more events on May 12
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1975
The U.S. merchant ship Mayaguez is seized by Cambodian forces.
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1969
Viet Cong sappers try unsuccessfully to overrun Landing Zone Snoopy in Vietnam.
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1949
The Berlin Blockade ends.
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1943
Axis forces in North Africa surrender.
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1942
The Soviet Army launches its first major offensive of the war, taking Kharkov in the eastern Ukraine.
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1940
The Nazi conquest of France begins with the crossing Musee River.
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1936
Frank Stella, painter.
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Tom Snyder, newscaster and television host.
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1935
Alcoholics Anonymous is founded in Akron, Ohio by “Bill W.,” a stockbroker, and “Dr. Bob S.,” a heart surgeon.
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1933
Andrei Andreyevich Voznesensky, Russian poet.
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1932
The body of Charles Lindbergh’s baby is found.
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1926
The Airship Norge becomes the first vessel to fly over the North Pole.
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1925
Yogi Berra (Lawrence Peter Berra), baseball player and coach.
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1921
Farley Mowat, Canadian nature writer (Never Cry Wolf).
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1915
Mary Kay Ash, founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics.
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1907
Katherine Hepburn, actress (The Philadelphia Story, The African Queen).
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1885
In the Battle of Batoche, French Canadians rebel against the Canadian government.
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1881
Tunisia, in North Africa becomes a French protectorate.
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1865
The last land battle of the Civil war occurs at Palmito Ranch, Texas. It is a Confederate victory.
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1864
Union General Benjamin Butler attacks Drewry’s Bluff on the James River.
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1863
With a victory at the Battle of Raymond, Mississippi, Union General Ulysses S. Grant closes in on Vicksburg.
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1851
The Tule River War ends.
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1828
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, English poet and painter.
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1820
Florence Nightingale, English nurse and hospital reformer.
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1816
Edmund Beckett Grimthorpe, lawyer and architect.
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1812
Edward Lear, poet, painter and the youngest of 21 children.
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1780
Charleston, South Carolina falls to British forces.
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1641
The chief advisor to Charles I, Thomas Wentworth, is beheaded in the Tower of London
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1588
King Henry III flees Paris after Henry of Guise triumphantly enters the city.
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254
St. Stephen I begins his reign as Catholic Pope.