September 12

492 BC The Battle of Marathon was fought between The Greeks and the invading Persians on September 12, 490 BC. It took place on the plain of Marathon 40 km/26 miles north of Athens. The Greeks defeat of the Persians ended their first attempt to conquer Greece.

1294 After Robert Winchelsey was elected as Archbishop of Canterbury, he left England for Rome on April 1, 1293 to be consecrated by the Pope, only to find that there wasn't one. Celestine V eventually performed the ceremony at Aquila on September 12, 1294.

1440 Eton College was founded by King Henry VI of England on September 12, 1440. It was founded as a charity school to provide free education to 70 poor boys who would then go on to King's College, Cambridge, founded by the same king in 1441  A total of 20 UK Prime Ministers have attended the school.

1494 Francis I was born in Cognac, France on September 12, 1494. He succeeded his cousin Louis XII as French king in 1515. By the time Francis ascended the throne, the Renaissance had arrived in France, and the new French king became an enthusiastic patron of the arts. He employed Leonardo Da Vinci as the "First Painter, Architect & Mechanic of the King." Francis' reign is also remembered for his development of absolute monarchy. 

1528 Spain's colonization of mainland Venezuela started in the 1520s. The Venezuelan port Nueva Cádiz was the first Spanish town to be established in South America on September 12, 1528. It served as a vital point for trade and exploration in the early days of Spanish colonization in the Americas but was abandoned in 1542 due to depletion of the pearl oyster beds.

1759 James Wolfe made a surprise night landing above French-held Québec City on September 12, 1759.  4,400 British troops dismembered in a little cove called the Anse du Fouton at the bottom of the cliffs beyond Quebec. From there they scaled the near vertical Heights of Abraham in the darkness hauling guns up behind them on ropes. The French awoke to find the British troops ready for battle on the Plains of Abraham.

Drawing by a soldier of Wolfe's army depicting the climbing of soldiers

1840 German composer Robert Schumann married Clara Wieck Schumann, a talented concert pianist, on September 12, 1840. His happiness released a flood of songs, including the magnificent cycles Woman's Love and Life, Poet's Love. In that year he composed 138 songs.

1846 Robert Browning secretly married his fellow poet Elizabeth Barrett at St. Marylebone Parish Church, London on September 12, 1846. Six years his elder and an invalid, Elizabeth could not believe that the vigorous and worldly Robert really loved her as much as he professed to. The pair immediately left for Italy, which became their home almost continuously until Elizabeth's death. Elizabeth's loyal nurse, Wilson, who witnessed the marriage, accompanied the couple to Italy.

1848 Switzerland became a federal state with the adoption of a new constitution on September 12, 1848. This followed a short civil war between Sonderbund (a union of the Catholic cantons Lucerne, Zug, Freiburg and Valais) and the Liberals.

1852 English Prime Minister HH Asquith was born at Croft House in Morley, Yorkshire on September 12, 1852. Asquith (1852-1928) was called Herbert within his family, but his second wife called him Henry. However, in public, he was invariably referred to only as H. H. Asquith. "There have been few major national figures whose Christian names were less well known to the public," writes his biographer Roy Jenkins.

1866 The Black Crook opened on September 12, 1866 at the 3,200-seat Niblo's Garden on Broadway. The show is considered to be the first example of an American musical in that its popular songs and dances were interspersed throughout a unifying play and performed by the actors. Despite being five-and-a-half hours long, it ran for a huge 474 performances, and revenues exceeded a record-shattering one million dollars.

Poster of musical theatre The Black Crook, representing the finale

1885 Arbroath F.C. holds the world record for the largest winning margin in a senior unfixed football match. They won 36-0, in their Scottish Cup match against a scratch team from Aberdeen, Bon Accord.  On a wet day on September 12, 1885 at Gayfield, 13-goal John Petrie led the rampant home team, a feat which is still recognized as the highest by one man in a single game. Meanwhile, 20 miles away, Dundee Harp ran them close by beating Aberdeen Rovers 35-0 on the same day.

1890 Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, was founded on September 12, 1890 as a fort on September 12, 1890. The following day, The Pioneer Column, a military volunteer force of settlers organized by Cecil Rhodes, hoisted the Union Jack on the kopje overlooking the city (see below).  It was known as Salisbury until April 18, 1982.

1895 A Latvian immigrant to the United States called Annie Kopchovsky set off on a 19kg (41lb) women’s bicycle on from the Massachusetts State House on Beacon Hill, Boston. 15 months later, on September 12, 1895. Kopchovsky arrived in Chicago, becoming the first woman to cycle around the world. Kopchovsky had only learned how to ride a bike two days prior to setting off.

1910 Alice Stebbins Wells was the first American-born female police officer in the United States. She was hired by the Los Angeles Police Department and sworn in on September 12, 1910. Wells was allowed to design her own uniform and was active in propagating the need for policewomen elsewhere. As a result of her efforts seventeen departments in American were employing policewomen by 1916.

