I’m still not sure how I feel about turning 40. Hell, it’s better than turning 50, right?
Stuff that happened on April 12th (from Wikipedia):
* 467 – Anthemius is elevated to Emperor of the Western Roman Empire
* 1606 – The Union Jack is adopted as the national flag of Great Britain.
* 1633 – The formal interrogation by the Inquisition of Galileo Galilei begins.
* 1776 – North Carolina’s Provincial Congress authorized its delegates to the Second Continental Congress to vote for independence by issuing the Halifax Resolves.
* 1861 – American Civil War: The war begins with Confederate forces firing on Fort Sumter, in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina.
* 1864 – American Civil War: Fort Pillow massacre — Confederate forces under General Nathan Bedford Forrest kill most of the African American soldiers who had surrendered at Fort Pillow, Tennessee.
* 1865 – American Civil War: Mobile, Alabama, falls to the Union Army.
* 1877 – The United Kingdom annexes the Transvaal.
* 1937 – Sir Frank Whittle ground-tests the first jet engine designed to power an aircraft, at the British Thomson-Houston factory in Rugby, England.
* 1945 – President Franklin D. Roosevelt dies, and Harry S. Truman is inaugurated as the 33rd President of the United States.
* 1946 – Syria gains independence from France.
* 1954 – Bill Haley and His Comets record “Rock Around the Clock” in New York City. Initially unsuccessful, the recording would help launch the rock and roll revolution a year later.
* 1955 – The polio vaccine, developed by Dr. Jonas Salk, is declared safe and effective.
* 1961 – Yuri Gagarin becomes the first man to fly in space.
* 1968 – Nerve gas accident at Skull Valley, Utah.
* 1975 – Khmer Rouge troops capture Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
* 1980 – Samuel Doe takes control of Liberia in a coup d’etat, ending over 130 years of democratic presidential succession in that country.
* 1980 – Terry Fox begins his “Marathon of Hope” by dipping his artificial leg into the Atlantic at St. John’s, Newfoundland.
* 1981 – The first launch of a Space Shuttle: Columbia launches on the STS-1 mission.
* 1990 – Christian Bernard, F.R.C., becomes Imperator of AMORC.
* 1994 – Canter & Siegel post the first commercial mass Usenet spam.
* 1996 – Yahoo! had its initial public offering, selling 2.6 million shares at $13 each.
* 1998 – Catastrophical earthquake in Slovenia in Posočje 5,6 on the Richter scale.
* 2002 – Pedro Carmona becomes interim President of Venezuela during the Venezuelan coup attempt of 2002, a military coup against Hugo Chávez.
Birthdays:
* 599 BC – Mahavira, Indian founder of Jainism (d. 527 BC)
* 812 – Muhammad at-Taqi, Arabian Shia Imam (d. 835)
* 1484 – Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, Italian architect (d. 1546)
* 1500 – Joachim Camerarius, German classical scholar (d. 1574)
* 1526 – Muretus, French humanist (d. 1585)
* 1550 – Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, English politician (d. 1604)
* 1577 – King Christian IV of Denmark (d. 1648)
* 1713 – Guillaume Thomas François Raynal, French writer (d. 1796)
* 1722 – Pietro Nardini, Italian composer (d. 1793)
* 1724 – Dr. Lyman Hall, American signer of the Declaration of Independence (d. 1790)
* 1726 – Charles Burney, English music historian (d. 1814)
* 1748 – Antoine Laurent de Jussieu, French botanist (d. 1836)
* 1777 – Henry Clay, American statesman and five-time Presidential candidate (d. 1852)
* 1794 – Germinal Pierre Dandelin, Belgian mathematician (d. 1847)
* 1799 – Henri Druey, Swiss Federal Councilor (d. 1855)
* 1823 – Alexandr Ostrovsky, Russian dramatist (d. 1886)
* 1839 – Nikolai Przhevalsky, Russian explorer (d. 1888)
* 1848 – José Gautier Benítez, Puerto Rican poet
* 1856 – William Martin Conway, English art critic and mountaineer (d. 1937)
* 1868 – Akiyama Saneyuki, Japanese naval commander (d. 1918)
* 1869 – Henri Désiré Landru, French serial killer (d. 1922)
* 1884 – Otto Meyerhof, German-born biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1951)
* 1887 – Harold Lockwood, American silent film actor (d. 1918)
* 1888 – Heinrich Neuhaus, Soviet pianist (d. 1964)
* 1892 – Johnny Dodds, American jazz clarinetist (d. 1940)
* 1893 – Robert Harron, American actor (d. 1920)
* 1898 – Lily Pons, American soprano (d. 1976)
* 1902 – Louis Beel, Prime Minister of the Netherlands (d. 1977)
* 1903 – Sally Rand, American dancer and actress (d. 1979)
* 1903 – Jan Tinbergen, Dutch economist, Bank of Sweden Prize winner (d. 1994)
