball, Jr., English footballer and manager (died 2007) Alan James Ball was an English professional football player and manager. He won the 1966 World Cup with England and scored more than 180 league goals in a career spanning 22 years. After retiring as a player, he had a 15-year career as a manager which included spells in the top flight of English football with Portsmouth, Southampton and Manchester City. One of the best midfielders of his generation, he was inducted in the English Football Hall of Fame in 2003. Read more
12 May 1945: Ian McLagan, English keyboard player and songwriter (died 2014) Ian Patrick McLagan was an English keyboardist, best known as a member of the rock bands Small Faces and Faces. He also collaborated with the Rolling Stones and led his own band from the late 1970s. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012. Read more
12 May 1944: Chris Patten, English academic and politician, 28th Governor of Hong Kong Christopher Francis Patten, Baron Patten of Barnes, is a British politician who was the Chairman of the Conservative Party from 1990 to 1992, and the 28th and last Governor of Hong Kong from 1992 to 1997. He was made a life peer in 2005 and served as Chancellor of the University of Oxford from 2003 to 2024. He is one of two living former governors of Hong Kong, alongside David Wilson. Read more
12 May 1942: Ian Dury, English singer-songwriter (died 2000) Ian Robins Dury was an English singer, songwriter and actor best remembered as the frontman of Ian Dury and the Blockheads. Described by The Guardian as "one of few true originals of the English music scene", Dury drew from music hall and punk traditions, often incorporating observational humour and word play in his lyrics. Read more
12 May 1940: Norman Whitfield, American songwriter and producer (died 2008) Norman Jesse Whitfield was an American songwriter, composer, and producer, who worked with Berry Gordy's Motown labels during the 1960s. He has been credited as one of the creators of the Motown Sound and of the late-1960s subgenre of psychedelic soul. Read more
12 May 1939: Reg Gasnier, Australian rugby league player, coach, and sportscaster (died 2014) Reginald William Gasnier was an Australian rugby league footballer and coach. He played centre for the St. George Dragons from 1959 to 1967 and represented Australia in a then record 36 Tests and three World Cup games. He was the captain of the national side on eight occasions between 1962 and 1967. Read more
12 May 1937: Beryl Burton, English cyclist (died 1996) Beryl Burton OBE was an English racing cyclist who dominated the women's sport, winning more than 90 domestic championships and seven world titles, and setting numerous national records. In 1967, she set a world record for the 12-hour time-trial which exceeded the men's record for two years. Read more
12 May 1937: George Carlin, American comedian, actor, and author (died 2008) George Denis Patrick Carlin was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, actor and author. He was known for his dark comedy and reflections on politics, English, psychology, religion, and taboo subjects. Read more
12 May 1936: Guillermo Endara, Panamanian lawyer and politician, 32nd President of Panama (died 2009) Guillermo David Endara Galimany was a Panamanian politician who served as the president of Panama from 1989 to 1994. Read more
12 May 1936: Tom Snyder, American journalist and talk show host (died 2007) Thomas James Snyder was an American television personality, news anchor, and radio personality best known for his late night talk shows Tomorrow, on NBC in the 1970s and 1980s, and The Late Late Show, on CBS in the 1990s. Snyder was also the pioneer anchor of the prime time NBC News Update, in the 1970s and early 1980s, which was a one-minute capsule of news updates. Read more
12 May 1936: Frank Stella, American painter and sculptor (died 2024) Frank Philip Stella was an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker, noted for his work in the areas of minimalism and post-painterly abstraction. He lived and worked in New York City for much of his career before moving his studio to Rock Tavern, New York. Stella's work catalyzed the minimalist movement in the late 1950s. He moved to New York City in the late 1950s, where he created works which emphasized the picture-as-object. These were influenced by the abstract expressionist work of artists like Franz Kline and Jackson Pollock. Read more
12 May 1935: Felipe Alou, Dominican-American baseball player, coach, and manager Felipe Rojas Alou is a Dominican former professional outfielder, first baseman, coach and manager in Major League Baseball (MLB). He managed the Montreal Expos (1992–2001) and the San Francisco Giants (2003–2006). The first Dominican to play regularly in the major leagues, he is the most prominent member of one of the sport's most notable families of the late 20th century: he was the oldest of the trio of baseball-playing brothers that included Matty and Jesús, who were both primarily outfielders, and his son Moisés was also primarily an outfielder; all but Jesús have been named All-Stars at least twice. His son Luis, in turn, managed the New York Mets. Read more
12 May 1935: Johnny Bucyk, Canadian ice hockey player John Paul "Chief" Bucyk is a Canadian former professional ice hockey left winger and member of the Hockey Hall of Fame. Having played most of his career with the Boston Bruins, he has been associated in one capacity or another with the Bruins' organization since the late 1950s. Bucyk was named one of the '100 Greatest NHL Players' in 2017. Read more
12 May 1930: Jesús Franco, Spanish director and screenwriter (died 2013) Jesús Franco Manera, also commonly known as Jess Franco, was a Spanish filmmaker, composer, and actor, known as a highly prolific director of low-budget exploitation and B-movies. He worked in many different genres during his career, but was best known for his horror and erotic films, often incorporating surrealist elements. Read more
12 May 1929: Sam Nujoma, Namibian politician, 1st President of Namibia (died 2025) Samuel Shafiishuna Daniel Nujoma was a Namibian revolutionary, anti-apartheid activist and politician who served three terms as the first president of Namibia, from 1990 to 2005. Nujoma was a founding member and the first president of the South West Africa People's Organisation (SWAPO) in 1960. Read more
12 May 1928: Burt Bacharach, American singer-songwriter, pianist, and producer (died 2023) Burt Freeman Bacharach was an American composer, songwriter, record producer, and pianist, widely regarded as one of the most important and influential figures of 20th-century popular music. He composed hundreds of pop songs, many in collaboration with lyricist Hal David. His music features atypical chord progressions and time signature changes, influenced by his background in jazz, and uncommon selections of instruments for small orchestras. He arranged, conducted, and produced much of his recorded output. Read more
12 May 1925: Yogi Berra, American baseball player, coach, and manager (died 2015) Lawrence Peter "Yogi" Berra was an American professional baseball catcher who later took on the roles of manager and coach. He played 19 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB), all but the last for the New York Yankees. He was an 18-time All-Star and won 10 World Series championships as a player—more than any other player in MLB history. Berra had a career batting average of .285, while hitting 358 home runs and 1,430 runs batted in. He is one of only six players to win the American League (AL) Most Valuable Player Award three times. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest catchers in baseball history, and was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1972. Read more
12 May 1924: Tony Hancock, English actor, producer, and screenwriter (died 1968) Anthony John Hancock was an English comedian and actor. Read more
12 May 1922: Roy Salvadori, English racing driver and manager (died 2012) Roy Francesco Salvadori was a British racing driver and motorsport executive, who competed in Formula One from 1952 to 1962. In endurance racing, Salvadori won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1959 with Aston Martin. Read more
12 May 1921: Joseph Beuys, German sculptor and illustrator (died 1986) Joseph Heinrich Beuys was a German artist, teacher, performance artist, and art theorist whose work reflected concepts of humanism and sociology. With Heinrich Böll, Johannes Stüttgen, Caroline Tisdall, Robert McDowell, and Enrico Wolleb, Beuys created the Free International University for Creativity & Interdisciplinary Research (FIU). Through his talks and performances, he also formed The Party for Animals and The Organisation for Direct Democracy. He was a member of a Dadaist art movement Fluxus and singularly inspirational in developing of Performance Art, called Kunst Aktionen, alongside Wiener Aktionismus that Allan Kaprow and Carolee Schneemann termed Art Happenings. Read more
