Historical Events on this Day in History - per Wikipedia

August 12

• 30 BC – Cleopatra VII Philopator, the last ruler of the Egyptian Ptolemaic dynasty, commits suicide, allegedly by means of an asp bite.
• 1099 – First Crusade: Battle of Ascalon  Crusaders under the command of Godfrey of Bouillon defeat Fatimid forces led by Al-Afdal Shahanshah. This is considered the last engagement of the First Crusade.
• 1121 – Battle of Didgori: the Georgian army under King David the Builder wins a decisive victory over the famous Seljuk commander Ilghazi.
• 1164 – Battle of Harim: Nur ad-Din Zangi defeats the Crusader armies of the County of Tripoli and the Principality of Antioch.
• 1323 – Signature of the Treaty of Nöteborg between Sweden and Novgorod (Russia), that regulates the border between the two countries for the first time.
• 1480 – Battle of Otranto: Ottoman troops behead 800 Christians for refusing to convert to Islam.
• 1499 – First engagement of the Battle of Zonchio between Venetian and Ottoman fleets.
• 1624 – The president of Louis XIII of France's royal council is arrested, leaving Cardinal Richelieu in the role of the King's principal minister.
• 1676 – Praying Indian John Alderman shoots and kills Metacomet, the Wampanoag war chief, ending King Philip's War.
• 1687 – Battle of Mohács: Charles of Lorraine defeats the Ottomans.
• 1793 – The Rhône and Loire (Lêre) départments are created when the former département of Rhône-et-Loire is split into two.
• 1806 – Santiago de Liniers re-takes the city of Buenos Aires after the first British invasion.
• 1851 – Isaac Singer is granted a patent for his sewing machine.
• 1877 – Asaph Hall discovers the Mars moon Deimos.
• 1883 – The last quagga dies at the Artis Magistra zoo in Amsterdam.
• 1898 – An Armistice ends the Spanish-American War.
• 1898 – The Hawaiian flag is lowered from Iolani Palace in an elaborate annexation ceremony and replaced with the flag of the United States to signify the transfer of sovereignty from the Republic of Hawai`i to the United States.
• 1914 – World War I: the United Kingdom declares war on Austria-Hungary; the countries of the British Empire follow suit.
• 1944 – Waffen SS troops massacre 560 people in Sant'Anna di Stazzema.
• 1944 – Alençon is liberated by General Leclerc, the first city in France to be liberated from the Nazis by French forces.
• 1952 – The Night of the Murdered Poets: 13 prominent Jewish intellectuals are murdered in Moscow.
• 1953 – Nuclear weapons testing: the Soviet atomic bomb project continues with the detonation of Joe 4, the first Soviet thermonuclear weapon.
• 1953 – The islands of Zakynthos and Kefalonia in Greece are severely damaged by an earthquake measuring 7.3 on the Richter scale.
• 1960 – Echo 1A, NASA's first successful communications satellite, is launched.
• 1964 – South Africa is banned from the Olympic Games due to the country's racist policies.
• 1964 – Charlie Wilson, one of the Great Train Robbers, escapes from Winson Green Prison in Birmingham, England.
• 1969 – Violence erupts after the Apprentice Boys of Derry march in Derry, Northern Ireland, resulting in a three-day communal riot known as the Battle of the Bogside.
• 1976 – Between 1,000 and 3,500 Palestinians are killed in the Tel al-Zaatar massacre, one of the bloodiest events of the Lebanese Civil War
• 1977 – The first free flight of the Space Shuttle Enterprise.
• 1977 – The Sri Lankan riots of 1977, targeting the minority Sri Lankan Tamil people, begin, less than a month after the United National Party came to power. Over 300 Tamils are killed.
• 1978 – The Treaty of Peace and Friendship between Japan and the People's Republic of China is signed.
• 1980 – The Montevideo Treaty, establishing the Latin American Integration Association, is signed.
• 1981 – The IBM Personal Computer is released.
• 1982 – Mexico announces it is unable to pay its enormous external debt, marking the beginning of a debt crisis that spreads to all of Latin America and the Third World.
• 1985 – Japan Airlines Flight 123 crashes into Osutaka ridge in Gunma Prefecture, Japan, killing 520, to become the worst single-plane air disaster.
• 1992 – Canada, Mexico and the United States announce completion of negotiations for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
• 1994 – Major League Baseball players go on strike. This will force the cancellation of the 1994 World Series.
• 2000 – The Oscar class submarine K-141 Kursk of the Russian Navy explodes and sinks in the Barents Sea during a military exercise.
• 2005 – Sri Lanka's foreign minister, Lakshman Kadirgamar, is fatally shot by an LTTE sniper at his home.
• 2007 – The bulk carrier M/V New Flame collides with the oil tanker Torm Gertrud at the southernmost tip of Gibraltar, ending up partially submerged.