Historical Events on Friday, 12th December

12/12/2024

Indian Grandmaster Gukesh Dommaraju became the undisputed World Chess Champion in a tournament held in Singapore, making him the 18th and the youngest champion in chess history.

Grandmaster (GM) is a title awarded to chess players by the world chess organization FIDE. Apart from World Champion, Grandmaster is the highest title a chess player can attain. Once achieved, the title is held for life, though on rare occasions the title has been revoked for cheating.

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12/12/2021

Dutch Formula One racing driver Max Verstappen wins the controversial 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, beating seven-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton to become the first Formula One World Champion to come from the Netherlands.

Formula One (F1) is the highest class of worldwide racing for open-wheel, single-seater formula racing cars run by Formula One Group and sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The FIA Formula One World Championship has been one of the world's premier forms of motorsport since its inaugural running in 1950 and is often considered to be the pinnacle of motorsport. The word formula in the name refers to the set of rules all participant cars must follow. A Formula One season consists of a series of races, known as Grands Prix. Grands Prix take place in multiple countries and continents on either purpose-built circuits or closed roads.

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12/12/2015

The Paris Agreement relating to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is adopted.

The Paris Agreement was an international treaty on climate change that was signed in 2016. The treaty covers climate change mitigation, adaptation, and finance. The Paris Agreement was negotiated by 196 parties at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference near Paris, France. As of January 2026, 194 members of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) are parties to the agreement. Of the three UNFCCC member states which have not ratified the agreement, the only major emitter is Iran. The United States, the second largest emitter, withdrew from the agreement in 2020, rejoined in 2021, and withdrew again in 2026.

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12/12/2012

North Korea successfully launches its first satellite, Kwangmyŏngsŏng-3 Unit 2.

North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korean Peninsula and borders China and Russia to the north at the Yalu (Amnok) and Tumen rivers, and South Korea to the south at the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). The country's western border is formed by the Yellow Sea, while its eastern border is defined by the Sea of Japan. Pyongyang is the capital and largest city.

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12/12/2001

Prime Minister of Vietnam Phan Văn Khải announces the decision on upgrading the Phong Nha–Kẻ Bàng nature reserve to a national park, providing information on projects for the conservation and development of the park and revised maps.

The prime minister of Vietnam is the head of government of Vietnam who presides over the meetings of the Government. The prime minister directs the work of government members, and may propose deputy prime ministers to the National Assembly.

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12/12/2000

The United States Supreme Court releases its decision in Bush v. Gore.

The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that turn on questions of U.S. constitutional or federal law. It also has original jurisdiction over a narrow range of cases, specifically "all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party". In 1803, the court asserted itself the power of judicial review, the ability to invalidate a statute for violating a provision of the Constitution. It is also able to strike down presidential directives for violating either the Constitution or statutory law.

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12/12/1999

A magnitude 7.3 earthquake hits the Philippines's main island of Luzon, killing six people, injuring 40, and causing power outages that affected the capital Manila.

On 12 December 1999, a Mw7.3 earthquake struck the northern coast of Zambales in the Philippines. It was felt in various provinces on the island of Luzon including as far north as Ilocos Norte and as far south as Quezon. This is the second earthquake with a magnitude of 7 to hit the area in 10 years with a Mw7.7 earthquake having occurred in 1990 which killed more than 2,000 people.

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12/12/1988

The Clapham Junction rail crash kills thirty-five and injures hundreds after two collisions of three commuter trains—one of the worst train crashes in the United Kingdom.

The Clapham Junction rail crash occurred on the morning of 12 December 1988, when a crowded British Rail passenger train crashed into the rear of another train that had stopped at a signal just south of Clapham Junction railway station in London, England, and subsequently sideswiped an empty train travelling in the opposite direction. A total of 35 people died in the collision, while 484 were injured.

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12/12/1985

Arrow Air Flight 1285R, a McDonnell Douglas DC-8, crashes after takeoff in Gander, Newfoundland, killing all 256 people on board, including 236 members of the United States Army's 101st Airborne Division.