12 May 1921: Farley Mowat, Canadian environmentalist and author (died 2014) Farley McGill Mowat was a Canadian writer and environmentalist. His works were translated into 52 languages, and he sold more than 17 million books. He achieved fame with the publication of his books on the Canadian north, such as People of the Deer (1952) and Never Cry Wolf (1963). The latter, an account of his experiences with wolves in the Arctic, was made into a film of the same name released in 1983. For his body of work as a writer he won the annual Vicky Metcalf Award for Children's Literature in 1970. Read more
12 May 1918: Mary Kay Ash, American businesswoman, founded Mary Kay Cosmetics (died 2001) Mary Kay Ash was an American businesswoman and founder of direct sales company Mary Kay Cosmetics, Inc. At the time of her death, she had a fortune of $98 million, and her company had more than $1.2 billion in sales with a sales force of more than 800,000 in at least three dozen countries. Read more
12 May 1918: Julius Rosenberg, American spy (died 1953) Julius Rosenberg and Ethel Rosenberg were an American married couple who were convicted of spying for the Soviet Union, including providing top-secret information about American radar, sonar, jet propulsion engines, and nuclear weapon designs. They were executed by the federal government of the United States in 1953 using New York's state execution chamber in Sing Sing in Ossining, New York, becoming the first American civilians to be executed for such charges and the first to be executed during peacetime. Read more
12 May 1914: Howard K. Smith, American journalist and actor (died 2002) Howard Kingsbury Smith was an American journalist, radio reporter, television anchorman, political commentator, and film actor. He was one of the original members of the team of war correspondents known as the Murrow Boys. Read more
12 May 1911: Charles Biro, American author and illustrator (died 1972) Charles Biro was an American comic book creator and cartoonist. He created the comic book characters Airboy and Steel Sterling, and worked on Daredevil Comics and Crime Does Not Pay at Lev Gleason Publications. Read more
12 May 1910: Johan Ferrier, Surinamese educator and politician, first President of Suriname (died 2010) Johan Henri Eliza Ferrier was a Surinamese politician who served as the first president of Suriname from 1975 to 1980. He was also the country's last governor-general before independence, serving from 1968 to 1975, before becoming the first president upon independence from the Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1975 and also served as the fifth prime minister from 1955 to 1958. Read more
12 May 1910: Dorothy Hodgkin, English biochemist, crystallographer, and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1994) Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkin was an English chemist who advanced the technique of X-ray crystallography to determine the structure of biomolecules, which became essential for structural biology. She received the 1964 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, and is the only British woman scientist to have been awarded a Nobel Prize. Read more
12 May 1908: Nicholas Kaldor, Hungarian-English economist (died 1986) Nicholas Kaldor, Baron Kaldor, born Káldor Miklós, was a Hungarian-born British economist. He developed the "compensation" criteria called Kaldor–Hicks efficiency for welfare comparisons (1939), derived the cobweb model, and argued for certain regularities observable in economic growth, which are called Kaldor's growth laws. Kaldor worked alongside Gunnar Myrdal to develop the key concept Circular Cumulative Causation, a multicausal approach where the core variables and their linkages are delineated. Read more
12 May 1907: Leslie Charteris, English author and screenwriter (died 1993) Leslie Charteris, was a British-Chinese author of adventure fiction, as well as a screenwriter. He was best known for his many books chronicling the adventures of his hero Simon Templar, alias "The Saint". Read more
12 May 1907: Katharine Hepburn, American actress (died 2003) Katharine Houghton Hepburn was an American actress whose career as a leading lady on stage and screen spanned six decades. Known for her headstrong independence, spirited personality, and outspokenness, she cultivated a screen persona that matched this public image, and regularly played strong-willed, sophisticated women. She worked in a varied range of genres, from screwball comedy to literary drama. Her accolades include a record four Academy Awards for Best Actress, two British Academy Film Awards and a Primetime Emmy Award, in addition to nominations for two Tony Awards, two Grammy Awards and eight Golden Globe Awards. Read more
12 May 1903: Wilfrid Hyde-White, English actor (died 1991) Wilfrid Hyde-White was an English actor. Described by Philip French as a "classic British film archetype", Hyde-White often portrayed droll and urbane upper-class characters. He had an extensive stage and screen career in both the United Kingdom and the United States, and portrayed over 160 film and television roles between 1935 and 1987. He was twice nominated for a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play, in 1957 for The Reluctant Debutante and in 1973 for The Jockey Club Stakes. Read more
12 May 1900: Helene Weigel, Austrian-German actress (died 1971) Helene Weigel was an Austrian actress and artistic director. She was the second and last wife of Bertolt Brecht until his death in 1956; together they had two children. Read more
12 May 1899: Indra Devi, pioneer of Yoga (died 2002) Eugenie Peterson, known as Indra Devi, was a pioneering teacher of yoga as exercise, and an early disciple of the "father of modern yoga", Tirumalai Krishnamacharya. Read more
12 May 1897: Earle Nelson, American serial killer and rapist (died 1928) Earle Leonard Nelson, also known as the Gorilla Man, the Gorilla Killer, and the Dark Strangler, was an American serial killer, rapist, and necrophile who killed at least twenty women in various U.S. states and two in Canada between 1926 and 1927. He is perhaps the first known serial sex murderer of the twentieth century. Read more
12 May 1895: William Giauque, Canadian-American chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1982) William Francis Giauque was a Canadian-born American chemist and Nobel laureate. He was recognized in 1949, for his studies in the properties of matter, at temperatures close to absolute zero. He spent virtually all of his educational and professional career at the University of California, Berkeley. Read more
12 May 1895: Jiddu Krishnamurti, Indian-American philosopher and author (died 1986) Jiddu Krishnamurti was an Indian spiritual figure, speaker, and writer. Adopted by members of the Theosophical Society as a child, Krishnamurti was raised to fill the mantle of the prophesied World Teacher, a role tasked with aiding humankind's spiritual evolution. In 1922, he began to suffer from painful, seizure-like mystical episodes that would produce a lasting change in his perception of reality. In 1929, he broke from the Theosophy movement and disbanded the Order of the Star in the East which had been formed around him. He spent the rest of his life speaking to groups and individuals around the world, hoping to contribute a radical transformation of mankind. Read more
12 May 1892: Fritz Kortner, Austrian-German actor and director (died 1970) Fritz Kortner was an Austrian stage and film actor and theatre director. Read more
12 May 1889: Abelardo L. Rodríguez, substitute president of Mexico (died 1967) Abelardo Rodríguez Luján, commonly known as Abelardo L. Rodríguez was a Mexican military officer, businessman and politician who served as Substitute President of Mexico from 1932 to 1934. He completed the term of President Pascual Ortiz Rubio after his resignation, during the period known as the Maximato, when Former President Plutarco Elías Calles held considerable de facto political power, without being president himself. Rodríguez was, however, more successful than Ortiz Rubio had been in asserting presidential power against Calles's influence. Read more
12 May 1889: Otto Frank, German-Swiss businessman and Holocaust survivor; father of diarist Anne Frank (died 1980) Otto Heinrich Frank was a German businessman, and the father of Anne Frank. He edited and published the first edition of her diary in 1947 and advised on its later theatrical and cinematic adaptations. In the 1950s and the 1960s, he established European charities in his daughter's name and founded the trust which preserved his family's wartime hiding place, the Anne Frank House, in Amsterdam. Read more
12 May 1886: Ernst A. Lehmann, German captain and pilot (died 1937) Captain Ernst August Lehmann was a German Zeppelin captain. He was one of the most famous and experienced figures in German airship travel. The Pittsburgh Press called Lehmann the best airship pilot in the world; although, he was criticized by Hugo Eckener for often making dangerous maneuvers that compromised the airships.
