#TodayInHistory – July 12

July 12 – Some important events on this day.

1191 👉🏼 English King Richard I the Lionheart and Crusaders defeat Saracens in Palestine
1561 👉🏼 “Trinity Church” (now Saint Basil’s Cathedral) is consecrated in Moscow, Russia
1580 👉🏼 Ostrog Bible, the first printed Bible in a Slavic language, is published
1679 👉🏼 Britain’s King Charles II ratifies Habeas Corpus Act allowing prisoners right to be imprisoned to be examined by a court
1690 👉🏼 Battle of Boyne: in Ireland, Protestant King William III defeats English Catholic King James II
1790 👉🏼 French Revolution: The Civil Constitution of the Clergy is adopted, putting the Catholic Church in France under the control of the state
1804 👉🏼 Former United States Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton dies after being shot in a pistol duel by Vice President Aaron Burr
1817 👉🏼 1st flower show held in Dannybrook, County Cork, Ireland
1843 👉🏼 Mormon leader Joseph Smith says God allows polygamy
1859 👉🏼 Paper bag manufacturing machine patents by William Goodale, Massachusetts
1862 👉🏼 Medal of Honor created
1863 👉🏼 In New Zealand, British forces invade Waikato, home of the Maori King Movement, beginning a new phase of the wars between Maori and Colonial British
1901 👉🏼 Striking Canadian salmon fishermen on the Pacific coast, resentful of the non-union Japanese who continue to fish, maroon and imprison 47
1902 👉🏼 Australian parliament agrees to female suffrage
1913 👉🏼 150,000 Ulstermen gather and resolve to resist Irish Home Rule by force of arms; since the British Liberals have promised the Irish nationalists Home Rule, civil war appears imminent
1916 👉🏼 Joseph Dunn (14) is attacked by a shark, suffering non-fatal wounds in New Jersey, the final episode in a spate of shark attacks along the Jersey coast where 4 people died over 12 days

1943 👉🏼 World War II: Battle of Prokhorovka – Russians defeat German forces in one of the largest ever tank battles.
On this day, one of the greatest clashes of armor in military history takes place as the German offensive against the Russian fortification at Kursk, a Russian railway and industrial center, is stopped in a devastating battle, marking the turning point in the Eastern front in the Russians’ favor.

1957 👉🏼 US Surgeon General Leroy Burney connects smoking with lung cancer

1979 👉🏼 “Disco Demolition Night” at Comiskey Park: fans go wild destroying disco records and cause the White Sox to forfeit second game of a doubleheader to the Detroit Tigers.
The Bee Gees, Donna Summer, ABBA, The Village People, Chic… classic disco legends or annoying drivel depending on who you ask. Disco had been a global cultural phenomenon for much of the late 1970s, in a decade otherwise dominated by hard and stadium rock.
Disco became pre-eminent after it emerged from the clubs and discothèques of the early 1970s. Films like Saturday Night Fever (1977) helped the genre become chart-topping all over the world – drawing an angry backlash from rock fans.
In 1979, in an attempt to promote a baseball match in Chicago, fans were told to bring disco records which would be destroyed on the field between games. When this happened, many onlookers who had come only for the explosion rushed onto the field, damaging the field to the point where the White Sox were forced to forfeit the match to the Detroit Tigers.
Demolition Night was the symbol of disco’s precipitous decline in the United States by 1980, where it was seen as mindless and out of fashion. Nevertheless, the genre has made a comeback in recent years with artists like Daft Punk and Bruno Mars making the disco feel a prominent part of their music.

1962 👉🏼 Rolling Stones 1st performance (Marquee Club, London)
1998 👉🏼 FIFA World Cup Final, Stade de France, Saint-Denis: Zinadine Zidane scores twice as France wins first World Cup beating Brazil, 3-0