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December 12
December 12 is the 12th day in December.
Events[edit]
627 — Byzantine Emperor Heraclius I defeats the Persians at Nineveh. This is the last battle fought between the Roman and the Persian Empires. [Source: Robert Braunwart]
881 — Charles the Fat of Alemannia is crowned emperor by Pope John VIII (-888), briefly reuniting the empire of Charlemagne. [Source: Robert Braunwart]
1098 — First Crusaders capture and plunder (like only good christians can), Mara, Syria.
1398 — India: Tamerlane massacres 100,000 Hindu prisoners at Delhi. [Source: Robert Braunwart]
1531 — Appearance of the Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico. [1]
1731 — Erasmus Darwin lives, Nottinghamshire, England.
1776 — Continental Congress, fearing a British attack on Philadelphia is imminent, votes dictatorial powers to George Washington and flees to Baltimore.
1792 — Beethoven pays Haydn 19 cents for his first music lesson.
1812 — Death of Sacajaweya, native guide for Lewis and Clark Expedition.
1821 — French writer Gustave Flaubert lives, Rouen. [2]
1830 — United States of America: State of Georgia makes it unlawful for Cherokee to meet in council — unless it is for the purpose of “giving†land to whites.
1830 — England: When Swing rioters set fires outside Carlisle, a mob assembles to prevent them being extinguished by throwing buckets into the flames, cutting the pipes, harangues and general obstructionism. [Source: Calendar Riots]
1838 — US and British opium dealers try to prevent the execution of a Cantonese opium dealer, leading to large antiforeign demonstrations. [Source: Robert Braunwart]
1850 — Susan Warnerʼs bestselling novel The Wide, Wide World is published. [Source: Robert Braunwart]
1853 — Birth of Julian West. Protagonist of Edward Bellamyʼs Looking Backward. 1857 move the code below, then delte this incorrect record
1863 — Norwegian printmaker/painter Edvard Munch born.
1864 — Author Arthur Brisbane lives.
1874 — England: Disraeli wants Queen Victoria to bestow honors and pension upon Thomas Carlyle. The aged writer refuses: “titles of honour, of all degrees, are out of keeping with the tenor of my poor life.â€
1874 — Volter Kilpi lives.
1889 — Robert Browning, 77, dies in Venice on the day “Asolando†is published in England. Since the little cemetery where his wife has lain for 28 years is closed to further burials, he is buried in Westminster Abbey. [3] [4]
1899 — George F. Grant of Boston patents golf tees.
1900 — US Negro anthem “Lift Every Voice and Sing†is composed, by J. Rosamond Johnson and author James Weldon Johnson. [Source: Robert Braunwart]
1907 — Zulu King Dinizulu surrenders to British.
1909 — United States of America: Anarchistâ€feminist Emma Goldman speaks on “Will the Vote Free Woman: Woman Suffrage†to an audience of 300 women, many of whom are suffragists. A collection is taken for Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, recently sentenced to a three-month prison term resulting from her arrest during a free-speech battle in Spokane, Washington.
1912 — Henry Armstrong lives.
1915 — Ford Madox Hueffer writes his poem “What the Orderly Dog Sawâ€. [Source: Robert Braunwart]
1916 — United States of America: Dr. Ben Reitman arrested in Cleveland for organizing volunteers to distribute birth control information at Emma Goldmanʼs lecture “Is Birth Control Harmful — a Discussion of the Limitation of Offspring.â€
1918 — Joe Williams, jazz singer, lives.
1921 — Henrietta Leavitt cepheid periodâ€luminosity relation discoverer, dies.
1925 — United States of America: Worldʼs first motel (“motor hotelâ€) opens San Luis Obispo, California. 200 Motels film logo
1927 — United States of America: Oklahoma Governor Henry Johnston calls out state troops to prevent legislators from conducting an impeachment hearing against him.
1928 — Helen Frankenthaler, lives. [5] [6] [7]
1929 — John Osborne, playwright, lives.
1934 — United States of America: During this month Harperʼs publishes Emma Goldmanʼs “Was My Life Worth Living?†and Roger Baldwin advises Emma that in the current atmosphere of hostility toward alien radicals she is unlikely to be granted a US visa. Today her brother Herman dies.
1937 — United States of America: The FCC scolds the NBC radio network for a skit that starred Mae West. The satirical routine was based on the biblical tale of Adam and Eve and, well, it got a bit out of hand. So… following its scolding, NBC banned Miss West from its airwaves for 15 years. In fact, even the mere mention of her name on NBC was a no-no.
1938 — England: John McNair of the ILP and Emma Goldman speak at a poorly attended meeting in London on the crisis in Spain.
1941 — France: German occupying army do a house search in Paris looking for Jews.
