12 June

816     Pope Leo III (died) (born 750)

1381   Peasants’ Revolt: in England, rebels arrive at Blackheath.

1429   Hundred Years’ War: Joan of Arc leads the French army in their capture of the city and the English commander, William de la Pole, 1st Duke of Suffolk in the second day of the Battle of Jargeau.

1519    Cosimo I de’ Medici (born), Grand Duke of Tuscany (died 1574)

1577    Paul Guldin (born), Swiss astronomer and mathematician (died 1643)

1647   Thomas Farnaby (died), English scholar and educator (born 1575)

1665   England installs a municipal government in New York City (the former Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam).

1775    American Revolution: British general Thomas Gage declares martial law in Massachusetts. The British offer a pardon to all colonists who lay down their arms. There would be only two exceptions to the amnesty: Samuel Adam and John Hancock, if captured, were to be hanged.

1776    The Virginia Declaration of Rights is adopted.

1802   Harriet Martineau (born), English sociologist (died 1876)

1806   John A. Roebling (born), German-American engineer, designed the Brooklyn Bridge (died 1869)

1812   Edmond Hébert (born), French geologist (died 1890)

1841   Watson Fothergill (born), English architect, designed the Woodborough Road Baptist Church (died 1928)

1860   The State Bank of the Russian Empire is established.

1864   Frank Chapman (born), American ornithologist (died 1945)

1903   Emmett Hardy (born), American cornet player (New Orleans Rhythm Kings) (died 1925)

1912    Carl Hovland (born), American psychologist (died 1961)

1914    Go Seigen (born), Japanese Go player

1915    David Rockefeller (born), American banker and businessman

1920   Jim Siedow (born), American actor (died 2003)

1923   Monty Westmore (born), American make-up artist (died 2007)

1924   George H. W. Bush (born), American lieutenant and politician, 41st President of the United States

1928   Vic Damone (born), American singer-songwriter and actor

1929   Anne Frank (born), German-Dutch author and Holocaust victim (died 1945)

1930   Innes Ireland (born), Scottish race car driver and engineer (died 1993)

1930   Jim Nabors (born), American actor and singer

1931    Trevanian (born), American author and scholar (died 2005)

1939   Shooting begins on Paramount Pictures’ Dr. Cyclops, the first horror film photographed in three-strip Technicolor.

1939   The Baseball Hall of Fame opens in Cooperstown, New York.

1940   World War II: 13,000 British and French troops surrender to Major General Erwin Rommel at Saint-Valery-en-Caux.

1941    Chick Corea (born), American pianist and composer (Chick Corea Elektric Band, Return to Forever, and Five Peace Band)

1941    Marv Albert (born), American sportscaster

1941    Reg Presley (born), English singer-songwriter (The Troggs) (died 2013)

1942   Holocaust: Anne Frank receives a diary for her thirteenth birthday.

1951    Brad Delp (born), American singer-songwriter and guitarist (Boston RTZ, and Beatlejuice) (died 2007)

1951    Bun E. Carlos (born), American drummer (Cheap Trick and Tinted Windows)

1952   Pete Farndon (born), English bass player (The Pretenders) (died 1983)

1957    Jimmy Dorsey (died), American saxophonist, composer, and bandleader (The Dorsey Brothers and The California Ramblers) (born 1904)

1963   Civil rights leader Medgar Evers (born 1925) is murdered in front of his home in Jackson, Mississippi by Ku Klux Klan member Byron De La Beckwith.

1964   Anti-apartheid activist and ANC leader Nelson Mandela is sentenced to life in prison for sabotage in South Africa.

1967 –Venera 4 is launched (it will become the first space probe to enter another planet’s atmosphere and successfully return data).

1967   The United States Supreme Court in Loving v. Virginia declares all U.S. state laws which prohibit interracial marriage to be unconstitutional.

1968   Bobby Sheehan (born), American bass player and songwriter (Blues Traveler) (died 1999)

1978   David Berkowitz, the “Son of Sam” killer in New York City, is sentenced to 365 years in prison for six killings.

1979   Bryan Allen wins the second Kremer prize for a man powered flight across the English Channel in the Gossamer Albatross.

1982   Karl von Frisch (died), Austrian ethologist, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1886)

1985   Blake Ross (born), American software developer, co-created Mozilla Firefox

1987   Cold War: At the Brandenburg Gate U.S. President Ronald Reagan publicly challenges Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall.

1990   The parliament of the Russian Federation formally declares its sovereignty.

1991    Russians elect Boris Yeltsin as the president of the republic.

1994   Nicole Brown Simpson (born 1959) and Ronald Goldman are murdered outside her home in Los Angeles, California. O.J. Simpson is later acquitted of the killings, but is held liable in wrongful death civil suit.

1994   The Boeing 777, the world’s largest twinjet, makes its first flight.

1996   In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a panel of federal judges blocks a law against indecency on the internet.

1997   Queen Elizabeth II reopens the Globe Theatre in London.

1998   Leo Buscaglia (died), American author and educator (born 1924)

1999   Kosovo War: Operation Joint Guardian begins when a NATO-led United Nations peacekeeping force (KFor) enters the province of Kosovo in Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

2002  Bill Blass (died), American fashion designer, founded Bill Blass Limited (born 1922)

2003  Gregory Peck (died), American actor (born 1916)

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EO Smith

Interests include biological anthropology, evolution, social behavior, and human behavior. Conducted field research in the Tana River National Primate Reserve, Kenya and on Angaur, Palau, Micronesia, as well as research with captive nonhuman primates at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center and the Institute for Primate Research, National Museums of Kenya.
EO Smith
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