Arrow Air Flight 1285R was an international charter flight carrying U.S. Army personnel from Cairo, Egypt, to their home base in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, via Cologne, West Germany, and Gander, Newfoundland. On the morning of Thursday, 12 December 1985, shortly after takeoff from Canada's Gander International Airport en route to Fort Campbell, the McDonnell Douglas DC-8 serving the flight stalled, crashed, and burned about half a mile from the runway, killing all 248 passengers and 8 crew members on board. As of 2026, it is the deadliest aviation accident to occur on Canadian soil. At the time of the crash, it was the deadliest aviation accident involving a DC-8; its death toll was surpassed by the crash of Nigeria Airways Flight 2120 nearly six years later.

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12/12/1979

The 8.2 Mw  Tumaco earthquake shakes Colombia and Ecuador with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent), killing 300–600, and generating a large tsunami.

An earthquake occurred at 02:59 local time on 12 December 1979, with the epicenter just offshore from the border between Ecuador and Colombia, near the port city of Tumaco. With a moment magnitude of 8.2 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent), it triggered a major tsunami, which was responsible for most of the estimated 300–600 deaths. The hardest hit area was Colombia's Nariño Department.

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Coup d'état of December Twelfth occurs in South Korea.

The coup d'état of December Twelfth or the 12·12 Military Insurrection was a mutiny which took place on 12 December 1979, in South Korea, where a secret society of military officers known as Hanahoe led by Major General Chun Doo-hwan mutinied against the Chief of Staff of the Republic of Korea Army General Jeong Seung-hwa. The coup led to Chun strengthening his military and political position in South Korea, leading to his outright seizure of power as president in 1980.

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12/12/1969

The Piazza Fontana bombing; a bomb explodes at the headquarters of Banca Nazionale dell'Agricoltura (the National Agricultural Bank) in Piazza Fontana in Milan, Italy, killing 17 people and wounding 88. The same afternoon, three more bombs are detonated in Rome and Milan, and another is found unexploded.

The Piazza Fontana bombing was a terrorist attack that occurred on 12 December 1969 when a bomb exploded at the headquarters of Banca Nazionale dell'Agricoltura in Piazza Fontana in Milan, Italy, killing 17 people and wounding 88. The same afternoon, another bomb exploded in a bank in Rome, and another was found unexploded in the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The attack was carried out by the neo-fascist paramilitary terrorist group Ordine Nuovo, and possibly undetermined collaborators.

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12/12/1963

Kenya declares independence from Great Britain.

Kenya, officially the Republic of Kenya, is a country located in East Africa. With an estimated population of more than 53.3 million as of mid-2025, Kenya is the 27th-most populous country in the world and the seventh-most populous in Africa. Kenya's capital and largest city is Nairobi. The second-largest and oldest city is Mombasa, a major port city located on Mombasa Island. Other major cities within the country include Kisumu, Nakuru and Eldoret. Going clockwise, Kenya is bordered by South Sudan to the northwest, Ethiopia to the north, Somalia to the east, the Indian Ocean to the southeast, Tanzania to the southwest, and Lake Victoria and Uganda to the west.

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12/12/1956

United Nations Security Council Resolution 121 relating to acceptance of Japan to the United Nations is adopted.

United Nations Security Council Resolution 121, adopted unanimously on December 12, 1956, after examining the application of Japan for membership in the United Nations, the UN Security Council recommended to the General Assembly that Japan be admitted. The United States first invited Japan to join the UN in 1955 but their admission was vetoed by The Soviet Union in protest of the Republic of China vetoing membership for the Mongolian People's Republic as a part of a 18 nation membership nomination process. The USSR proposed a second resolution to admit both Mongolia and Japan together; the draft resolution was voted upon with only the USSR in favor, and the 10 other members abstaining.

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12/12/1946

United Nations Security Council Resolution 13 relating to acceptance of Siam (now Thailand) to the United Nations is adopted.

United Nations Security Council Resolution 13 was adopted unanimously on 12 December 1946. The Council recommended that the General Assembly admit Siam as a member state.

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12/12/1945

The People's Republic of Korea is outlawed in the South, by order of the United States Army Military Government in Korea.

The People's Republic of Korea (Korean: 조선인민공화국) was a short-lived provisional government that was organized at the time of the surrender of the Empire of Japan at the end of World War II. It was proclaimed on 6 September 1945, as Korea was being divided into two occupation zones, with the Soviet Union occupying the north and the United States occupying the south. Based on a network of people's committees, it presented a program of democratization of society and the economy.

