On this day: February 12

Events on February 12

• 1404 The Italian professor Galeazzo di Santa Sofia performs the first post-mortem autopsy for the purposes of teaching and demonstration at the Heiligen–Geist Spital in Vienna. Wikipedia
• 1502 Vasco da Gama sets sail with 15 ships and 800 men from Lisbon, Portugal on his second voyage to India. Wikipedia
• 1541 Santiago, Chile is founded by Pedro de Valdivia. Wikipedia
• 1689 The Convention Parliament declares that the flight to France in 1688 by James II, the last Roman Catholic British monarch, constitutes an abdication. Wikipedia
• 1733 Georgia Day: Englishman James Oglethorpe founds Georgia, the 13th colony of the Thirteen Colonies, by settling at Savannah. Wikipedia
• 1817 An Argentine/Chilean patriotic army, after crossing the Andes, defeats Spanish troops at the Battle of Chacabuco. Wikipedia
• 1818 Bernardo O'Higgins formally approves the Chilean Declaration of Independence near Concepción, Chile. Wikipedia
• 1832 Ecuador annexes the Galápagos Islands. Wikipedia
• 1935 USS Macon, one of the two largest helium-filled airships ever created, crashes into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California and sinks. Wikipedia
• 1935 USS Macon, one of the largest helium-filled airships ever created, crashed into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California. Wikipedia
• 1945 A devistating tornado outbreak across Mississippi and Alabama kills 45 people and injures 427 others. Wikipedia
• 1945 A devastating tornado outbreak in Mississippi and Alabama kills 45 people and injures 427 others. Wikipedia
• 1946 World War II: Operation Deadlight ends after scuttling 121 of 154 captured U-boats. Wikipedia
• 1946 African American United States Army veteran Isaac Woodard is severely beaten by a South Carolina police officer to the point where he loses his vision in both eyes. The incident later galvanizes the civil rights movement and partially inspires Orson Welles' film Touch of Evil. Wikipedia
• 1947 The largest observed iron meteorite until that time creates an impact crater in Sikhote-Alin, in the Soviet Union. Wikipedia
• 1961 The Soviet Union launches Venera 1 towards Venus. Wikipedia
• 1963 Construction begins on the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri. Wikipedia
• 1974 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1970, is exiled from the Soviet Union. Wikipedia
• 1988 While claiming the right of innocent passage through Soviet territorial waters in the Black Sea, the American cruiser USS Yorktown and destroyer USS Caron were bumped by Soviet warships. Wikipedia
• 1988 Cold War: The 1988 Black Sea bumping incident: The U.S. missile cruiser USS Yorktown (CG-48) is intentionally rammed by the Soviet frigate Bezzavetnyy in the Soviet territorial waters, while Yorktown claims innocent passage. Wikipedia
• 1999 United States President Bill Clinton is acquitted by the United States Senate in his impeachment trial. Wikipedia
• 2002 The trial of Slobodan Milošević, the former President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, begins at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands. He dies four years later before its conclusion. Wikipedia
• 2004 The city of San Francisco begins issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples in response to a directive from Mayor Gavin Newsom. Wikipedia
• 2016 In the first meeting between the leaders of the Catholic Church and the Russian Orthodox Church, Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill of Moscow signed the Havana Declaration at José Martí International Airport in Cuba. Wikipedia
• 2016 Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill sign an Ecumenical Declaration in the first such meeting between leaders of the Catholic and Russian Orthodox Churches since their split in 1054. Wikipedia
• 2019 The country known as the Republic of Macedonia renames itself the Republic of North Macedonia in accordance with the Prespa agreement, settling a long-standing naming dispute with Greece. Wikipedia