* 1907 – Felix de Weldon, Austrian-born sculptor (d. 2003)
* 1912 – Walt Gorney, American actor (d. 2004)
* 1916 – Beverly Cleary, American writer
* 1917 – Helen Forrest, American singer (d. 1999)
* 1922 – Tiny Tim, American musician (d. 1996)
* 1923 – Ann Miller, American actress and dancer (d. 2004)
* 1928 – Hardy Krüger, German actor
* 1928 – Jean-François Paillard, French conductor
* 1932 – Dennis Banks, American activist
* 1932 – Lakshman Kadirgamar, Sri Lankan Politician (assassinated) (d. 2005)
* 1933 – Montserrat Caballé, Catalan soprano
* 1935 – Johnny Bucyk, Canadian ice hockey player
* 1939 – Alan Ayckbourn, English writer
* 1940 – Herbie Hancock, American pianist and composer
* 1941 – Bobby Moore, English footballer (d. 1993)
* 1944 – John Kay, German-born musician (Steppenwolf)
* 1946 – Ed O’Neill, American actor
* 1947 – Tom Clancy, American author
* 1947 – David Letterman, American talk show host
* 1948 – Jeremy Beadle, British television presenter
* 1948 – Joschka Fischer, Foreign Minister of Germany
* 1948 – Sandra “Lois” Reeves, American singer (Martha & the Vandellas)
* 1949 – Scott Turow, American writer
* 1950 – David Cassidy, American singer and actor
* 1950 – Kari Palaste, Finnish architect
* 1952 – Ralph Wiley, American sports journalist (d. 2004)
* 1954 – Pat Travers, Canadian musician
* 1956 – Andy Garcia, Cuban-born actor
* 1956 – Herbert Grönemeyer, German singer, pianist, and actor
* 1957 – Vince Gill, American musician
* 1961 – Lisa Gerrard, Australian singer and film composer
* 1961 – D D Verni, American musician , (Overkill)
* 1962 – Art Alexakis, American musician (Everclear)
* 1962 – Takada Nobuhiko, Japanese professional wrestler
* 1964 – Amy Ray, American musician (Indigo Girls)
* 1970 – Nick Hexum, American musician (311)
* 1971 – Nicholas Brendon, actor
* 1971 – Shannen Doherty, American actress
* 1974 – Marley Shelton, American actress
* 1976 – Brad Miller, American Basketball player
* 1978 – Guy Berryman, British musician (Coldplay)
* 1978 – Riley Smith, American actor
* 1979 – Claire Danes, American actress
* 1979 – Mateja Kežman, Serbian footballer
* 1982 – Deen, Bosnian singer
* 1985 – Hitomi Yoshizawa, Japanese singer (Morning Musume)
* 1993 – Calvin Dewayne Birdlong Jr.,Jasper homeland
Deaths:
* 65 – Seneca the Younger, Roman philosopher, statesman and dramatist
* 238 – Gordian I, Roman Emperor (suicide)
* 238 – Gordian II, heir to the Roman Empire (killed in battle)
* 352 – St. Julius I, 35th Pope of the Catholic Church
* 1443 – Henry Chichele, Archbishop of Canterbury
* 1550 – Claude, Duke of Guise, French soldier (b. 1496)
* 1555 – Juana of Castile, queen of Philip I of Castile (b. 1479)
* 1687 – Ambrose Dixon, Virginia Colony pioneer
* 1704 – Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, French bishop and writer (b. 1627)
* 1748 – William Kent, English architect
* 1782 – Metastasio, Italian poet and librettist (b. 1698)
* 1788 – Carlo Antonio Campioni, French-born composer (b. 1719)
* 1795 – Johann Kaspar Basselet von La Rosée, Bavarian general (b. 1710)
* 1814 – Charles Burney, English music historian (b. 1726)
* 1850 – Adoniram Judson, American Baptist missionary (b. 1788)
* 1878 – William Marcy Tweed, aka Boss Tweed, American politician (b. 1823)
* 1902 – Marie Alfred Cornu, French physicist (b. 1842)
* 1912 – Clara Barton, American nurse and Red Cross advocate (b. 1821)
* 1938 – Feodor Chaliapin, Russian bass (b. 1873)
* 1945 – Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States (b. 1882)
* 1962 – Sir Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya, Indian politician and engineer (b. 1861)
* 1971 – Igor Tamm, Russian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1895)
* 1971 – Ed Lafitte, American baseball player (b. 1871)
* 1975 – Josephine Baker, American dancer (b. 1906)
* 1980 – Clark McConachy, New Zealand billiards and snooker player (b. 1895)
* 1980 – William R. Tolbert, Jr., President of Liberia (b. 1913)
* 1981 – Joe Louis, American boxer (b. 1914)
* 1986 – Valentin Kataev, Russian writer (b. 1897)
* 1988 – Alan Paton, South African novelist (b. 1903)
* 1989 – Gerald Flood, British actor (b. 1927)
* 1989 – Abbie Hoffman, American radical leader (b. 1936)
* 1989 – Sugar Ray Robinson, American boxer (b. 1921)
* 1997 – George Wald, American scientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1903)
* 1999 – Boxcar Willie, American singer (b. 1931)
* 2003 – Cecil H. Green, American manufacturer (b. 1900)