He was a victim of the Hindenburg disaster in 1937. Read more
12 May 1885: Paltiel Daykan, Lithuanian-Israeli lawyer and jurist (died 1969) Paltiel Daykan was an Israeli jurist. Read more
12 May 1880: Lincoln Ellsworth, American explorer (died 1951) Lincoln Ellsworth was an American polar explorer, engineer, surveyor, and writer. He led the first Arctic and Antarctic air crossings. Read more
12 May 1875: Charles Holden, English architect, designed the Bristol Central Library (died 1960) Charles Henry Holden was an English architect best known for designing many London Underground stations during the 1920s and 1930s, the Underground Electric Railways Company of London's headquarters at 55 Broadway, for the University of London's Senate House and for Bristol Central Library. He created many war cemeteries in Belgium and northern France for the Imperial War Graves Commission. Read more
12 May 1874: Clemens von Pirquet, Austrian pediatrician and immunologist (died 1929) Clemens Peter Freiherr von Pirquet was an Austrian scientist and pediatrician best known for his contributions to the fields of bacteriology and immunology. Read more
12 May 1873: J. E. H. MacDonald, English-Canadian painter (died 1932) James Edward Hervey MacDonald was an English-born Canadian artist, best known as a member of the Group of Seven who asserted a distinct national identity combined with a common heritage stemming from early modernism in Europe in the early twentieth century. He was the father of the illustrator, graphic artist and designer Thoreau MacDonald. Read more
12 May 1872: Anton Korošec, Slovenian priest and politician, tenth Prime Minister of Yugoslavia (died 1940) Anton Korošec was a Slovene Yugoslav politician, a prominent member of the conservative People's Party, a Roman Catholic priest and a noted orator. Read more
12 May 1869: Carl Schuhmann, German gymnast, wrestler, and weightlifter (died 1946) Carl August Berthold Schuhmann was a German athlete who won four Olympic titles in gymnastics and wrestling at the 1896 Summer Olympics in Athens, becoming the most successful athlete at the inaugural Olympics of the modern era. He also competed in weightlifting. Read more
12 May 1867: Hugh Trumble, Australian cricketer and accountant (died 1938) Hugh Trumble was an Australian cricketer who played 32 Test matches as a bowling all-rounder between 1890 and 1904. He captained the Australian team in two Tests, winning both. Trumble took 141 wickets in Test cricket—a world record at the time of his retirement—at an average of 21.78 runs per wicket. He is one of only four bowlers to twice take a hat-trick in Test cricket. Observers in Trumble's day, including the authoritative Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, regarded him as ranking among the great Australian bowlers of the Golden Age of cricket. He was named as one of the Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1897 and the Australian Cricket Hall of Fame, established in 1996, inducted him in 2004. Read more
12 May 1863: Upendrakishore Ray Chowdhury, Bengali writer, painter, violin player and composer, technologist and entrepreneur (died 1915) Upendrakishore Ray Chowdhury was a Bengali writer, painter and entrepreneur. He was the son-in-law of reformer Dwarkanath Ganguly. Read more
12 May 1859: William Alden Smith, American lawyer and politician (died 1932) William Alden Smith was a U.S. representative and U.S. senator from the state of Michigan. After the 1912 sinking of the Titanic, Smith chaired the Senate hearings into the disaster. His report led to major reforms in maritime safety. Read more
12 May 1859: Frank Wilson, English-Australian politician, ninth Premier of Western Australia (died 1918) Frank Wilson, was the ninth Premier of Western Australia, serving on two separate occasions – from 1910 to 1911 and then again from 1916 to 1917. Read more
12 May 1850: Henry Cabot Lodge, American historian and politician (died 1924) Henry Cabot Lodge was an American politician, historian, lawyer, and statesman from Massachusetts. A member of the Republican Party, he served in the United States Senate from 1893 to 1924 and is best known for his positions on foreign policy. He voted in favor of American entry into World War I and his successful crusade against Woodrow Wilson's Treaty of Versailles ensured that the United States never joined the League of Nations. His penned conditions against that treaty, known collectively as the Lodge reservations, influenced the structure of the modern United Nations. Read more
12 May 1850: Frederick Holder, Australian politician, 19th Premier of South Australia (died 1909) Sir Frederick William Holder was an Australian politician who served as the first speaker of the Australian House of Representatives from 1901 to 1909. A member of the Free Trade Party and later an independent, he served twice as the 19th premier of South Australia from June to October 1892 and again from 1899 to 1901. He was a prominent member of federation movement and the first Parliament of Australia, following Federation in 1901. Read more
12 May 1845: Gabriel Fauré, French pianist, composer, and educator (died 1924) Gabriel Urbain Fauré was a French composer, organist, pianist and teacher. He was one of the foremost French composers of his generation, and his musical style influenced many 20th-century composers. Among his best-known works are his Pavane, Requiem, Sicilienne, nocturnes for piano and the songs "Après un rêve" and "Clair de lune". Although his best-known and most accessible compositions are generally his earlier ones, Fauré composed many of his most highly regarded works in his later years, in a more harmonically and melodically complex style. Read more
12 May 1842: Jules Massenet, French composer (died 1912) Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet was a French composer of the Romantic era best known for his operas, of which he wrote more than thirty. The two most frequently staged are Manon (1884) and Werther (1892). He also composed oratorios, ballets, orchestral works, incidental music, piano pieces, songs and other music. Read more
12 May 1840: Alejandro Gorostiaga, Chilean colonel (died 1912) Alejandro Gorostiaga Orrego, was a Chilean military officer born in La Serena. He joined the Escuela Militar de Chile in 1857 until his retirement in 1878. Alejandro Gorostiaga was of Basque descent. Read more
12 May 1839: Tôn Thất Thuyết, Vietnamese mandarin (died 1913) Tôn Thất Thuyết, Courtesy name Đàm Phu (談夫), was the regent and leading mandarin of Emperor Tự Đức of Vietnam's Nguyễn dynasty. Thuyết later led the Cần Vương movement which aimed to restore Vietnamese independence under Emperor Hàm Nghi. He fled to China seeking political refuge after Hàm Nghi's capture by France, and later died in Longzhou, Guangxi. Read more
12 May 1829: Pavlos Carrer, Greek composer and educator (died 1896) Pavlos Carrer or Pavlos Carreris, was a Greek composer, one of the leaders of the Ionian art music school and the first to create national operas and national songs on Greek plots, Greek librettos and verses, as well as melodies inspired by the folk and the urban popular musical tradition of modern Greece. Read more