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12/12/1941

World War II: Fifty-four Japanese A6M Zero fighters raid Batangas Field, Philippines. Jesús Villamor and four Filipino fighter pilots fend them off; César Basa is killed.

World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated. Tanks and aircraft played major roles, the latter enabling the strategic bombing of cities and delivery of the only nuclear weapons used in war. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the death of 60 to 75 million people. Millions died as a result of massacres, starvation, disease, and genocides including the Holocaust. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes.

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The Holocaust: Adolf Hitler declares the imminent extermination of the Jews at a meeting in the Reich Chancellery.

The Holocaust, known in Hebrew as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered around six million Jews across German-occupied Europe, approximately two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population. The murders were committed primarily through mass shootings across Eastern Europe and poison gas chambers in extermination camps, chiefly Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Belzec, Sobibor, Chełmno and Majdanek death camps in occupied Poland. Concurrent Nazi persecutions killed millions of other non-Jewish civilians and prisoners of war (POWs); the term Holocaust is sometimes used to include the murder and persecution of non-Jewish groups, such as the Romani and Soviet POWs.

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12/12/1939

HMS Duchess sinks after a collision with HMS Barham off the coast of Scotland with the loss of 124 men.

HMS Duchess was a D-class destroyer built for the Royal Navy in the early 1930s. The ship was initially assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet before she was transferred to the China Station in early 1935. She was temporarily deployed in the Red Sea during late 1935 during the Abyssinia Crisis, before returning to her duty station where she remained until mid-1939. Duchess was transferred back to the Mediterranean Fleet just before the Second World War began in September 1939. While escorting the battleship HMS Barham back to the British Isles, she was accidentally rammed by the battleship in thick fog and sank with heavy loss of life on 12 December 1939.

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Winter War: The Battle of Tolvajärvi, also known as the first major Finnish victory in the Winter War, begins.

The Winter War was a war between the Soviet Union and Finland. It began with a Soviet invasion of Finland on 30 November 1939, three months after the outbreak of World War II, and ended three and a half months later with the Moscow Peace Treaty on 13 March 1940. Despite superior military strength, especially in tanks and aircraft, the Soviet Union suffered severe losses and initially made little headway. The League of Nations deemed the attack illegal and expelled the Soviet Union from its organization.

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12/12/1937

Second Sino-Japanese War: USS Panay incident: Japanese aircraft bomb and sink U.S. gunboat USS Panay on the Yangtze river in China.

The Second Sino-Japanese War, known in China as the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, was fought between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan between 1937 and 1945, following a period of war localized to Manchuria that started in 1931. It is often regarded as the beginning of World War II in Asia, as the wars became heavily intertwined after Japan's entry into World War II. It was the largest Asian war in the 20th century.

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12/12/1936

The beginning of Xi'an incident. As a result, Chiang Kai Shek is captured.

The Xi'an Incident was a Chinese political crisis that lasted from 12 to 26 December 1936. Soldiers of the Northeastern Army under the command of General Zhang Xueliang arrested Chiang Kai-shek, the leader of the Nationalist government of China, while the latter was in Xi'an to review the troops. Zhang demanded that Chiang agree to a ceasefire in the Chinese Civil War so that the Nationalist government could ally with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) against Japanese expansionism. Negotiations were held between Chiang and the CCP, resulting in verbal agreement on the broad outlines of an alliance. After Chiang was released, he publicly renounced the terms he had agreed to in captivity, but secretly continued the negotiations that would result in the Second United Front.

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12/12/1935

The Lebensborn Project, a Nazi reproduction program, is founded by Heinrich Himmler.

Lebensborn e.V. IPA : [ˈleɪbənzˌbɔːrn], German : [ˈleːbənsˌbɔʁn] was a secret, SS-initiated, state-registered association in Nazi Germany with the stated goal of increasing the number of children born who met the Nazi standards of "racially pure" and "healthy" Aryans, based on Nazi eugenics. Lebensborn was established by Heinrich Himmler, and provided welfare to its mostly unmarried mothers, encouraged anonymous births by unmarried women at their maternity homes, and mediated adoption of children by likewise "racially pure" and "healthy" parents, particularly SS members and their families. The Cross of Honour of the German Mother was given to the women who bore the most Aryan children.

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12/12/1917

Father Edward J. Flanagan founds Boys Town as a farm village for wayward boys.

