Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/June 12
June 12: Independence Day in the Philippines; Russia Day in the Russian Federation; Dia dos Namorados in Brazil.
- 1864 - Union General Ulysses S. Grant pulled his troops out of the Battle of Cold Harbor.
- 1889 - The Armagh rail disaster killed 88 people near Armagh, in what is now Northern Ireland.
- 1942 - Anne Frank began keeping her diary during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands.
- 1964 - Anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life in prison by the Pretoria Supreme Court.
- 1979 - A human-powered aircraft named Gossamer Albatross (pictured) flew across the English Channel.