June 12 in History

Historical Events on June 12

1665 England installs a municipal government in New York City (the former Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam).

1864 American Civil War, Overland Campaign: Battle of Cold Harbor: Ulysses S. Grant gives the Confederate forces under Robert E. Lee a victory when he pulls his Union troops from their position at Cold Harbor, Virginia and moves south.

1940 World War II: Thirteen thousand British and French troops surrender to Major General Erwin Rommel at Saint-Valery-en-Caux.

1954 Pope Pius XII canonises Dominic Savio, who was 14 years old at the time of his death, as a saint, making him at the time the youngest unmartyred saint in the Roman Catholic Church. In 2017 Jacinta and Francisco Marto, aged 10 and 9 at the time of their deaths, are declared saints.

1964 Anti-apartheid activist and ANC leader Nelson Mandela is sentenced to life in prison for sabotage in South Africa.

1967 The United States Supreme Court in Loving v. Virginia declares all U.S. state laws which prohibit interracial marriage to be unconstitutional.

1987 Cold War: At the Brandenburg Gate U.S. President Ronald Reagan publicly challenges Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall.

1999 Kosovo War: Operation Joint Guardian begins when a NATO-led United Nations peacekeeping force (KFor) enters the province of Kosovo in Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

2016 Forty-nine civilians are killed and 58 others injured in an attack on a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida; the gunman, Omar Mateen, is killed in a gunfight with police.

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Famous Birthdays on June 12

1897 Anthony Eden

1924 George H. W. Bush

1929 Anne Frank

1971 Mark Henry

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Famous Deaths on June 12

1994 Menachem Mendel Schneerson

2003 Gregory Peck

2013 Jason Leffler

2016 George Voinovich

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