Born on February 12

• 41 Britannicus, Roman son of Claudius (died 55) Wikipedia
• 1768 Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor (died 1835) Wikipedia
• 1809 Abraham Lincoln, American lawyer and statesman, 16th President of the United States (died 1865) Wikipedia
• 1809 Charles Darwin, English naturalist, geologist, biologist and theorist (died 1882) Wikipedia
• 1828 George Meredith, English novelist and poet (died 1909) Wikipedia
• 1861 Lou Andreas-Salomé, Russian-German psychoanalyst and author (died 1937) Wikipedia
• 1876 13th Dalai Lama (died 1933) Wikipedia
• 1877 Louis Renault, French engineer and businessman, co-founded Renault (died 1944) Wikipedia
• 1881 Anna Pavlova, Russian-English ballerina and actress (died 1931) Wikipedia
• 1884 Max Beckmann, German painter and sculptor (died 1950) Wikipedia
• 1885 Julius Streicher, German publisher, founded Der Stürmer (died 1946) Wikipedia
• 1893 Omar Bradley, American general (died 1981) Wikipedia
• 1918 Julian Schwinger, American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1994) Wikipedia
• 1920 Raymond Mhlaba, South African anti-apartheid and ANC activist (died 2005) Wikipedia
• 1923 Franco Zeffirelli, Italian director, producer, and politician (died 2019) Wikipedia
• 1934 Bill Russell, American basketball player and coach (died 2022) Wikipedia
• 1942 Ehud Barak, Israeli general and politician, 10th Prime Minister of Israel Wikipedia
• 1968 Josh Brolin, American actor Wikipedia
• 1969 Darren Aronofsky, American director, producer, and screenwriter Wikipedia
• 1980 Christina Ricci, American actress and producer Wikipedia
• 1988 Nicolás Otamendi, Argentine footballer Wikipedia
• 2001 Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, Georgian footballer Wikipedia

Died on February 12

• 901 Antony II, patriarch of Constantinople Wikipedia
• 1554 Lord Guildford Dudley, Disputed Consort of the English Monarch, Husband of Lady Jane Grey (born c1535; executed) Wikipedia
• 1554 Lady Jane Grey, de facto monarch of England and Ireland for nine days (born 1537; executed) Wikipedia
• 1763 Pierre de Marivaux, French author and playwright (born 1688) Wikipedia
• 1804 Immanuel Kant, German anthropologist, philosopher, and academic (born 1724) Wikipedia
• 1834 Friedrich Schleiermacher, German philosopher and scholar (born 1768) Wikipedia
• 1916 Richard Dedekind, German mathematician, philosopher, and academic (born 1831) Wikipedia
• 1949 Hassan al-Banna, Egyptian educator, founded the Muslim Brotherhood (born 1906) Wikipedia
• 1954 Dziga Vertov, Polish-Russian director and screenwriter (born 1896) Wikipedia
• 1979 Jean Renoir, French actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (born 1894) Wikipedia
• 1984 Julio Cortázar, Belgian-Argentinian author and poet (born 1914) Wikipedia
• 1984 Anna Anderson, Polish-American woman, who claimed to be Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia (born 1896) Wikipedia
• 1989 Thomas Bernhard, Austrian playwright and author (born 1931) Wikipedia
• 2019 Gordon Banks, English footballer (born 1937) Wikipedia

Holidays and observances

• Christian feast day: Benedict of Aniane Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Julian the Hospitaller Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Martyrs of Abitinae Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Meletius of Antioch Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: February 12 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics) Wikipedia
• Georgia Day (Georgia (U.S. state)) Wikipedia
• Lincoln's Birthday (United States) Wikipedia
• Red Hand Day (United Nations) Wikipedia
• Union Day (Myanmar) Wikipedia

The events, births, deaths and observances above are from the English Wikipedia article “February 12” and the articles it links to (authors and history), retrieved 2026-10-09 through the Wikimedia “On this day” feed. They are licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0; this selection is shared under the same licence. We picked the 26 events, 22 births and 14 deaths with the widest coverage across Wikipedia's language editions (counted from Wikidata) and sorted them by year; the wording is unchanged apart from removing references to pictures.