Historical Events on Thursday, 12th February

12/02/2026

In the first general election since the July Revolution in Bangladesh, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, led by Tarique Rahman, wins a landslide victory upon returning to power after almost 19 years. A referendum held alongside was also approved by the majority of voters.

General election was held in Bangladesh on 12 February 2026 to elect members of the Jatiya Sangsad, as well as the proposed Senate. It was the first general election since the July Uprising of 2024 that ended the 15-year-long rule of Sheikh Hasina. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), led by Tarique Rahman, won a landslide victory in the election, securing two-thirds of seats; Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami secured the second most seats. A constitutional referendum on the July Charter was held alongside the election.

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12/02/2019

The country known as the Republic of Macedonia renames itself the Republic of North Macedonia in accordance with the Prespa agreement, settling a long-standing naming dispute with Greece.

North Macedonia, officially the Republic of North Macedonia, is a landlocked country in Southeast Europe. It shares land borders with Greece to the south, Albania to the west, Bulgaria to the east, Kosovo to the northwest and Serbia to the north. It constitutes approximately the northern third of the larger geographical region of Macedonia. Skopje, the capital and largest city, is home to a quarter of the country's population of over 1.83 million. The majority of the residents are ethnic Macedonians, a South Slavic people. Albanians form a significant minority at around 25%, followed by Turks, Roma, Serbs, Bosniaks, Aromanians and a few other minorities.

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12/02/2016

Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill sign an Ecumenical Declaration in the first such meeting between leaders of the Catholic and Russian Orthodox Churches since their split in 1054.

Pope Francis was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of Vatican City from 13 March 2013 until his death in 2025. He was the first Jesuit pope, the first Latin American, and the first born or raised outside Europe since the 8th-century Syrian pope Gregory III.

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12/02/2009

Colgan Air Flight 3407 crashes into a house in Clarence Center, New York while on approach to Buffalo Niagara International Airport, killing all 49 on board and one on the ground.

Colgan Air Flight 3407 was a scheduled passenger flight from Newark, New Jersey, to Buffalo, New York, on February 12, 2009. Approaching Buffalo, the Bombardier Q400, entered an aerodynamic stall from which it did not recover and crashed into a house at 6038 Long Street in Clarence Center, New York, at 10:17 pm EST, about 5 miles from the end of the runway, killing all 49 passengers and crew on board and one person inside the house.

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12/02/2004

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

San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the fourth-most populous city in California and the 17th-most populous in the United States, with a population of 826,079 in 2025. Among U.S. cities with a population of 300,000 or more, San Francisco is ranked first by per capita income, second by population density, and sixth by aggregate income as of 2023. Some 4.6 million residents live in the city's metropolitan statistical area, which is the 13th-largest in the United States. Around 9.2 million live in the San Jose–San Francisco–Oakland combined statistical area, the fifth-largest in the United States.

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12/02/2002

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.

The war crimes trial of Slobodan Milošević, the former President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) lasted for just over four years from 2002 until his death in 2006. Milošević faced 66 counts of crimes against humanity, genocide, and war crimes committed during the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s. He pleaded not guilty to all the charges.

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An Iran Airtour Tupolev Tu-154 crashes in the mountains outside Khorramabad, Iran while descending for a landing at Khorramabad Airport, killing 119.

Iran Airtour is a privately owned Iranian airline that was launched in 1973. Its main base is Mashhad Airport.

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12/02/2001

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

Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous – Shoemaker, renamed after its 1996 launch in honor of planetary scientist Eugene Shoemaker, was a robotic space probe designed by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory for NASA to study the near-Earth asteroid Eros from close orbit over a period of a year. It was the first spacecraft to orbit an asteroid and land on it successfully. In February 2000, the mission closed in on the asteroid and orbited it. On February 12, 2001, Shoemaker touched down on the asteroid and was terminated just over two weeks later.

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12/02/1999

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

William Jefferson Clinton is an American politician and lawyer who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the attorney general of Arkansas from 1977 to 1979 and as the governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981, and again from 1983 to 1992. His centrist "Third Way" political philosophy became known as Clintonism, which dominated his presidency and the succeeding decades of Democratic Party history.

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12/02/1994

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

The National Gallery is a gallery in Oslo, Norway. Since 2003 it is administratively a part of the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design.

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12/02/1993

Two-year-old James Bulger is abducted from New Strand Shopping Centre by two ten-year-old boys, who later torture and murder him.