12 May 1828: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, English poet and painter (died 1882) Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti, generally known as Dante Gabriel Rossetti, was an English poet, illustrator, painter, translator, and member of the Rossetti family. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848 with William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais. Rossetti inspired many contemporary artists and writers, such as Algernon Charles Swinburne, William Morris, and Edward Burne-Jones in particular. His work also influenced the European Symbolists and was a major precursor of the Aesthetic movement. Read more
12 May 1825: Orélie-Antoine de Tounens, French lawyer and explorer (died 1878) Orélie-Antoine de Tounens was a French avoué and adventurer who proclaimed by two decrees on 17 and 20 November 1860 that Araucanía and Patagonia did not depend of any other states and that he himself was King of Araucanía and Patagonia. On 5 January 1862, he was arrested by the Chilean army and imprisoned. He was declared insane by the court of Santiago on 2 September 1862, and expelled to France on 28 October 1862. He tried three further times to go back to Araucanía to regain his "kingdom", but without success, and he died in poverty on 17 September 1878, in Tourtoirac, France. Read more
12 May 1820: Florence Nightingale, Italian-English nurse, social reformer, and statistician (died 1910) Florence Nightingale was an English social reformer, statistician and the founder of modern nursing. Nightingale came to prominence while serving as a manager and trainer of nurses during the Crimean War, in which she organised care for wounded soldiers at Constantinople. She significantly reduced death rates by improving hygiene and living standards. Nightingale gave nursing a favourable reputation and became an icon of Victorian culture, especially in the persona of "The Lady with the Lamp" making rounds of wounded soldiers at night. Read more
12 May 1814: Adolf von Henselt, German pianist and composer (died 1889) Georg Martin Adolf von Henselt was a German composer and virtuoso pianist. Read more
12 May 1812: Edward Lear, English poet and illustrator (died 1888) Edward Lear was an English artist, illustrator, musician, author and poet, who is known mostly for his literary nonsense in poetry and prose and especially his limericks, a form he popularised but which term he never used. Read more
12 May 1806: Johan Vilhelm Snellman, Finnish philosopher and politician (died 1881) Johan Vilhelm Snellman was an influential Fennoman philosopher and Finnish statesman, ennobled in 1866. He was one of the most important 'awakeners' or promoters of Finnish nationalism, alongside Elias Lönnrot and J. L. Runeberg. Read more
12 May 1804: Robert Baldwin, Canadian lawyer and politician, third Premier of West Canada (died 1858) Robert Baldwin was an Upper Canadian lawyer and politician who with his political partner Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine of Lower Canada, led the first responsible government ministry in the Province of Canada. "Responsible Government" marked the province's democratic self-government, without a revolution, although not without violence. This achievement also included the introduction of municipal government, the introduction of a modern legal system, reforms to the jury system in Upper Canada, and the abolition of imprisonment for debt. Baldwin is also noted for feuding with the Orange Order and other fraternal societies. The Lafontaine-Baldwin government enacted the Rebellion Losses Bill to compensate Lower Canadians for damages suffered during the Lower Canada Rebellion of 1837–1838. The passage of the Bill outraged Anglo-Canadian Tories in Montreal, resulting in the burning of the Parliament Buildings in Montreal in 1849. Read more
12 May 1803: Justus von Liebig, German chemist and academic (died 1873) Justus Freiherr von Liebig was a German scientist who made major contributions to the theory, practice, and pedagogy of chemistry, as well as to agricultural and biological chemistry; he is considered one of the principal founders of organic chemistry. As a professor at the University of Giessen, he devised the modern laboratory-oriented teaching method, and for such innovations, he is regarded as one of the most outstanding chemistry teachers of all time. He has been described as the "father of the fertilizer industry" for his emphasis on nitrogen and minerals as essential plant nutrients, and his popularization of the law of the minimum, which states that plant growth is limited by the scarcest nutrient resource, rather than the total amount of resources available. He also developed a manufacturing process for beef extracts, and with his consent a company, called Liebig Extract of Meat Company, was founded to exploit the concept; it later introduced the Oxo brand beef bouillon cube. He popularized an earlier invention for condensing vapors, which came to be known as the Liebig condenser. Read more

🕊️ Important Deaths on 12 May in World History

12 May 2024: Mark Damon, American film actor and producer (born 1933) Mark Damon was an American film producer and actor. In 1960, he won the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year for his performance in Roger Corman's House of Usher, and later moved to Italy to work in Spaghetti Westerns. He was a member of the 1960s Dolce Vita set of actors and actresses in Rome. During the early 1970's he switched to producing films, founding the production companies Producers Sales Organization, Vision International, MDP Worldwide and Foresight Unlimited. Read more
12 May 2024: David Sanborn, American saxophonist (born 1945) David William Sanborn was an American alto saxophonist. He worked in many musical genres; his solo recordings typically blended jazz with instrumental pop and R&B. He began playing the saxophone at the age of 11 and released his first solo album, Taking Off, in 1975. He was active as a session musician and played on numerous albums by artists including Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, Aretha Franklin, Sting, the Eagles, Rickie Lee Jones, James Brown, George Benson, Carly Simon, Elton John, Bryan Ferry, Ween, and The Rolling Stones. Sanborn released more than 20 albums and won six Grammy awards. Read more
12 May 2024: A. J. Smith, American football executive (born 1949) Albert J. Smith was an American professional football scout and executive. He served as a part-time scout for several NFL and USFL teams before joining the Buffalo Bills in 1986, serving as a scout and executive for them for 14 years. With the Bills, the team won four AFC Championships. He joined the San Diego Chargers in 2001 as a director of pro personnel, and was promoted to general manager and executive vice president for them two years later. He stayed with the Chargers until being fired following the 2012 season. Smith's son, Kyle, is the assistant general manager of the Atlanta Falcons. Read more
12 May 2020: Aimee Stephens, American funeral director and U.S. Supreme Court litigant (born 1960) Aimee Stephens was an American funeral director known for her fight for civil rights for transgender people. She worked as a funeral director in Detroit and was fired for being transgender. Based on her court case, in a historic 2020 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the 1964 Civil Rights Act protects gay, lesbian, and transgender employees from discrimination based on sex. Read more