Edward Joseph Flanagan was an Irish-born priest of the Catholic Church in the United States who served for decades in Nebraska. After serving as a parish priest in the Diocese of Omaha, he founded the orphanage and educational complex known as Boys Town, located west of the city in what is now Boys Town, Douglas County, Nebraska. In the 21st century, the complex also serves as a center for troubled youth.

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12/12/1915

Yuan Shikai declares the establishment of the Empire of China and proclaims himself Emperor.

Yuan Shikai was a Chinese general and statesman. As leader of the Beiyang Army, he played a decisive role in securing the abdication of the Qing court. He served as the second provisional president and the first formal president of the Republic of China, with his administration known as the Beiyang government. He declared himself Emperor of the Chinese Empire in December 1915 and abdicated in March 1916.

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12/12/1901

Guglielmo Marconi receives the first transatlantic radio signal (the letter "S" [•••] in Morse Code), at Signal Hill in St John's, Newfoundland.

Guglielmo Giovanni Maria Marconi, 1st Marquess, was an Italian radio-frequency engineer, inventor, and politician known for his creation of a practical radio wave-based wireless telegraph system. This led to his being largely credited as the inventor of radio and sharing the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics with Ferdinand Braun "in recognition of their contributions to the development of wireless telegraphy." His work laid the foundation for the development of radio, television, and all modern wireless communication systems.

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12/12/1870

Joseph H. Rainey of South Carolina becomes the second black U.S. congressman.

Joseph Hayne Rainey was an American politician. He was the first black person to serve in the United States House of Representatives and the second black person to serve in the United States Congress. His service included time as presiding officer of the House of Representatives.

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12/12/1866

Oaks explosion: The worst mining disaster in England kills 361 miners and rescuers.

The Oaks explosion, which happened at a coal mine in South Yorkshire on 12 December 1866, remains the worst mining disaster in England. A series of explosions caused by firedamp ripped through the underground workings at the Oaks Colliery at Hoyle Mill near Stairfoot in Barnsley killing 361 miners and rescuers. It was the worst mining disaster in the United Kingdom until the 1913 Senghenydd explosion in Wales.

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12/12/1862

American Civil War: USS Cairo sinks on the Yazoo River.

The American Civil War was a civil war in the United States between the Union and the Confederacy, which was formed in 1861 by states that had seceded from the Union to preserve slavery in the United States, which they saw as threatened because of the election of Abraham Lincoln and the growing abolitionist movement in the North. The war lasted a little over four years, ending with Union victory, the dissolution of the Confederacy and the abolition of slavery, freeing four million African Americans.

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12/12/1787

Pennsylvania becomes the second state to ratify the US Constitution.

Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state located in the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, Maryland to its south, forming the Mason-Dixon Line, West Virginia to its southwest, Ohio to its west, the Canadian province of Ontario to its northwest via Lake Erie, New York to its north, and the Delaware River and New Jersey to its east. Pennsylvania's most populous city is Philadelphia, and the state capital is Harrisburg. Among all US states, Pennsylvania is the fifth-most populous with over 13 million residents as of the 2020 United States census, the ninth-highest by population density, and the 33rd-largest by land area. The largest metropolitan statistical area is the Philadelphia metropolitan area in southeastern Pennsylvania, also known as the Delaware Valley and centered on Philadelphia, the sixth-most populous U.S. city. Pennsylvania's second-largest metropolitan area, Greater Pittsburgh, is centered in and around Pittsburgh, the commonwealth's second-largest city.

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12/12/1388

Maria of Enghien sells the lordship of Argos and Nauplia to the Republic of Venice.

Maria of Enghien, also known as Marie of Enghien or d'Enghien, was the Lady of Argos and Nauplia in Frankish Greece from 1376 or 1377 to 1388. She inherited the estate from her father, Guy of Enghien, when she was a minor. Her paternal uncle, Louis of Enghien, served as her regent. Louis gave Maria in marriage to a Venetian patrician, Pietro Cornaro, in 1377. Maria moved to Venice, but she was involved in the administration of her lordship. After her husband died, she sold the lordship to the Republic of Venice for a regular income in 1388.

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12/12/0627

Battle of Nineveh: A Byzantine army under Emperor Heraclius defeats Emperor Khosrau II's Persian forces, commanded by General Rhahzadh.

The Battle of Nineveh was the climactic battle of the Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628.

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