On 12 February 1993 in Merseyside, England, two 10-year-old boys, Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, abducted, tortured, and murdered a two-year-old boy, James Patrick Bulger. Thompson and Venables led Bulger away from the New Strand Shopping Centre in Bootle, where Bulger was visiting shops with his mother. His mutilated body was found on a railway line 2+1⁄2 miles away in Walton, Liverpool, two days later.

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12/02/1992

The current Constitution of Mongolia comes into effect.

The Constitution of Mongolia was adopted on 13 January 1992, put into force on 12 February, with amendments made in 1999, 2000, 2019, 2022, and 2023. The constitution established a representative democracy in Mongolia, enshrining core functions of the government, including the separation of powers and election cycle, and guaranteeing human rights, including freedom of religion, travel, expression, and private property. The document was written after the Mongolian Revolution of 1990, effectively dissolving the Mongolian People's Republic and ending the one-party rule.

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12/02/1990

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

Carmen Mary Lawrence is an Australian academic and former politician who was the premier of Western Australia from 1990 to 1993, the first woman to become the premier of an Australian state. To date she is the only female premier of Western Australia. A member of the Labor Party, she later entered federal politics as a member of the House of Representatives from 1994 to 2007, and served as a minister in the Keating government.

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12/02/1988

Cold War: The 1988 Black Sea bumping incident: The U.S. missile cruiser USS Yorktown (CG-48) is intentionally rammed by the Soviet frigate Bezzavetnyy in the Soviet territorial waters, while Yorktown claims innocent passage.

The Cold War was a period of international geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc. It began in the aftermath of the Second World War and ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The term cold war is used because there was no direct fighting between the two superpowers, though each supported opposing sides in regional conflicts known as proxy wars. In addition to the struggle for ideological and economic influence and an arms race in both conventional and nuclear weapons, the Cold War was expressed through technological rivalries such as the Space Race, espionage, propaganda campaigns, embargoes, and sports diplomacy.

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12/02/1983

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.

Lahore is the capital and largest city of the Pakistani province of Punjab. It is the second-largest city in Pakistan, after Karachi, and 27th largest in the world, with a population of over 14 million. Lahore is one of Pakistan's major industrial, educational and economic hubs. It has been the historic capital and cultural centre of the wider Punjab region, and is one of Pakistan's most socially liberal, progressive, and cosmopolitan cities.

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12/02/1974

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

Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn was a Soviet and Russian author and dissident who helped to raise global awareness of political repression in the Soviet Union, especially the Gulag prison system. He was awarded the 1970 Nobel Prize in Literature "for the ethical force with which he has pursued the indispensable traditions of Russian literature". His nonfiction work The Gulag Archipelago "amounted to a head-on challenge to the Soviet state" and sold tens of millions of copies.

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12/02/1968

Vietnam War: The Phong Nhị and Phong Nhất massacre occurs, allegedly by South Korean troops.

The Vietnam War was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam and their allies. North Vietnam was supported by the Soviet Union and China, while South Vietnam was supported by the United States and other anti-communist nations. The conflict was the second of the Indochina wars and a proxy war of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and US. The Vietnam War was one of the postcolonial wars of national liberation, a theater in the Cold War, and a civil war, with civil warfare a defining feature from the outset. Direct US military involvement escalated from 1965 until US forces were withdrawn in 1973. The fighting spilled into the Laotian and Cambodian Civil Wars, which ended with all three countries becoming communist in 1975.

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12/02/1966

Rabbi Morris Adler is fatally shot by a disgruntled congregant at Congregation Shaarey Zedek in Southfield, Michigan, United States.

On February 12, 1966, Richard Wishnetsky entered Congregation Shaarey Zedek in Southfield, Michigan, during weekly Shabbat services and, brandishing a firearm, ordered everyone except Rabbi Morris Adler off the synagogue's bimah. After condemning the congregation, Wishnetsky shot Adler and himself.

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12/02/1965

Malcolm X visits Smethwick near Birmingham following the racially-charged 1964 United Kingdom general election.

Malcolm X was an African American revolutionary and Black nationalist leader who rose from a background of poverty, family disruption, and criminal activity to a prominent figure during the civil rights movement until his assassination in 1965. He discovered the religious organization the Nation of Islam while in prison and served as its spokesperson from 1952 until 1964. He was also a vocal advocate for Black empowerment and the promotion of Islam within the African American community. A controversial figure accused of preaching violence, Malcolm X is also a celebrated figure with Black people and Muslims worldwide for his pursuit of racial justice.

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12/02/1963

Construction begins on the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri.

