On this day: November 12

Events on November 12

• 1330 Led by the voivode Basarab I, Wallachian forces defeated the Hungarian army in an ambush at the Battle of Posada. Wikipedia
• 1892 William Heffelfinger was paid $500 by the Allegheny Athletic Association, becoming the first professional American football player. Wikipedia
• 1911 The Corozal, the most powerful dredger built to that time, was launched in London for service in construction of the Panama Canal. Wikipedia
• 1912 Eight months after perishing during the ill-fated Terra Nova Expedition, the bodies of Robert Falcon Scott and his companions were discovered on the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica. Wikipedia
• 1920 The Kingdom of Italy and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes signed the Treaty of Rapallo to establish national borders east of the Adriatic Sea. Wikipedia
• 1927 Leon Trotsky is expelled from the Soviet Communist Party, leaving Joseph Stalin in undisputed control of the Soviet Union. Wikipedia
• 1928 The British ocean liner SS Vestris sank in the western Atlantic Ocean, killing 111 people. Wikipedia
• 1932 At the request of the Government of Western Australia, the Australian military officially resumed fighting the Emu War after their prior withdrawal. Wikipedia
• 1940 World War II: Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov arrived in Berlin to discuss the possibility of the Soviet Union joining the Axis powers. Wikipedia
• 1940 World War II: Free French forces captured Gabon from Vichy France. Wikipedia
• 1942 World War II: The Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, the decisive engagement in a series of sea battles between Allied and Japanese forces during the months-long Guadalcanal campaign in the Solomon Islands, began. Wikipedia
• 1944 Second World War: In Operation Catechism, the Royal Air Force sank the German battleship Tirpitz near Tromsø, Norway, killing about 1,000 sailors on board. Wikipedia
• 1956 Suez Crisis: During an invasion of Rafah, Israeli soldiers shot and killed an estimated 111 Palestinian refugees and local inhabitants. Wikipedia
• 1956 Morocco, Sudan and Tunisia join the United Nations. Wikipedia
• 1970 The Oregon Highway Division unsuccessfully attempted to destroy a rotting beached sperm whale near Florence, Oregon, with dynamite. Wikipedia
• 1970 The deadliest tropical cyclone in history made landfall on the coast of East Pakistan (present-day Bangladesh), killing at least 250,000 people. Wikipedia
• 1973 The first episode of Last of the Summer Wine, the longest-running television sitcom in history, premiered on the BBC. Wikipedia
• 1990 Tim Berners-Lee publishes a formal proposal for the World Wide Web. Wikipedia
• 1991 Indonesian forces opened fire on student demonstrators protesting the occupation of East Timor in the capital Dili, killing at least 250 people. Wikipedia
• 1996 A Saudi Arabian Airlines Boeing 747 and a Kazakhstan Airlines Ilyushin Il-76 collided in mid-air near New Delhi, killing 349 people, the deadliest such collision in history. Wikipedia
• 2001 American Airlines Flight 587 crashed into residential buildings five minutes after takeoff from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, killing a total of 265 people. Wikipedia
• 2003 Iraq War: In Nasiriyah, Iraq, at least 23 people, among them the first Italian casualties of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, are killed in a suicide bomb attack on an Italian police base. Wikipedia
• 2006 Although the Georgian government declared it illegal, South Ossetia held a referendum on independence, with more than 99 percent of voters in favour of preserving the region's status as a de facto independent state. Wikipedia
• 2011 An explosion in the Shahid Modarres missile base led to the deaths of 17 members of the Revolutionary Guards, including Hassan Tehrani Moghaddam, a key figure in Iran's missile program. Wikipedia
• 2011 Silvio Berlusconi tenders his resignation as Prime Minister of Italy, effective November 16, due in large part to the Euro area crisis. Wikipedia
• 2014 The European Space Agency's lander Philae touched down on 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, becoming the first spacecraft to land on a comet. Wikipedia