12 May 2018: Dennis Nilsen, Scottish serial killer (born 1945) Dennis Andrew Nilsen was a Scottish serial killer and necrophile who murdered at least twelve young men and boys between 1978 and 1983. Convicted at the Old Bailey of six counts of murder and two of attempted murder, Nilsen was sentenced to life imprisonment on 4 November 1983, with a recommendation that he serve a minimum of 25 years; this recommendation was later changed to a whole life tariff in December 1994. In his later years, Nilsen was imprisoned at HM Prison Full Sutton in the East Riding of Yorkshire. Read more
12 May 2017: Mauno Koivisto, Finnish banker and politician, ninth President of Finland (born 1923) Mauno Henrik Koivisto was a Finnish politician who served as the president of Finland from 1982 to 1994. He also served as the country's prime minister twice, from 1968 to 1970 and again from 1979 to 1982. He was also the first member of the Social Democratic Party to be elected as President of Finland. Read more
12 May 2016: Mike Agostini, Trinidadian sprinter (born 1935) Michael George Raymond Agostini was a Trinidadian track and field athlete. He was the first athlete from his country to win a gold medal at what is now known as the Commonwealth Games, when he won the 100 yards final in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, on 31 July 1954. Read more
12 May 2015: Peter Gay, German-American historian, author, and academic (born 1923) Peter Joachim Gay was a German-American historian, educator, and author. He was a Sterling Professor of History at Yale University and former director of the New York Public Library's Center for Scholars and Writers (1997–2003). He received the American Historical Association's (AHA) Award for Scholarly Distinction in 2004. He authored over 25 books, including The Enlightenment: An Interpretation ; Weimar Culture: The Outsider as Insider (1968); and the widely translated Freud: A Life for Our Time (1988). Read more
12 May 2014: Cornell Borchers, Lithuanian-German actress and singer (born 1925) Cornell Borchers was a Lithuanian-German actress and singer, active in the late 1940s and 1950s. She is best remembered for her roles opposite Montgomery Clift in The Big Lift (1950) and Errol Flynn and Nat King Cole in Istanbul (1957). She was said to resemble Ingrid Bergman in mid-1950s reviews. Read more
12 May 2014: Marco Cé, Italian cardinal (born 1925) Marco Cé was an Italian cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as the Patriarch of Venice from 1978 to 2002 and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1979. Read more
12 May 2014: H. R. Giger, Swiss painter, sculptor, and set designer (born 1940) Hans Ruedi Giger was a Swiss artist best known for his airbrushed images that blended human physiques with machines, an art style known as "biomechanical". He was part of the special effects team that won an Academy Award for the visual design of Ridley Scott's 1979 sci-fi horror film Alien, and was responsible for creating the xenomorph alien itself. His work is on permanent display at the H. R. Giger Museum in Gruyères, Switzerland. His style has been adapted to many forms of media, including album covers, furniture, and music videos. Read more
12 May 2014: Sarat Pujari, Indian actor, director, and screenwriter (born 1934) Sarat Pujari was an Indian actor, director and producer in Odia film industry (Ollywood). He was originally from Jhaduapada, Sambalpur. Read more
12 May 2014: Lorenzo Zambrano, Mexican businessman and philanthropist (born 1944) Lorenzo Hormisdas Zambrano Treviño was a Mexican businessman and philanthropist. He took over Cemex, a regional cement company founded by his grandfather, and transformed it into one of the largest cement producers in the world by the time of his death. Zambrano also financed several cultural initiatives across Latin America and chaired, from 1997 to 2012, the board of trustees of the Monterrey Institute of Technology (ITESM), one of the largest private universities in the region. He also co-owned Axtel, an important Mexican telecommunications company. Read more
12 May 2013: Gerd Langguth, German political scientist, author, and academic (born 1946) Gerd Langguth was a professor of political science at the University of Bonn and the author of biographies of Angela Merkel, Horst Köhler and of Rudi Dutschke Read more
12 May 2012: Jan Bens, Dutch footballer and coach (born 1921) Jan Bens was a Dutch professional football player and coach; he was also an amateur boxer and trainer. Read more
12 May 2012: Eddy Paape, Belgian illustrator (born 1920) Edouard Paape, commonly known as Eddy Paape, was a Belgian comics artist best known for illustrating the science fiction comic series Luc Orient. Read more
12 May 2009: Antonio Vega, Spanish singer-songwriter and guitarist (born 1957) Antonio Vega Tallés was a Spanish pop singer-songwriter. Read more
12 May 2008: Robert Rauschenberg, American painter and illustrator (born 1925) Milton Ernest "Robert" or "Bob" Rauschenberg was an American painter and multi-media artist, whose work has been associated with numerous mid-20th century art movements including the New York School, Conceptual Art, Pop art, and Neo-Dada. Rauschenberg is well known for his Combines (1954–1964), a group of artworks which incorporated everyday objects as art materials and which blurred the distinctions between painting and sculpture. Rauschenberg was primarily a painter and a sculptor, but he also worked with photography, printmaking, papermaking and performance. Read more
12 May 2008: Irena Sendler, Polish nurse and humanitarian (born 1910) Irena Stanisława Sendler, operating under the nom de guerre Jolanta, was a Polish humanitarian, social worker, and nurse who served in the Polish Underground Resistance during World War II in German-occupied Warsaw. From October 1943 she was head of the children's section of Żegota, the Polish Council to Aid Jews. Read more
12 May 2006: Hussein Maziq, Libyan politician, Prime Minister of Libya (born 1918) Hussein Yousef Maziq was a Libyan politician who was Prime Minister of Libya from 20 March 1965 to 2 July 1967. He was one of the most important men in the Kingdom era of Libya. Read more
12 May 2005: Ömer Kavur, Turkish director, producer, and screenwriter (born 1944) Ömer Kavur was a Turkish film director, producer and screenwriter. Read more
12 May 2005: Martin Lings, English author and scholar (born 1909) Martin Lings, also known as Abū Bakr Sirāj ad-Dīn, was an English writer, Islamic scholar, and philosopher. A student of the Swiss metaphysician Frithjof Schuon and an authority on the work of William Shakespeare, he is best known as the author of Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources. Read more
12 May 2005: Kai Setälä, Finnish physician and professor (born 1913) Kai Martin Edvard Setälä was a Finnish physician and professor of pathological anatomy at the University of Helsinki. Through his daughter Christel, he was the maternal grandfather of Alexander Stubb, the 13th president of Finland. Setälä himself was the great-nephew of professor E. N. Setälä (1864–1935), the Counsellor of State, the Chairman of the Senate of Finland and co-author of the Finnish Declaration of Independence. Read more
12 May 2005: Monica Zetterlund, Swedish actress (born 1937) Monica Zetterlund was a Swedish jazz singer and actress. She represented represented Sweden in the Eurovision Song Contest 1963 with the jazz ballad "En gång i Stockholm". Through her lifetime, she starred in over 10 Swedish film productions and recorded over 20 studio albums. She gained international fame through her collaborative album with Bill Evans, Waltz for Debby. Read more