The Gateway Arch is a 630-foot-tall (192 m) monument in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. Clad in stainless steel and built in the form of a weighted catenary arch, it is the world's tallest arch and Missouri's tallest accessible structure. Some sources consider it the tallest human-made monument in the Western Hemisphere. Built as a monument to the westward expansion of the United States and officially dedicated to "the American people", the Arch, commonly referred to as "The Gateway to the West", is a National Historic Landmark in Gateway Arch National Park and has become a popular tourist destination, as well as an internationally recognized symbol of St. Louis.

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Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 705 crashes into the Everglades shortly after takeoff from Miami International Airport, killing all 45 people on board.

Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 705 was a scheduled passenger flight operated on February 12, 1963, that broke up in midair and crashed into the Florida Everglades shortly after takeoff from Miami International Airport in a severe thunderstorm. The plane was destined for Portland, Oregon, via Chicago, Spokane, and Seattle.

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12/02/1961

The Soviet Union launches Venera 1 towards Venus.

Venera 1, also known as Venera-1VA No.2 and occasionally in the West as Sputnik 8, was the first spacecraft to perform an interplanetary flight and the first to fly past Venus, as part of the Soviet Union's Venera programme. Launched in February 1961, it was intended as an impactor, but flew past Venus on 19 May of the same year; however, radio contact with the probe was lost before the flyby, resulting in it returning no data.

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12/02/1947

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

In southeastern Russia, an iron meteorite fell on the Sikhote-Alin mountains in 1947. Large iron meteorite falls have been witnessed, and fragments have been recovered, but never before in recorded history has a fall of this magnitude occurred. An estimated 23 tonnes of fragments survived the fiery passage through the atmosphere and reached the Earth.

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Christian Dior unveils a "New Look", helping Paris regain its position as the capital of the fashion world.

Christian Ernest Dior was a French fashion designer and founder of one of the world's top fashion houses, Christian Dior SE. His fashion house is known all around the world, having gained prominence "on five continents in only a decade."

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12/02/1946

World War II: Operation Deadlight ends after scuttling 121 of 154 captured U-boats.

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 in genocides, including the Holocaust, and by massacres, starvation, and disease. 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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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.

African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group who, as defined by the United States census, consists of Americans who have ancestry from "any of the Black racial groups of Africa". African Americans constitute the second-largest racial and ethnic group in the U.S. after White Americans. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of Africans enslaved in the United States. According to annual estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau, as of July 1, 2024, the overall Black population was estimated at 42,951,595, representing approximately 12.63% of the total U.S. population.

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12/02/1945

A devastating tornado outbreak in Mississippi and Alabama kills 45 people and injures 427 others.

On February 12, 1945, a devastating tornado outbreak occurred across the Southeastern United States. The storms killed 45 people and injured 427 others. The outbreak included a devastating tornado that struck Montgomery, Alabama, killing 26 people. The United States Weather Bureau described this tornado as "perhaps the most officially observed one in history" as it reached within five miles (8 km) of the U.S. Weather Bureau's office. Tornado expert Thomas P. Grazulis estimated the intensity of the Montgomery tornado to be F3 on the Fujita scale. The Montgomery storm destroyed around 100 houses, as well as two warehouses and a freight train. This is the deadliest tornado to ever impact the city of Montgomery.

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12/02/1935

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

USS Macon (ZRS-5) was a rigid airship built and operated by the United States Navy for scouting and served as a "flying aircraft carrier", carrying up to five single-seat Curtiss F9C Sparrowhawk parasite biplanes for scouting or two-seat Fleet N2Y-1s for training. In service for less than two years, the Macon was damaged in a storm and lost off California's Big Sur coast in February 1935, though most of the crew were rescued. The wreckage is listed as the USS Macon Airship Remains on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.

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12/02/1921

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

The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the Second Party Congress in 1903. The Bolshevik party, formally established in 1912, seized power in Russia in the October Revolution of 1917 and was later renamed the Russian Communist Party, All-Union Communist Party, and ultimately the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Its ideology, based on Leninist and later Marxist–Leninist principles, became known as Bolshevism.

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12/02/1919

The Second Regional Congress of Peasants, Workers and Insurgents is held by the Makhnovshchina at Huliaipole.

The Regional Congresses of Peasants, Workers and Insurgents represented the "highest form of democratic authority" within the political system of the Makhnovshchina. They brought together delegates from the region's peasantry, industrial workers and insurgent soldiers, which would discuss the issues at hand and take their decisions back with them to local popular assemblies.