1941 — Author Coletteʼs husband, Maurice Goudeket, is arrested by the Germans (-1942). [Source: Robert Braunwart]
1944 — United States of America: Edie Parker and Joan Vollmer move into communal apartment at 419 West 115th Street in New York. Beatsters Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs end up living at the apartment, and Herbert Huncke is a frequent visitor.. [8]
1946 — United States of America: Ice plant collapses, shearing a tenement building and burying 38.
1950 — United States of America: Washingtonʼs Sulgrave Club is scene of a brawl between columnist Drew Pearson and Senator Joseph McCarthy.
1957 — United States of America: The controversy over Elvisʼs Christmas Album rages on. Disc Jockey Al Priddy of KEX, Portland, Oregon is fired for violating the radio stationʼs ban against playing Presleyʼs rendition of “White Christmas.â€
1958 — United States of America: Rev. Maurice McCrackin sentenced to six months in jail for refusing to provide subpoenaed financial documents relating to his war tax resistance. Cincinnati, Ohio.
1959 — Krishnammachari Srikkanth born. Famous cricketer.
1962 — United States of America: Mayor George Chacharis of Gary, Indiana pleads guilty to income tax invasion.
1963 — Kenya gains independence from Britain (National Day).
1964 — United States of America: Solidarity Bookstore opens, Chicago, Illinois, distributing anarchist, surrealist, Wobbly and libertarian socialist literature to the nation for the next 10 years or so.
1965 — United States of America: First pad abort of a manned spacecraft after the engines were fired, (Gemini 6), 1965.
1967 — A London Appeals Court commutes Brian Jonesʼs nineâ€month prison stay for possession of cannabis after hearing testimony from three psychiatrists that Jones is “an extremely frightened young man†and could not stand nine months for his boner possession of a vegetable.
1969 — Italy: Bomb explodes, Banque Nationale dʼAgriculture, Milan. 18 die, many injured. A period of social upheaval, it triggers repression against the autonomy movement and anarchists. Authorities later admit the bombing was the work of fascists. Italian Intelligence and fascist army units (created by US Army from Mussoliniʼs Intelligence) were making bomb attacks and pretending they were by anarchists. See for example, the murder of the railwayman/anarchist Giuseppe Pinelli by police (15 December) and the false arrest of Pietro Valpreda.
1973 — United States of America: Women members of United Steelworkers of America (Local 1066) protest sex discrimination, Gary, Indiana.
1979 — NATO decides to deploy cruise and Pershing missiles across Europe. Annual protests follow.
1980 — Devoʼs “Whip it†turns gold. The song is misinterpreted to be an ode to masturbation but the group disagrees. Jerry Casale said, “We were writing a canâ€do, self-help song. Whip it — as in whip it into shape.â€
1982 — England: 30,000 women encircle U.S. cruise missile base, Greenham Common.
1983 — United States of America: Tacoma, Washington declares refusal to do business with nuclear weapons manufacturers. Or, Takoma Park, Maryland becomes first US city to announce refusal to do business with nuclear weapon manufacturers. Who knows…
1983 — United States of America: 70 people arrested in Boston outside a hotel where a “New Trends in Missiles†trade conference is being held. Inside the hotel, over 1,000 cockroaches are let loose to symbolize the likely survivors of nuclear war.
1985 — Rolling Stonesʼs pianist Ian Stewart dies.
1986 — West Germany: Plowshares activists disarm Pershing missile launcher.
1986 — Microlite aircraft circles world nonâ€stop.
1988 — Navy practice missile hits topside of an Indian freighter, kills a crewman. Fired at a target ship, its guidance system locked onto the merchant vessel Jagvivek instead.
1988 — England: A commuter train stopped to notify control of a malfunctioning signal is hit by a second train; the wreckage blocks an adjacent track and is struck by a third train; 33 die, London.
1995 — United States of America: NBA referees return to work after striking.
1998 — Italy: Renato Lacquaniti (1932 — 1998) dies, Livorno. Mort de ce peintre anarchiste, membre du groupe artistique Atoma, peintre des Composizioni anarchiche de 1960 et antimilitariste assumé. [9]
1999 — Author Joseph Heller, dead at 76. Now with the Snowdens of Yesteryear.
2000 — Turkey: 200 rights protesters arrested before they can demonstrate. [Source: Robert Braunwart]
2002 — Dee Brown dies, age 94, Little Rock, Arkansas.
2002 — Korea: North Korea says it will reopen its nuclearâ€power plants, after the US reneged on its 1994 agreement to supply fuel oil as a substitute. [Source: Robert Braunwart]
2002 — Nicaragua: Congress strips exâ€Pres. Arnoldo Aleman of immunity so he can stand trial for stealing $100 million. [Source: Robert Braunwart]
2004 — Spain: 300 people gather on a Sunday morning in a simple and touching act of tribute in memory of Concha Monrás and Ramón AcÃn Aquilué, consisting of an inauguration plate at a house where they lived when rounded up and shot by fascists in the summer of 1936.