12 May 2003: Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, French-American diplomat (born 1933) Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan was a French-born statesman and activist who served as United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees from 1966 to 1977. During his tenure, the agency expanded its operational focus to include refugee situations outside Europe. Read more
12 May 2001: Perry Como, American singer and television host (born 1912) Pierino Ronald "Perry" Como was an American singer, actor, and television personality. During a career spanning more than half a century, he recorded exclusively for RCA Victor for 44 years, from 1943 until 1987. Read more
12 May 2001: Didi, Brazilian footballer (born 1928) Waldyr Pereira, also known as Didi, was a Brazilian footballer who played as a midfielder or as a forward. He played in three FIFA World Cups, winning the latter two. Read more
12 May 2001: Alexei Tupolev, Russian engineer, designed the Tupolev Tu-144 (born 1925) Aleksey Andreevich Tupolev was a Soviet and Russian aircraft designer who led the development of the first supersonic passenger jet, the Tupolev Tu-144. He also helped design the Buran space shuttle and the long-range heavy bomber Tu-2000, both of which were suspended for lack of funding. Read more
12 May 2000: Adam Petty, American race car driver (born 1980) Adam Kyler Petty was an American professional stock car racing driver. A member of the Petty racing family, he was the fourth generation from the Petty family to drive in races in the highest division of NASCAR racing, mostly in what was then known as the NASCAR Busch Series. He was believed to be the first fourth-generation athlete in all of modern American professional sports. Read more
12 May 1999: Saul Steinberg, Romanian-American illustrator (born 1914) Saul Steinberg was a Romanian-born American artist, best known for his work for The New Yorker, most notably View of the World from 9th Avenue. He described himself as "a writer who draws". Read more
12 May 1995: Adolfo Pedernera, Argentine footballer and manager (born 1918) Adolfo Alfredo Pedernera was an Argentine football player and coach. Nicknamed "El Maestro", he was widely considered to be one of the best world football players in the 1940s and one of the greatest Argentine players of all time. Pedernera was the natural conductor of both the famous River Plate team known as La Máquina, with whom he won several Argentine and South American titles, and the Millonarios team called Ballet Azul that won the Small Club World Cup in 1953 among many others Colombian titles. Read more
12 May 1994: Erik Erikson, German-American psychologist and psychoanalyst (born 1902) Erik Homburger Erikson was a German-American child psychoanalyst and visual artist known for his theory on psychosocial development of human beings. He coined the phrase identity crisis. Read more
12 May 1994: John Smith, Scottish-English lawyer and politician, Labour Party leader, Leader of the Opposition (born 1938) John Smith was a British politician who was Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party from July 1992 until his death in May 1994. He was also Member of Parliament (MP) for Monklands East. Read more
12 May 1993: Zeno Colò, Italian Olympic alpine skier (born1920) Zeno Colò was a champion alpine ski racer from Italy. Born in La Consuma (Abetone), Tuscany, he was among the top ski racers of the late 1940s and early 1950s. Read more
12 May 1992: Nikos Gatsos, Greek poet and songwriter (born 1911) Nikos Gatsos was a Greek poet, translator and lyricist. Read more
12 May 1992: Robert Reed, American actor (born 1932) Robert Reed was an American actor. He played Kenneth Preston on the legal drama The Defenders from 1961 to 1965 alongside E. G. Marshall, and is best known for his role as patriarch Mike Brady, opposite Florence Henderson's role as Carol Brady, on the ABC sitcom The Brady Bunch, which aired from 1969 to 1974. He later reprised his role of Mike Brady on several of the reunion programs. In 1976, he earned two Primetime Emmy Award nominations for his guest-starring role in a two-part episode of Medical Center and for his work on the miniseries Rich Man, Poor Man. The following year, Reed earned a third Emmy nomination for his role in the miniseries Roots. Read more
12 May 1986: Elisabeth Bergner, German actress (born 1897) Elisabeth Bergner was an Austrian-British actress. Primarily a stage actress, her career flourished in Berlin and Paris before she moved to London to work in films. She played the title role in The Rise of Catherine the Great (1934). Her signature role was Gemma Jones in Escape Me Never, a 1934 play written for her by Margaret Kennedy. She played Gemma, first in London and then in the Broadway debut, and in a 1935 film version for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She also starred in the American film Paris Calling (1941). In 1943, Bergner returned to Broadway in the play The Two Mrs. Carrolls, for which she won the Distinguished Performance Medal from the Drama League. Read more
12 May 1985: Jean Dubuffet, French painter and sculptor (born 1901) Jean Philippe Arthur Dubuffet was a French painter and sculptor of the École de Paris. His idealistic approach to aesthetics embraced so-called "low art" and eschewed traditional standards of beauty in favor of what he believed to be a more authentic and humanistic approach to image-making. He is perhaps best known for founding the art brut movement, and for the collection of works—Collection de l'art brut—that this movement spawned. Dubuffet enjoyed a prolific art career, both in France and in America, and was featured in many exhibitions throughout his lifetime. Read more
12 May 1981: Francis Hughes, Provisional IRA hunger striker (born 1956) Francis Joseph Sean Hughes was a volunteer in the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) from Bellaghy, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland. Hughes was the most wanted man in Northern Ireland until his arrest following a shoot-out with the British Army in which a British soldier was killed. At his trial, he was sentenced to a total of 83 years' imprisonment; he died during the 1981 Irish hunger strike in HM Prison Maze. Hughes was one of 22 Irish republicans who died on hunger-strike between 1917 and 1981. Read more
12 May 1981: Benjamin Sheares, Singaporean professor and politician, second President of Singapore (born 1907) Benjamin Henry Sheares was a Singaporean obstetrician, gynaecologist, and academic who served as the second president of Singapore between 1971 until his death in 1981. Read more
12 May 1973: Frances Marion, American screenwriter, novelist and journalist (born 1888) Frances Marion was an American screenwriter, director, journalist and author often cited as one of the most renowned female screenwriters of the 20th century alongside June Mathis and Anita Loos. During the course of her career, she wrote over 325 scripts. She was the first writer to win two Academy Awards. Marion began her film career working for filmmaker Lois Weber. She wrote numerous silent film scenarios for actress Mary Pickford, before transitioning to writing sound films. Read more
12 May 1973: Art Pollard, American race car driver (born 1927) Artle Lee Pollard Jr., was an American racecar driver. Read more