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12/02/1912

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

Puyi was the last emperor of China, reigning as the eleventh monarch of the Qing dynasty from 1908 to 1912, and a brief return in 1917, when he was forced to abdicate. Later, he sided with Imperial Japan and was made ruler of Manchukuo—Japanese-occupied Manchuria—in hopes of regaining power as China's emperor. After over 10 years of imprisonment for war crimes following the end of World War II, Puyi worked for four years as a gardener in Beijing, China.

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12/02/1909

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

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is an American civil rights organization formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E. B. Du Bois, Mary White Ovington, Moorfield Storey, Ida B. Wells, Lillian Wald, Emil G. Hirsch and Henry Moskowitz. Over the years, leaders of the organization have included Thurgood Marshall and Roy Wilkins. The NAACP is the largest and oldest civil rights group in America.

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New Zealand's worst maritime disaster of the 20th century happens when the SS Penguin, an inter-island ferry, sinks and explodes at the entrance to Wellington Harbour.

SS Penguin was a New Zealand inter-island ferry steamer that sank off the southwest coast of Wellington after striking a rock near Sinclair Head in poor weather on 12 February 1909. Penguin's sinking caused the deaths of 75 people, leaving only 30 survivors. This was New Zealand's worst maritime disaster of the 20th century.

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12/02/1894

Café Terminus bombing by Émile Henry during the Ère des attentats (1892–1894). This is considered one of the first acts of modern terrorism.

On 12 February 1894, anarchist Émile Henry carried out a bomb attack against the people gathered in the Café Terminus in Paris, France. Undertaken during the period known as the Ère des attentats (1892–1894), it was one of the first acts of modern and mass terrorism in history and is also known for Henry's statement at his trial, which is considered a foundational element of this form of terrorism.

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12/02/1889

Antonín Dvořák's Jakobín is premiered at the National Theater in Prague.

Antonín Leopold Dvořák was a Czech composer. He frequently employed rhythms and other aspects of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia, following the Romantic era nationalist example of his predecessor Bedřich Smetana. Dvořák's style has been described as "the fullest recreation of a national idiom with that of the symphonic tradition, absorbing folk influences and finding effective ways of using them", and Dvořák has been described as "arguably the most versatile... composer of his time".

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12/02/1832

Ecuador annexes the Galápagos Islands.

Ecuador, officially the Republic of Ecuador, is a country in northwestern South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and the Pacific Ocean on the west. It also includes the Galápagos Province which contains the Galápagos Islands in the Pacific, about 1,000 kilometers (621 mi) west of the mainland. The country's capital is Quito and its largest city is Guayaquil.

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12/02/1825

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

The Muscogee, Mvskoke or Mvskokvlke, also known as Muscogee Creek or just Creek, are a group of related Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands in the United States. Their historical homelands are in what now comprises southern Tennessee, much of Alabama, western Georgia and parts of northern Florida.

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12/02/1818

Bernardo O'Higgins formally approves the Chilean Declaration of Independence near Concepción, Chile.

Bernardo O'Higgins Riquelme was a Chilean independence leader who freed Chile from Spanish rule in the Chilean War of Independence. He was a wealthy landowner of Basque-Spanish and Irish ancestry. Although he was the second Supreme Director of Chile (1817–1823), he is considered one of Chile's founding fathers, as he was the first holder of this title to head a fully independent Chilean state.

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12/02/1817

An Argentine/Chilean patriotic army, after crossing the Andes, defeats Spanish troops at the Battle of Chacabuco.

Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country located in the southern cone of South America and with a claimed portion of Antarctica. It covers an area of 2,780,085 km2 (1,073,397 mi2), making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourth-largest country in the Americas, and the eighth-largest country in the world. Argentina shares the bulk of the Southern Cone with Chile to the west, and is also bordered by Bolivia and Paraguay to the north, Brazil to the northeast, Uruguay and the South Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Drake Passage to the south. Argentina is a federal state subdivided into twenty-three provinces, and one autonomous city, which is the federal capital and largest city of the nation, Buenos Aires. The provinces and the capital have their own constitutions, but exist under a federal system. Argentina claims sovereignty over the Falkland Islands, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, the Southern Patagonian Ice Field, and a part of Antarctica.

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12/02/1771

Gustav III becomes the King of Sweden.

Gustav III, also called Gustavus III, was King of Sweden from 1771 until his assassination in 1792. He was the eldest son of King Adolf Frederick and Queen Louisa Ulrika of Sweden.

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12/02/1733

Georgia Day: Englishman James Oglethorpe founds Georgia, the 13th colony of the Thirteen Colonies, by settling at Savannah.