Born on November 12

• 1651 Juana Inés de la Cruz, Mexican nun, poet, and scholar (died 1695) Wikipedia
• 1729 Louis Antoine de Bougainville, French admiral and explorer (died 1811) Wikipedia
• 1815 Elizabeth Cady Stanton, American activist (died 1902) Wikipedia
• 1817 Bahá'u'lláh, Persian spiritual leader, founded the Baháʼí Faith (died 1892) Wikipedia
• 1833 Alexander Borodin, Russian composer and chemist (died 1887) Wikipedia
• 1840 Auguste Rodin, French sculptor and illustrator, created The Thinker (died 1917) Wikipedia
• 1842 John William Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh, English physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1919) Wikipedia
• 1866 Sun Yat-sen, Chinese physician and politician, 1st President of the Republic of China (died 1925) Wikipedia
• 1915 Roland Barthes, French philosopher, theorist, and critic (died 1980) Wikipedia
• 1929 Grace Kelly, American actress, later Princess Grace of Monaco (died 1982) Wikipedia
• 1929 Michael Ende, German author and fiction writer (died 1995) Wikipedia
• 1934 Charles Manson, American cult leader (died 2017) Wikipedia
• 1934 Vavá, Brazilian footballer and manager (died 2002) Wikipedia
• 1943 Wallace Shawn, American actor, comedian and playwright Wikipedia
• 1945 Neil Young, Canadian singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer Wikipedia
• 1948 Hassan Rouhani, Iranian lawyer and politician; 7th President of Iran Wikipedia
• 1961 Nadia Comăneci, Romanian gymnast and coach Wikipedia
• 1980 Ryan Gosling, Canadian actor, producer and singer Wikipedia
• 1982 Anne Hathaway, American actress Wikipedia
• 1988 Russell Westbrook, American basketball player Wikipedia
• 1995 Thomas Lemar, French footballer Wikipedia
• 1998 Jules Koundé, French footballer Wikipedia

Died on November 12

• 607 Pope Boniface III Wikipedia
• 1035 Cnut the Great, Danish-English king (born c.995) Wikipedia
• 1793 Jean Sylvain Bailly, French astronomer, mathematician, and politician, 1st Mayor of Paris (born 1736) Wikipedia
• 1865 Elizabeth Gaskell, English author (born 1810) Wikipedia
• 1916 Percival Lowell, American astronomer, mathematician, and author (born 1855) Wikipedia
• 1948 Umberto Giordano, Italian composer (born 1867) Wikipedia
• 1969 Liu Shaoqi, Chinese politician, 2nd Chairman of the People's Republic of China (born 1898) Wikipedia
• 1981 William Holden, American actor (born 1918) Wikipedia
• 1990 Eve Arden, American actress and comedian (born 1908) Wikipedia
• 1994 Wilma Rudolph, American sprinter and educator (born 1940) Wikipedia
• 2007 Ira Levin, American novelist, playwright, and songwriter (born 1929) Wikipedia
• 2010 Henryk Górecki, Polish composer (born 1933) Wikipedia
• 2015 Jihadi John, terrorist (born 1988) Wikipedia
• 2018 Stan Lee, American comic book writer, editor, and publisher (born 1922) Wikipedia

Holidays and observances

• Birth of Sun Yat-Sen, also Doctors' Day and Cultural Renaissance Day. (Republic of China) Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Arsatius Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Astrik (or Anastasius) of Pannonhalma Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Cumméne Fota Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Cunibert Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Emilian of Cogolla Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Imerius of Immertal Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Josaphat Kuntsevych (Roman Catholic Church, Greek Catholic Church) Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Lebuinus (Liafwine) Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Livinus of Ghent Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Machar Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Margarito Flores García Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Nilus of Sinai Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Patiens Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: René d'Angers Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Theodore the Studite Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Ymar Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: November 12 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics) Wikipedia
• Constitution Day (Azerbaijan) Wikipedia
• Father's Day (Indonesia) Wikipedia
• National Health Day (Indonesia) Wikipedia
• National Youth Day (East Timor) Wikipedia
• World Pneumonia Day Wikipedia

Sources

• Wikipedia — “November 12” — events, births, deaths and observances (text under CC BY-SA 4.0) (checked 2026-10-15)
• Wikipedia — “Selected anniversaries/November 12” — the anniversaries editors chose for the date and the article each one is about (checked 2026-10-15)
• Wikidata — in how many language editions each entry's own article exists, used to fill the lists (CC0) (checked 2026-10-15)
• vacanza/holidays (open-source holiday rules, MIT licence) — holiday rules used to build the lists (checked 2026-10-15)

The events, births, deaths and observances above are from the English Wikipedia article “November 12” and the articles it links to (authors and history), retrieved 2026-10-15 through the Wikimedia “On this day” feed. They are licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0; this selection is shared under the same licence. Every anniversary that Wikipedia's editors selected for November 12 stays on the list; the remaining places, up to 26 events, 22 births and 14 deaths, go to the entries whose own article — about the event itself, or else the person or thing it is about — appears in the most language editions (counted from Wikidata); an article about a person or thing, which covers far more than one day, counts half. An entry with no article of its own counts, also at half, by the least covered article it links, and one that links only places counts for nothing. Each list runs by year, and the wording is unchanged apart from removing references to pictures, audio and video.