12 May 1971: Heinie Manush, American baseball player and coach (born 1901) Henry Emmett Manush, nicknamed "Heinie", was an American baseball outfielder. He played professional baseball for 20 years from 1920 to 1939, including 17 years in Major League Baseball for the Detroit Tigers (1923–1927), St. Louis Browns (1928–1930), Washington Senators (1930–1935), Boston Red Sox (1936), Brooklyn Dodgers (1937–1938), and Pittsburgh Pirates (1938–1939). After retiring as a player, Manush was a minor league manager from 1940 to 1945, a scout for the Boston Braves in the late 1940s and a coach for the Senators from 1953 to 1954. He also scouted for the expansion Senators in the early 1960s. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1964. Read more
12 May 1970: Nelly Sachs, German poet and playwright, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1891) Nelly Sachs was a German–Swedish poet and playwright. Her experiences resulting from the rise of the Nazis in World War II Europe transformed her into a poignant spokesperson for the grief and yearnings of her fellow Jews. Her best-known play is Eli: Ein Mysterienspiel vom Leiden Israels (1950) ; other works include the poems "Zeichen im Sand" (1962), "Verzauberung" (1970), and the collections of poetry In den Wohnungen des Todes (1947), Flucht und Verwandlung (1959), Fahrt ins Staublose (1961), and Suche nach Lebenden (1971). She was awarded the 1966 Nobel Prize in Literature. Read more
12 May 1967: John Masefield, English poet and author (born 1878) John Edward Masefield, OM was an English poet and writer. He was Poet Laureate from 1930 until his death in 1967, during which time he lived at Burcot, Oxfordshire, near Abingdon-on-Thames. Among his best known works are the children's novels The Midnight Folk and The Box of Delights, and the poems "The Everlasting Mercy" and "Sea-Fever". Shortly after his death his house burned down and was later replaced by a Cheshire Home named after him. Read more
12 May 1966: Felix Steiner, Russian-German SS officer (born 1896) Felix Martin Julius Steiner was a German SS commander during the Nazi era. During World War II, he served in the Waffen-SS, the combat branch of the SS, and commanded several SS divisions and corps. He was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords. Together with Paul Hausser, he contributed significantly to the development and transformation of the Waffen-SS into a combat force made up of volunteers and conscripts from both occupied and un-occupied lands. Read more
12 May 1964: Agnes Forbes Blackadder, Scottish medical doctor (born 1875) Agnes Forbes Blackadder Savill was a Scottish medical expert and doctor, sometimes regarded as a polymath. Blackadder became the first female graduate of the University of St Andrews when she gained her M.A. degree on 29 March 1895. Read more
12 May 1963: Richard Girulatis, German footballer and manager (born 1878) Richard Girulatis was a German football manager. Read more
12 May 1963: Robert Kerr, Irish-Canadian sprinter and coach (born 1882) Robert Kerr was an Irish Canadian sprinter. He won the gold medal in the 200 metres and the bronze medal in the 100 metres at the 1908 Summer Olympics. Read more
12 May 1957: Alfonso de Portago, Spanish bobsledder and racing driver (born 1928) Alfonso Antonio Vicente Eduardo Ángel Blas Francisco de Borja Cabeza de Vaca y Leighton, 11th Marquess of Portago, GE, best known as Alfonso de Portago, was a Spanish aristocrat, racing and bobsleigh driver, jockey and pilot. Read more
12 May 1957: Erich von Stroheim, Austrian-American actor, director, and producer (born 1885) Erich Oswald Hans Carl Maria von Stroheim was an Austrian-American director, screenwriter, actor and producer, most noted as a film star and avant-garde, visionary director of the silent era. His 1924 film Greed, originally over nine hours long, was edited against his wishes to about two-and-a-half hours; despite initial negative reception, the theatrical release is considered one of the greatest films ever made. After clashes with Hollywood studio bosses over budget and workers' rights problems, Stroheim found it difficult to find work as a director and subsequently became a well-respected character actor, particularly in French cinema. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Sunset Boulevard (1950). Read more
12 May 1956: Louis Calhern, American actor and singer (born 1895) Carl Henry Vogt, known by his stage name Louis Calhern, was an American actor. Described as a “star leading man of the theater and a star character actor of the screen,” he appeared in over 100 roles on the Broadway stage and in films and television, between 1923 and 1956. He was nominated for the Academy Award and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for portraying U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in the 1950 film The Magnificent Yankee. Read more
12 May 1948: Hans Waldemar Wessolowski, German-American illustrator (born 1894) Hans Waldemar Wessolowski was a German-American artist best known under the pseudonym "Wesso" for his many cover illustrations for pulp magazines in the 1930s and early 1940s. Read more
12 May 1944: Max Brand, American journalist and author (born 1892) Frederick Schiller Faust was an American writer known primarily for his Western stories using the pseudonym Max Brand. As Max Brand, he also created the popular fictional character of young medical intern Dr. James Kildare for a series of pulp fiction stories. His Kildare character was subsequently featured over several decades in other media, including a series of American theatrical movies by Paramount Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), a radio series, two television series, and comics. Faust's other pseudonyms include George Owen Baxter, Evan Evans, Peter Dawson, David Manning, John Frederick, Peter Henry Morland, George Challis, and Frederick Frost. He also wrote under his real name. As George Challis, Faust wrote the "Tizzo the Firebrand" series for Argosy magazine. The Tizzo saga was a series of historical swashbuckler stories, featuring the titular warrior, set in Renaissance Italy. Read more
12 May 1944: Arthur Quiller-Couch, English author, poet, and critic (born 1863) Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch was a British writer and literary critic who published using the pseudonym Q. Although a prolific novelist, he is remembered mainly for the monumental publication The Oxford Book of English Verse 1250–1900 and for his literary criticism. He influenced many who never met him, including American writer Helene Hanff, author of 84, Charing Cross Road and its sequel, Q's Legacy. Read more
12 May 1935: Józef Piłsudski, Polish field marshal and politician, 15th Prime Minister of Poland (born 1867) Józef Klemens Piłsudski[a] was a Polish statesman who served as the Chief of State (1918–1922) and first Marshal of Poland. In the aftermath of World War I, he became an increasingly dominant figure in Polish politics and exerted significant influence on shaping the country's foreign policy. Piłsudski is viewed as a father of the Second Polish Republic, which was re-established in 1918, 123 years after the final partition of Poland in 1795, and was considered de facto leader (1926–1935) of the Second Republic as the Minister of Military Affairs. Read more
12 May 1931: Eugène Ysaÿe, Belgian violinist, composer, and conductor (born 1858) Eugène-Auguste Ysaÿe was a Belgian virtuoso violinist, composer, and conductor. He was regarded as "The King of the Violin", or, as his former student Nathan Milstein put it, the "tsar". Read more
