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On this day: January 12

January 12 is the 12th day of the year (12th in leap years), with 353 days left until the end of the year (354 in a leap year).

 

Events on January 12

  • 475 Basiliscus became Byzantine emperor after Zeno was forced to flee Constantinople. Wikipedia
  • 475 Byzantine Emperor Zeno is forced to flee his capital at Constantinople, and his general, Basiliscus gains control of the empire. Wikipedia
  • 1616 The city of Belém, Brazil is founded on the Amazon River delta by Portuguese captain Francisco Caldeira Castelo Branco. Wikipedia
  • 1659 The fort at Allahabad was surrendered to the forces of Mughal emperor Aurangzeb. Wikipedia
  • 1848 The Palermo rising takes place in Sicily against the Bourbon Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Wikipedia
  • 1865 The foundation stone of Saint Fin Barre's Cathedral in Cork was laid. Wikipedia
  • 1872 Yohannes IV is crowned Emperor of Ethiopia in Axum, the first imperial coronation in that city in over 200 years. Wikipedia
  • 1915 The United States House of Representatives rejects a proposed constitutional amendment to require states to give women the right to vote. Wikipedia
  • 1916 Oswald Boelcke and Max Immelmann become the first German aviators to earn the Pour le Mérite, receive the German Empire's highest military award, for achieving eight aerial victories each over Allied aircraft. Wikipedia
  • 1932 Hattie Caraway becomes the first woman elected to the United States Senate. Wikipedia
  • 1942 World War II: United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt creates the National War Labor Board. Wikipedia
  • 1945 World War II: The Red Army begins the Vistula–Oder Offensive. Wikipedia
  • 1962 Vietnam War: Operation Chopper, the first American combat mission and first American helicopter assault in the war, takes place. Wikipedia
  • 1964 Sultan Jamshid bin Abdullah was overthrown by rebels led by John Okello, ending 200 years of Arab dominance in Zanzibar. Wikipedia
  • 1964 Rebels in Zanzibar begin a revolt known as the Zanzibar Revolution and proclaim a republic. Wikipedia
  • 1966 Lyndon B. Johnson states that the United States should stay in South Vietnam until Communist aggression there is ended. Wikipedia
  • 1971 The Harrisburg Seven: Rev. Philip Berrigan and five other activists are indicted on charges of conspiring to kidnap Henry Kissinger and of plotting to blow up the heating tunnels of federal buildings in Washington, D.C. Wikipedia
  • 1976 The United Nations Security Council votes 11–1 to allow the Palestine Liberation Organization to participate in a Security Council debate (without voting rights). Wikipedia
  • 1990 A seven-day pogrom breaks out against the Armenian civilian population of Baku, Azerbaijan, during which Armenians were beaten, tortured, murdered, and expelled from the city. Wikipedia
  • 1991 Persian Gulf War: An act of the U.S. Congress authorizes the use of American military force to drive Iraq out of Kuwait. Wikipedia
  • 2001 Downtown Disney opens to the public as part of the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California. Wikipedia
  • 2006 A stampede during the Stoning of the Devil ritual on the last day at the Hajj in Mina, Saudi Arabia, kills at least 362 Muslim pilgrims. Wikipedia
  • 2007 Comet McNaught reached perihelion, becoming the brightest comet in over 40 years, with an apparent magnitude of −5.5. Wikipedia
  • 2010 An earthquake in Haiti occurs, killing between 220,000 and 300,000 people and destroying much of the capital Port-au-Prince. Wikipedia
  • 2012 Violent protests occur in Bucharest, Romania, as two-day-old demonstrations continue against President Traian Băsescu's economic austerity measures. Clashes are reported in numerous Romanian cities between protesters and law enforcement officers. Wikipedia
  • 2015 Government raids kill 143 Boko Haram fighters in Kolofata, Cameroon. Wikipedia

Born on January 12

  • 1591 Jusepe de Ribera, Spanish painter (died 1652) Wikipedia
  • 1598 Jijabai Shahaji Bhosale, mother of Indian king Shivaji (died 1674) Wikipedia
  • 1628 Charles Perrault, French author and academic (died 1703) Wikipedia
  • 1729 Edmund Burke, Irish philosopher, academic, and politician (died 1797) Wikipedia
  • 1746 Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, Swiss philosopher and educator (died 1827) Wikipedia
  • 1822 Étienne Lenoir, Belgian engineer, designed the internal combustion engine (died 1900) Wikipedia
  • 1863 Swami Vivekananda, Indian monk and philosopher (died 1902) Wikipedia
  • 1876 Jack London, American novelist and journalist (died 1916) Wikipedia
  • 1893 Hermann Göring, German commander, pilot, and politician, Minister President of Prussia (died 1946) Wikipedia
  • 1893 Alfred Rosenberg, Estonian-German architect and politician, Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories (died 1946) Wikipedia
  • 1899 Paul Hermann Müller, Swiss chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1965) Wikipedia
  • 1901 Karl Künstler, German SS officer (died 1945) Wikipedia
  • 1903 Igor Kurchatov, Russian physicist and academic (died 1960) Wikipedia
  • 1907 Sergei Korolev, Russian colonel and engineer (died 1966) Wikipedia
  • 1910 Luise Rainer, German-English actress (died 2014) Wikipedia
  • 1944 Joe Frazier, American boxer (died 2011) Wikipedia
  • 1949 Haruki Murakami, Japanese novelist, short-story writer, and essayist Wikipedia
  • 1951 Kirstie Alley, American actress and producer (died 2022) Wikipedia
  • 1956 Nikolai Noskov, Russian rock singer and singer-songwriter Wikipedia
  • 1964 Jeff Bezos, American computer scientist and businessman Wikipedia
  • 1973 Hande Yener, Turkish singer-songwriter, producer, and actress Wikipedia
  • 1993 Zayn Malik, English singer Wikipedia

Died on January 12

  • 1519 Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor (born 1459) Wikipedia
  • 1665 Pierre de Fermat, French mathematician and lawyer (born 1601) Wikipedia
  • 1829 Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel, German philosopher, poet, and critic (born 1772) Wikipedia
  • 1834 William Grenville, 1st Baron Grenville, English academic and politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (born 1759) Wikipedia
  • 1909 Hermann Minkowski, Lithuanian-German mathematician and academic (born 1864) Wikipedia
  • 1976 Agatha Christie, English crime novelist, short story writer, and playwright (born 1890) Wikipedia
  • 1997 Charles Brenton Huggins, Canadian-American physician and physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1901) Wikipedia
  • 2001 William Redington Hewlett, American engineer and businessman, co-founded Hewlett-Packard (born 1913) Wikipedia
  • 2002 Cyrus Vance, American lawyer and politician, 57th U.S. Secretary of State (born 1917) Wikipedia
  • 2003 Leopoldo Galtieri, Argentine general and politician, 44th President of Argentina (born 1926) Wikipedia
  • 2005 Amrish Puri, Indian actor (born 1932) Wikipedia
  • 2008 Max Beck, American intersex advocate (born 1966) Wikipedia
  • 2020 Sir Roger Scruton, English philosopher and writer (born 1944) Wikipedia
  • 2023 Lisa Marie Presley, American singer-songwriter (born 1968) Wikipedia

Holidays and observances

The events, births, deaths and observances above are from the English Wikipedia article “January 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.