Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/April 12
This is a list of selected April 12 anniversaries that appear in the "On this day" section of the Main Page. To suggest a new item, in most cases, you can be bold and edit this page. Please read the selected anniversaries guidelines before making your edit. However, if your addition might be controversial or on a day that is or will soon be on the Main Page, please post your suggestion on the talk page instead.
Please note that the events listed on the Main Page are chosen based more on relative article quality and to maintain a mix of topics, not based solely on how important or significant their subjects are. Only four to five events are posted at a time and thus not everything that is "most important and significant" can be listed. In addition, an event is generally not posted this year if it is also the subject of the scheduled featured article or picture of the day.
To report an error when this appears on the Main Page, see Main Page errors. Please remember that this list defers to the supporting articles, so it is best to achieve consensus and make any necessary changes there first.
Images
Use only ONE image at a time
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Space Shuttle Columbia
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Space Shuttle Columbia -
STS-1 Crew Patch
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Space Shuttle Columbia launching -
Union Flag, 1606 version -
Bombardment of Fort Sumter by the batteries of the Confederate states -
Yuri Gagarin
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Ineligible
| Blurb | Reason |
|---|---|
| 1606 – A royal decree established the Union Flag to symbolise the Union of the Crowns, merging the designs of the Flag of England and the Flag of Scotland. | lead too short |
| 1927 – Chinese Civil War: A large-scale purge of communists from the nationalist Kuomintang began in Shanghai. | needs more footnotes |
| 1980 – Samuel Doe took control of Liberia in a coup d'etat, overthrowing President William R. Tolbert, Jr. and ending over 130 years of national democratic presidential succession. | needs more footnotes |
| 1981 – Columbia, the first spaceworthy space shuttle, was launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for its first flight. | refimprove |
Eligible
- 467 – Anthemius was proclaimed Western Roman Emperor at the third or twelfth mile from Rome.
- 1861 – Confederate forces began firing at Fort Sumter in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina, starting the American Civil War.
- 1910 – The SMS Zrínyi, one of the last pre-dreadnoughts built by the Austro-Hungarian Navy, was launched.
- 1961 – Aboard Vostok 3KA-3, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man to enter outer space, completing one orbit in a time of 108 minutes.
- 1994 – Husband-and-wife law partners Laurence Canter and Martha Siegel posted the first massive commercial Usenet spam.
April 12: Yuri's Night; Cosmonautics Day in Russia
- 1204 – Alexios V Doukas fled Constantinople as forces under Boniface the Marquess of Montferrat and Enrico Dandolo the Doge of Venice entered and sacked the Byzantine capital, effectively ending the Fourth Crusade.
- 1831 – Broughton Suspension Bridge in Manchester, England, collapsed, reportedly owing to a mechanical resonance induced by troops marching over the bridge in step.
- 1980 – Terry Fox (pictured) dipped his artificial leg in the Atlantic Ocean at St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, and began running his "Marathon of Hope" towards the Pacific Ocean at Vancouver, British Columbia, to raise funds across Canada for cancer research.
- 1990 – Jim Gary became the only sculptor to present a solo show at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., featuring his trademark dinosaur sculptures made of automobile parts.
- 1992 – Disneyland Paris, the first Walt Disney Park in Europe, opened in the Paris suburb of Marne-la-Vallée.