12 May 1925: Amy Lowell, American poet and critic (born 1874) Amy Lawrence Lowell was an American poet of the imagist school. She posthumously won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1926. Read more
12 May 1916: James Connolly, executed Scottish-born Irish socialist and rebel leader (born 1868) James Connolly was a Scottish-born Irish republican, socialist, and trade union leader, executed for his part in the 1916 Easter Rising against British rule in Ireland. He remains an important figure both for the Irish labour movement and for Irish republicanism. Read more
12 May 1916: Seán Mac Diarmada, executed Irish rebel leader (born 1883) Seán Mac Diarmada, also known as Seán MacDermott, was an Irish republican political activist and revolutionary leader. He was one of the seven leaders of the Easter Rising of 1916, which he helped to organise as a member of the Military Committee of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) and was the second signatory of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic. He was executed for his part in the Rising at age 33. Read more
12 May 1907: Joris-Karl Huysmans, French author and critic (born 1848) Charles-Marie-Georges Huysmans was a French novelist and art critic who published his works as Joris-Karl Huysmans. He is most famous for the novel À rebours. He supported himself by way of a 30-year career in the French civil service. Read more
12 May 1900: Göran Fredrik Göransson, Swedish merchant, ironmaster and industrialist (born 1819) Göran Fredrik Göransson was a Swedish merchant, ironmaster and industrialist. He was the founder of the company Sandvikens Jernverks AB and was the first person to implement the Bessemer process successfully on an industrial scale and pioneered ingot steel in the Swedish iron and steel industry. Read more
12 May 1897: Minna Canth, Finnish journalist, playwright, and activist (born 1844) Minna Canth was a Finnish writer and social activist. Canth began to write while managing her family draper's shop and living as a widow raising seven children. Her work addresses issues of women's rights, particularly in the context of a prevailing culture she considered antithetical to permitting expression and realization of women's aspirations. The Worker's Wife and The Pastor's Family are her best known plays, but the play Anna Liisa is the most adapted to films and operas. In her time, she became a controversial figure, due to the asynchrony between her ideas and those of her time, and in part due to her strong advocacy for her point of view. Read more
12 May 1884: Bedřich Smetana, Czech composer and educator (born 1824) Bedřich Smetana was a Czech composer who pioneered the development of a musical style that became closely identified with his people's aspirations to a cultural and political "revival". He has been regarded in his homeland as the father of Czech music. Internationally he is best known for his 1866 opera The Bartered Bride and for the symphonic cycle Má vlast, which portrays the history, legends and landscape of the composer's native Bohemia. It contains the famous symphonic poem "Vltava", also popularly known by its German name "Die Moldau". Read more
12 May 1878: Anselme Payen, French chemist and academic (born 1795) Anselme Payen was a French chemist known for discovering the enzyme diastase, and the carbohydrate cellulose. Read more
12 May 1876: Georgi Benkovski, Bulgarian activist (born 1843) Georgi Benkovski was the pseudonym of Gavril Gruev Hlatev, a Bulgarian revolutionary and leading figure in the organization and direction of the Bulgarian anti-Ottoman April Uprising of 1876 and apostle of its 4th Revolutionary District. Read more
12 May 1867: Friedrich Wilhelm Eduard Gerhard, German archaeologist and academic (born 1795) Friedrich Wilhelm Eduard Gerhard was a German archaeologist. He was co-founder and secretary of the first international archaeological society. Read more
12 May 1864: J. E. B. Stuart, American general (born 1833) James Ewell Brown "Jeb" Stuart was a Confederate cavalry general during the American Civil War. He was known to his friends as "Jeb", from the initials of his given names. Stuart was a cavalry commander known for his mastery of reconnaissance and the use of cavalry in support of offensive operations. While he cultivated a cavalier image, his serious work made him the trusted eyes and ears of Robert E. Lee's army and inspired Southern morale. Read more
12 May 1860: Charles Barry, English architect, designed Upper Brook Street Chapel and the Palace of Westminster (born 1795) Sir Charles Barry was an English architect best known for his role in the rebuilding of the Palace of Westminster in London during the mid-19th century, but also responsible for numerous other buildings and gardens. He is known for his major contribution to the use of Italianate architecture in Britain, especially the use of the Palazzo as basis for the design of country houses, city mansions and public buildings. He also developed the Italian Renaissance garden style for the many gardens he designed around country houses. Read more
12 May 1859: Sergey Aksakov, Russian author and academic (born 1791) Sergey Timofeyevich Aksakov was a 19th-century Russian literary figure remembered for his semi-autobiographical tales of family life, as well as his books on hunting and fishing. Read more
12 May 1856: Jacques Philippe Marie Binet, French mathematician, physicist, and astronomer (born 1786) Jacques Philippe Marie Binet was a French mathematician, physicist and astronomer born in Rennes; he died in Paris, France, in 1856. He made significant contributions to number theory, and the mathematical foundations of matrix algebra which would later lead to important contributions by Cayley and others. In his memoir on the theory of the conjugate axis and of the moment of inertia of bodies he enumerated the principle now known as Binet's theorem. He is also recognized as the first to describe the rule for multiplying matrices in 1812, and Binet's formula expressing Fibonacci numbers in closed form is named in his honour, although the same result was known to Abraham de Moivre a century earlier. Read more
12 May 1845: János Batsányi, Hungarian poet and academic (born 1763) János Batsányi was a Hungarian poet. Read more
12 May 1842: Walenty Wańkowicz, Belarusian-Polish painter (born 1799) Walenty Wilhelm Wańkowicz was a Polish painter. He studied at the Jesuit College in Polotsk, the University of Wilno and the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg. He produced, among other things, a well-known portrait of Adam Mickiewicz (1827–28). Read more
12 May 1801: Nicholas Repnin, Russian general and politician, Governor-General of Baltic provinces (born 1734) Prince Nikolai or Nicholas Vasilyevich Repnin was a Russian statesman and general from the Repnin princely family who played a key role in the dissolution of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth; the leading figure in the Repnin Sejm, the victor at Măcin. Read more

Why is 12 May Important in World History?

Several significant political, cultural, educational, and sporting events took place on 12 May, making it an important topic for general knowledge and competitive examinations.

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What happened on 12 May in World history?

On 12 May, several important historical events, notable births, and major milestones occurred in World history.

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