1913 The Olympic athlete Jesse Owens was born James Cleveland Owens in Danville, Alabama. on September 12, 1913. He was called "J. C. ", but due to his strong southern accent people thought his name was Jesse. When he won the 100 metre sprint at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, the first of his four gold medals, Owens dashed Hitler's hopes of Aryan domination. The Fuhrer stormed out of the stadium rather than present the awards to the athlete.

Jesse Owens

1919 On September 12, 1919, Adolf Hitler became the seventh member of a little band called, "The German Workers Party". Two years later, Hitler became leader of the renamed National German Socialist Party - or Nazi Party, for short - and reorganized it along military lines. The rest is history.

1933 Hungarian-born physicist Leo Szilard conceived of the idea of the nuclear chain reaction while waiting for a traffic light on Southampton Row in Bloomsbury, London on September 12, 1933. A group of scientists achieved the first self-sustaining chain reaction nine years later and thereby initiated the controlled release of nuclear energy. Leo Szilard, who had emigrated to America was among the observers.

1936 Muja is an American alligator at Belgrade Zoo in Serbia, who is the oldest living alligator in the world. Muјa arrived in Belgrade with another alligator, his mate, on September 12, 1936. from Germany. He not only survived World War II, (where the Belgrade zoo was almost totally destroyed) but also the 1999 NATO bombings during the war in Serbia, 54 years later. There are no records of his date of birth but Muja is estimated to be at least 85 years old.

1940 On September 12, 1940, the entrance to Lascaux Cave in southwestern France was discovered by 18-year-old Marcel Ravidat. Ravidat returned to the scene with three friends and entered the cave via a long shaft. The teenagers discovered that the cave walls were covered with depictions of animals, which were later estimated by experts to be 17,300 years old.

Cave painting of Aurochs, horses, and deer at Lascaux By Prof saxx

1943 In 1943, the Allies landed in Southern Italy. The Grand Council of Fascism and King Vittorio Emanuel III deposed the Italian prime minister Benito Mussolini and put him in jail in Campo Imperatore. Mussolini was released from imprisonment by German parachutists on September 12, 1943. 

1953 The wedding of Jacqueline and John F. Kennedy took place on September 12, 1953, at St Mary's Church, in Newport, Rhode Island. It was considered the social event of the season with an estimated 800 guests at the ceremony and 1000 at the lavish reception that followed at Hammersmith Farm.

1953 African American designer Ann Lowe made New York socialite Jacqueline Bouvier's wedding dress twice for her marriage to Massachusetts-born junior senator John F. Kennedy on September 12, 1953. A flood ruined the first ivory silk taffeta gown ten days before the date. Lowe hired extra staff to finish on time, barely avoiding bankruptcy. When asked who made the dress, Jackie said, "A colored woman."

1954 The long-running, Emmy winning television series Lassie debuted on September 12, 1954.
The show's title character was portrayed in the two pilots by Pal, the rough collie who played Lassie in the MGM movies. Over the next 19 years, a succession of Pal's male descendants appeared on the series.

1974 Haile Selassie, Ethiopia's Emperor for 44 yrs, was deposed by a coup on September 12, 1974. Some followers of the Rastafari movement worshipped Selassie as God incarnate, hence his importance to Jamaican reggae musicians.

Haile Selassie in 1942

1980 The 1980 Turkish coup d'état, which took place on September 12, 1980, was a military intervention by the Turkish Armed Forces, led by General Kenan Evren, the Chief of the General Staff. It was the third coup in Turkey’s history, following the coups of 1960 and 1971. The 1980 coup is considered the most severe and far-reaching, as it resulted in the military taking direct control of the government and suspending the democratic process for several years.

1992 The actor Anthony Perkins (Norman Bates in Psycho), died on September 12, 1992, from AIDS-related pneumonia at age 60. He'd discovered he was HIV positive in 1990 after reading an article by the National Enquirer claiming he was.

1992 Mae Jemison, the first female African-American astronaut, flew her only space mission from September 12 to 20, 1992, as a Mission Specialist on STS-47, a cooperative mission between the United States and Japan, as well as the 50th shuttle mission.

2001 On the morning of September 12, 2001, the New York Times ran a headline: "America's Emergency Line: 9/11". That was the first use in print of the nine-eleven name by which the attacks became known. 911 is, of course, the emergency phone number in the US as well as the way Americans write the date of September 11.

2003 Johnny Cash died on September 12, 2003 at Baptist Hospital in Nashville of complications from diabetes. Known as The Man in Black, Cash was one of the most influential musicians of the twentieth century. His crossover appeal earned him the rare honor of being inducted into the Country Music, Rock and Roll, and Gospel Music Halls of Fame.

2010 Lady Gaga attended the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards on September 12, 2010 wearing a dress made from raw beef. The meat was treated so it wouldn’t rot. The costume was named Time magazine's Fashion Statement of 2010.