Georgia Day is the holiday which the U.S. state of Georgia recognizes in honor of its colonial founding as the Province of Georgia. On February 12, 1733 [NS] James Oglethorpe landed the first settlers in the Anne, at what was to become Georgia's first city, Savannah. Not a public holiday, it was created by Georgia's General Assembly, which provided that Feb. 12, "the anniversary of the landing of the first colonists in Georgia under Oglethorpe"—be observed in the public schools as Georgia Day. The law was never repealed, but was not included in the code when it was officially compiled in 1981. Its official legal status is unclear.

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12/02/1689

The Convention Parliament declares that the flight to France in 1688 by James II, the last Roman Catholic British monarch, constitutes an abdication.

The English Convention was an assembly of the Parliament of England which met between 22 January and 12 February 1689 and transferred the crowns of England and Ireland from James II to William III and Mary II.

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12/02/1593

Japanese invasion of Korea: Approximately 3,000 Joseon defenders led by general Kwŏn Yul successfully repel more than 30,000 Japanese forces in the Siege of Haengju.

The Imjin War was a series of two Japanese invasions of Korea: an initial invasion in 1592 also individually called the "Imjin War", a brief truce in 1596, and a second invasion in 1597 called the Chŏngyu War. The conflict ended in 1598 with the withdrawal of Japanese forces from the Korean Peninsula after a military stalemate in Korea's southern provinces.

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12/02/1541

Santiago, Chile is founded by Pedro de Valdivia.

Santiago, also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile and one of the largest cities in the Americas. Located in the Chilean Central Valley within the Santiago Basin, between the Andes to the east and the Chilean Coastal Range to the west, it anchors the Santiago Metropolitan Region and its conurbation of Greater Santiago, which comprises more than forty communes and concentrates over a third of the national population and around 45% of Chile’s GDP. Most of the city lies between 500 and 650 meters above sea level, with recent urban growth extending into the Andean foothills.

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12/02/1502

Isabella I issues an edict outlawing Islam in the Crown of Castile, forcing virtually all her Muslim subjects to convert to Christianity.

Isabella I was Queen of Castile and León from 1474 until her death in 1504. She was also Queen of Aragon from 1479 until her death as the wife of King Ferdinand II. Reigning together over a dynastically unified Spain, Isabella and Ferdinand are known as the Catholic Monarchs. Her reign marked the end of the Reconquista and also the start of the Spanish Empire, allowing Spain to dominate European politics for the next century.

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Vasco da Gama sets sail with 15 ships and 800 men from Lisbon, Portugal on his second voyage to India.

Vasco da Gama was a Portuguese mariner, explorer and nobleman. His discovery of the first direct maritime route between Europe and India via the Cape of Good Hope and across the Indian Ocean from Malindi in Kenya to Kozhikode was to open up European exploration of, and commerce with, India, and is considered a landmark event and a turning point in world history.

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12/02/1429

English forces under Sir John Fastolf defend a supply convoy carrying rations to the army besieging Orléans in the Battle of the Herrings.

Sir John Fastolf was a late medieval English soldier, landowner, and knight who fought in the Hundred Years' War from 1415 to 1439, latterly as a senior commander against Joan of Arc, among others. He has enjoyed a more lasting reputation as the prototype, in some part, of Shakespeare's character Sir John Falstaff, although their careers are very different. Many historians argue, however, that he deserves to be famous in his own right, not only as a soldier, but as a patron of literature, a writer on strategy and perhaps as an early industrialist.

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12/02/1404

The Italian professor Galeazzo di Santa Sofia performs the first post-mortem autopsy for the purposes of teaching and demonstration at the Heiligen–Geist Spital in Vienna.

Galeazzo di Santa Sofia was an Italian physician and anatomist.

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12/02/1096

Pope Urban II confirms the foundation of the abbey of La Roë under Robert of Arbrissel as a community of canons regular.

Pope Urban II, otherwise known as Odo of Châtillon or Otho de Lagery, was the head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 12 March 1088 to his death. He is best known for convening the Council of Clermont, which ignited the series of Catholic military expeditions known as the Crusades.

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12/02/1059

Upon reaching Rome, Bruno of Toul is elected as pope Leo IX and starts initiating reforms.

Pope Leo IX was the head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 12 February 1049 to his death in 1054. Leo IX is considered to be one of the most historically significant popes of the Middle Ages; he was instrumental in the precipitation of the Great Schism of 1054, considered the turning point in which the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches formally separated.

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