12 February 2025 (MIA)

1733 – Englishman James Oglethorpe founds Georgia, the 13th colony of the Thirteen Colonies, and its first city at Savannah (known as Georgia Day).

1771 – Gustav III becomes the King of Sweden.

1818 – Bernardo O’Higgins formally approves the Chilean Declaration of Independence near Concepción, Chile.

1825 – The Creek cede the last of their lands in Georgia to the United States government by the Treaty of Indian Springs, and migrate west.

1832 – Ecuador annexes the Galápagos Islands.

1851 – Edward Hargraves announces he has found gold in Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia, starting the Australian gold rushes.

1894 – Anarchist Émile Henry hurls a bomb into the Cafe Terminus in Paris, France, killing one and wounding 20.

1909 – The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is founded.

1912 – The Xuantong Emperor, the last Emperor of China, abdicates.

1921 – Bolsheviks launch a revolt in Georgia as a preliminary to the Red Army invasion of Georgia.

1935 – USS Macon, one of the two largest helium-filled airships ever created, crashes into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California and sinks.

1946 – African American United States Army veteran Isaac Woodard is severely beaten by a South Carolina police officer to the point where he loses his vision in both eyes. The incident later galvanizes the Civil Rights Movement and partially inspires Orson Welles’ film Touch of Evil.

1947 – The largest observed iron meteorite until that time creates an impact crater in Sikhote-Alin, in the Soviet Union.

1961 – Soviet Union launches Venera 1 towards Venus.

1968 – Phong Nhị and Phong Nhất massacre.

1974 – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1970, is exiled from the Soviet Union.

1983 – One hundred women protest in Lahore, Pakistan against military dictator Zia-ul-Haq’s proposed Law of Evidence. The women were tear-gassed, baton-charged and thrown into lock-up. The women were successful in repealing the law.

1990 – Carmen Lawrence becomes the first female Premier in Australian history when she becomes Premier of Western Australia.

1992 – The current Constitution of Mongolia comes into effect.

1992 – The Republic of Slovenia and the Republic of Croatia recognise the Republic of Macedonia. Also, the Republic of Macedonia recognised the independence of the Republic of Slovenia and the Republic of Croatia.

1994 – Four thieves break into the National Gallery of Norway and steal Edvard Munch’s iconic painting The Scream.

1996 – The Republic of Macedonia and Ghana establish diplomatic relations at ambassadorial level.

1996 – Liaison Office of the Republic of Macedonia opens in Athens.

1999 – United States President Bill Clinton is acquitted by the United States Senate in his impeachment trial.

2001 – NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft touches down in the “saddle” region of 433 Eros, becoming the first spacecraft to land on an asteroid.

2002 – The trial of Slobodan Milošević, the former President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, begins at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands. He dies four years later before its conclusion.

2004 – The city of San Francisco begins issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples in response to a directive from Mayor Gavin Newsom.

2016 – Pope Francis met Patriarch Kirill at José Martí International Airport in Cuba, the first meeting between the pontiff of the Catholic Church and the primate of the Russian Orthodox Church, together they signed the Havana Declaration.