April 12


1096 - Peter the Hermit gathered his army in Cologne.

1204 - The Fourth Crusade sacked Constantinople.

1606 - England adopted the original Union Jack as its flag.

1770 - The British Parliament repealed the Townsend Acts.

1782 - The British navy won its only naval engagement against the colonists in the American Revolution at the Battle of Saints, off Dominica.

1799 - Phineas Pratt patented the comb cutting machine.

1811 - The first colonists arrived at Cape Disappointment, Washington.

1833 - Charles Gaylor patented the fireproof safe.


1864 - Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest captured Fort Pillow, in Tennessee and slaughters the black Union troops there.



1905 - The Hippodrome opened in New York City.

1911 - Pierre Prier completed the first non-stop London-Paris flight in three hours and 56 minutes.

1916 - American cavalrymen and Mexican bandit troops clashed at Parrel, Mexico.

1927 - The British Cabinet came out in favor of women voting rights.


1938 - The first U.S. law requiring a medical test for a marriage license was enacted in New York.

1944 - The U.S. Twentieth Air Force was activated to begin the strategic bombing of Japan.




1961 - Soviet Yuri Alexeyevich Gagarin became first man to orbit the Earth.



1981 - The space shuttle Columbia blasted off from Cape Canaveral, FL, on its first test flight.

1982 - The British Navy began enforcing a blockade around the Falkland Islands.



1984 - Astronauts aboard the space shuttle Challenger made the first satellite repair in orbit by returning the Solar Max satellite to space.

1984 - Israeli troops stormed a bus that had been hijacked the previous evening by four Arab terrorists. All the passengers were rescued and 2 of the hijackers were killed.

1985 - U.S. Senator Jake Garn of Utah became the first senator to fly in space as the shuttle Discovery lifted off from Cape Canaveral, FL.

1985 - In Spain, an explosion in a restaurant near a U.S. base killed 17 people.


1987 - Texaco filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy after it failed to settle a legal dispute with Pennzoil Co.


1988 - The Chinese government named a new array of younger leaders to ensure economic reform.

1989 - In the U.S.S.R, ration cards were issued for the first time since World War II. The ration was prompted by a sugar shortage.


1993 - NATO began enforcing a no-fly zone over Bosnia and Herzegovina.

2000 - More than 1,500 anti-drug agents raided four cities in Colombia and arrested 46 members of the "most powerful" heroin ring.

2000 - Robert Cleaves, 71, was convicted of second degree murder and was sentenced to 16 years in prison. Cleaves had repeatedly run over Arnold Guerreiro on September 30, 1998 with his car after the two had an argument.

2000 - Israel's High Court ordered the release of eight Lebanese detainees that had been held for years without a trial.




2012 - The game Candy Crush Saga was released on Facebook.