Also on this day
American Revolution
1780
On this day in 1780, Philadelphia lawyer Captain Christian Huck and 130 Loyalist cavalry, belonging to British Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton’s legion, suffer defeat at the hands of 500 Patriot militiamen at Williamson’s Plantation in South Carolina. The plantation was in South Carolina’s New Acquisition District along the border with...
Automotive
1933
The first three-wheeled, multi-directional Dymaxion car–designed by the architect, engineer and philosopher Buckminster Fuller–is manufactured in Bridgeport, Connecticut, on this day in 1933.
Born in Massachusetts in 1895, Fuller set out to live his life as (in his own words) “an experiment to find what a single individual can contribute...
Civil War
1861
Special commissioner Albert Pike completes treaties with the members of the Choctaw and Chickasaw tribes, giving the new Confederate States of America several allies in Indian Territory. Some members of the tribes also fought for the Confederacy.
A Boston native, Pike went west in 1831 and traveled with fur trappers and...
Cold War
1990
Just two days after Mikhail Gorbachev was re-elected head of the Soviet Communist Party, Boris Yeltsin, president of the Republic of Russia, announces his resignation from the Party. Yeltsin’s action was a serious blow to Gorbachev’s efforts to keep the struggling Soviet Union together. In July 1990, Soviet Communist Party...
Crime
1963
Sixteen-year-old Pauline Reade isabducted while onher way to a dance nearher home in Gorton, England, by Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, the so-called “Moors Murderers,” launching a crime spree that will last for over two years. Reade’s body was not discovered until 1987, after Brady confessed to the murder during...
Disaster
1995
On this day in 1995, a heat advisory is issued in Chicago, Illinois, warning of an impending record-breaking heat wave. By the time the heat breaks a week later, nearly 1,000 people are dead in Illinois and Wisconsin.
On July 13, the temperature in the city hit 106 degrees Fahrenheit...
General Interest
1862
President Abraham Lincoln signs into law a measure calling for the awarding of a U.S. Army Medal of Honor, in the name of Congress, “to such noncommissioned officers and privates as shall most distinguish themselves by their gallantry in action, and other soldier-like qualities during the present insurrection.” The...
1957
The Nizari Ismaili sect of the Shiite Muslims welcomes a new spiritual leader when Prince Karim Al-Hussain of Pakistan is proclaimed Aga Khan IV. Prince Karim’s grandfather, Aga Khan III, died the previous day after a 72-year reign.According to tradition, Aga Khan IV and his predecessors are said to be...
Hollywood
2008
On this day in 2008, a girl named Vivienne Marcheline and a boy named Knox Leon are born to actors Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie at Fondation Lenval hospital in Nice, France. The twins’ arrival made headlines around the world, as their celebrity parents had been a source of media...
Literary
1389
King Richard II appoints Geoffrey Chaucer to the position of chief clerk of the king’s works in Westminster on this day in 1389.
Chaucer, the middle-class son of a wine merchant, served as a page in an aristocratic household during his teens and was associated with the aristocracy for the rest...
Music
1979
As the 1970s came to an end, the age of disco was also nearing its finale. But for all of its decadence and overexposure, disco didn’t quite die a natural death by collapsing under its own weight. Instead, it was killed by a public backlash that reached its peak on...
Old West
1861
Wild Bill Hickok begins to establish his reputation as a gunfighter after he coolly shoots three men during a shootout in Nebraska.
Born in Homer (later called Troy Grove), Illinois, James Butler Hickok moved to Kansas in 1855 at the age of 18. There he filed a homestead claim, took odd...
Presidential
1957
On this day in 1957, Dwight D. Eisenhower becomes the first president to ride in the newest advance in aviation technology: the helicopter.
Although experimental military helicopters had been tested since 1947, it was not until 10 years later that a president considered using the new machine for short, official trips...
Sports
1998
On July 12, 1998, France defeats favored Brazil 3-0 to win the FIFA World Cup at Stade de France in Saint Denis. This was the first World Cup France had hosted since 1938 and the country’s first-ever World Cup title.
The 1998 Les Bleus was a multi-ethnic squad that reflected the...
Vietnam War
1965
Viet Cong ambush Company A of the 3rd Reconnaissance Battalion, led by U.S.M.C. Lt. Frank Reasoner of Kellogg, Idaho. The Marines had been on a sweep of a suspected Viet Cong area to deter any enemy activity aimed at the nearby airbase at Da Nang.
Reasoner and the five-man point team...
1966
The National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy (SANE) and American socialist Norman Thomas appeal to North Vietnamese President Ho Chi Minh on behalf of captured American pilots. The number of American captives was on the increase due to the intensification of Operation Rolling Thunder, the U.S. bombing campaign...
World War I
1915
On July 12, 1915, Allied forces make a sixth and final attempt to capture Achi Baba, a prominent hill position featuring a commanding view of Cape Helles, on the Gallipoli Peninsula, from its Turkish defenders.
Though many modern-day historians have questioned the actual strategic importance of the hill in the grand...
World War II
1943
On this day in 1943, one of the greatest clashes of armor in military history takes place as the German offensive against the Russian fortification at Kursk, a Russian railway and industrial center, is stopped in a devastating battle, marking the turning point in the Eastern front in the Russians’...