April 12 โ Some important events on this day
467 ๐๐ผ Anthemius is elevated to Emperor of the Western Roman Empire
1204 ๐๐ผ 4th Crusade occupies and plunders Constantinople
1606 ๐๐ผ England adopts the Union Flag, replaced in 1801 by current Union Flag the Union Jack ๐ด๓ ง๓ ข๓ ฅ๓ ฎ๓ ง๓ ฟ
1782 ๐๐ผ Battle at Les Saintes: British fleet under Admiral George Rodney defeats the French fleet under Comte de Grasse off Dominica in the West Indies. Prevents a planned French and Spanish invasion of Jamaica.
With a long-standing historical rivalry against the British it was only natural that the French would join the side of the Americans during the American Revolutionary War. They would, of course, experience their own egalitarian revolutionary upheavals only a few years later.
To aid the cause the French had planned to invade the highly profitable British colony of Jamaica, which was itself more profitable than the Thirteen Colonies in revolt. The French Navy also planned to defeat the British squadron at New York and capture the Windward Islands.
These plans were destroyed by the British destruction of the French fleet at the Battle of the Saintes, near the West Indies. During the battle the British navy โbroke throughโ the French line, throwing them into chaos and causing a rout. French commander Comte De Grasse was captured by Admiral George Rodney but was released to France in 1784, where he demanded a court-martial that acquitted him of responsibility for Franceโs loss.
In total the British lost nearly 300 men, and France a number around 2-3,000.
1811 ๐๐ผ 1st US colonists on Pacific coast arrive at Cape Disappointment, Washington
1861 ๐๐ผ Fort Sumter in South Carolina is attacked by the Confederacy, beginning the American Civil War, that raged from 1861 to 1865, killing between 600,000 to 1 million Americans on both sides of the divide. After a long and intense crisis over slavery, Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860, and the Confederate States seceded shortly after.
The first battle of the war took place at Fort Sumter near Charleston, South Carolina, which had been the first state to seceded the union. After a long period of shortages in the fort due to a Confederate blockade, the first crisis of Lincolnโs administration was to resupply the fort. After an ultimatum from the South to evacuate the fort was ignored, Confederate forces attacked on April 12, 1861, beginning the civil war.
1872 ๐๐ผ Outlaw Jesse Jamesโ gang robs bank in Columbia, Kentucky (1 dead/$1,500) ๐ต
1911 ๐๐ผ 1st non-stop London-Paris flight (in 3h56m) โ๏ธ
1927 ๐๐ผ Kuomintang leader Chiang Kai-shek begins counter revolution in Shanghai.
A dominant figure in Chinese politics, Chiang Kai-shek was the Leader of the Republic of China and Taiwan.
Rising through the military, Chiang became head of the Chinese Nationalist party (Kuomintang) in 1925 after the death of Sun Yat-sen. In 1926 Chiang led the Northern Expedition reuniting much of China by 1928 and heading up a nationalist government at Nanking.
Chiang fought internal battles against the communists before Japan invaded China during the Sino-Japanese War. After Japanโs defeat in WWII civil war Chiang led a civil war against the communists.
By 1949 Chiang had been pushed out of China to Taiwan where he continued to rule at the head of a Nationalist government until his death in 1975.
1937 ๐๐ผ Sir Frank Whittle ground-tests the first jet engine designed to power an aircraft at Rugby, England.
1945 ๐๐ผ US President Franklin D. Roosevelt dies in office and Vice President Harry Truman is sworn in as 33rd US President.
On this day, painter Elizabeth Shoumatoff began work on a portrait of US President Franklin D. Roosevelt while he was in Warm Springs, Georgia. She began her work at about noon. While Roosevelt was being served lunch during the session, he complained of having a โterrific pain in the back of my headโ. He slumped forward, unconscious, and was taken to his room where he later died. He had had a cerebral hemorrhage
Shoumatoff never completed the painting. Rooseveltโs death shocked the world, especially as the Allies were mere weeks away from victory over Nazi Germany in World War II.
1955 ๐๐ผ Polio vaccine tested by Dr Jonas Salk announced to be โsafe and effectiveโ ๐
1961 ๐๐ผ Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first person to orbit Earth (Vostok 1) ๐
1988 ๐๐ผ Harvard University patents a genetically engineered mouse (1st for animal life)
1992 ๐๐ผ Euro Disney (Disneyland Paris) opens in Marne-la-Vallee, France ๐ซ๐ท