May 8

June 12

1381 During the English Peasants' Revolt, a contingent of Kentish rebels assembled at Blackheath, just outside London on June 12, 1381. The radical Lollard priest John Ball gave a famous sermon to the assembled Kentishmen in which he preached that all humans should be treated equally, as descendants of Adam and Eve. He asked the crowd, "When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?"

1616 The Virginia Company of London decided to bring the Native American princess Pocahontas to England as a symbol of the tamed New World "savage" and the success of the Jamestown settlement. Pocahontas and her husband John Rolfe arrived at the port of Plymouth on June 12, 1616, accompanied by a group of about eleven other Powhatans, including a holy man named Tomocomo. Pocahontas died of smallpox in March 1617, the day before she was due to sail back to Virginia.

A 19th-century depiction

1733 The future Frederick the Great of Prussia was ordered by his father to marry a daughter of the Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, Princess Elisabeth Christine. They tied the knot at the bride's father's summer palace, Schloss Salzdahlum in Wolfenbüttel, Germany on June 12, 1733. Frederick resented the proposed marriage from the very beginning, and the involuntary matrimony did not lead to children. After having become king, Frederick mostly ignored his wife and had at least one mistress.

1798 Following the French invasion of Malta, the Knights Hospitaller surrendered the island to Napoleon on June 12, 1798. The French rule was not popular and Maltese rebels invited the English Royal Navy to send her navy, which blockaded the island. General Claude-Henri Belgrand de Vaubois was forced to surrender his French forces in September 1800. The islands of Malta and Gozo become the Malta Protectorate.

1821 British chemist and physicist Michael Faraday married Sarah Barnard (1800-79), the daughter of a Sandemanian elder and silversmith on June 12, 1821. Like Michael, Sarah Faraday was a member of the small fundamentalist Sandemanian denomination. They were devoted to each other but had no children.

Michael and Sarah Faraday

1880 The first perfect game in baseball history was achieved by John Lee Richmond on June 12, 1880. Before the game against Cleveland, Worcester Worcesters pitcher Richmond was up all night taking part in college graduation events, and went to bed at 6:30 AM. He caught the 11:30 AM train for Worcester and then pitched a perfect game in the afternoon contest to beat Cleveland, 1–0.

1886 Perth, Australia resident Tonya Illman found the world’s oldest message in a bottle in 2018 after deciding to pick up some rubbish while on a walk with her family along the beach. She, together with her son’s girlfriend, tipped out the sand that had become lodged inside the bottle, and uncovered a piece of paper dated June 12, 1886 making it nearly 132 years old.


1898 General Emilio Aguinaldo declared the Philippines' independence, ending 333 years of Spanish colonial rule on June 12, 1898. The 1898 Declaration of Independence actually came about through Spain being forced to sell the Philippines to the US after defeat in the Spanish-American war.  The declaration wasn't recognized by the United States and it remained an American colony until being  granted independence in 1946.

1898 The design of the Philippine flag was conceptualized by Emilio Aguinaldo during his exile in Hong Kong in 1897. The first flag was sewn by Marcela Marino de Agoncillo with the help of her daughter Lorenza and Delfina Herbosa de Natividad and formally unfurled during the proclamation of independence on June 12, 1898 in Kawit, Cavite. The Philippine flag is flown with the red side on the upper side in times of war and the blue side on the upper side during times of peace.

The national flag of the Philippines

1924 George Herbert Walker Bush, the 41st President of the United States, was born at 173 Adams Street in Milton, Massachusetts on June 12, 1924. Before he went to college, Bush served in the Navy until the end of World War II. Bush began his career in 1948 working in the oil industry in Texas. He gained the nomination in 1988 to run for president winning with 54% of the popular vote and 426 out of 537 electoral votes.

1940 Edsel Ford of Ford Motor Company agreed on June 12, 1940 to manufacture 9,000 Rolls-Royce engines to be used in British and U.S. airplanes during World War II. The British company went on to build and retain a pre-eminent position in aero engine development and manufacture for use in defense and civil aircraft.


1942 The Jewish Frank family moved from Germany to Amsterdam in 1933, only to find themselves trapped there by the German occupation of the Netherlands seven years later. 13-year-old Anne Frank began keeping a diary on June 12, 1942, a present that she'd been given for her birthday. The diary chronicles her life until August 1944, a period when the Frank family were forced into hiding in some concealed rooms behind a bookcase in the building where Anne's father worked.

1952 The Guinness World Record for the most prolific cat is held by Dusty, a tabby cat born in Bonham, Texas, USA in 1935. Dusty gave birth to 420 kittens over the course of her breeding life, from 1937 to 1952. She gave birth to her last litter, a single kitten, on June 12, 1952.

1987 Margaret Thatcher became the first Prime Minister to win a third successive term on June 12, 1987 since Robert Jenkinson in 1820.  She was the longest-serving UK prime minister of the 20th century, staying in the job for 138 months.


1994 Former American football star and actor OJ Simpson's estranged wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her waiter friend Ron Goldman were found stabbed to death on June 12, 1994 outside Nicole's condominium in the Brentwood area of Los Angeles.  impson was a person of interest in their murders and five days later he became the object of a low-speed pursuit in a white Ford Bronco SUV; TV stations interrupted coverage of the 1994 NBA Finals to broadcast the incident live.

1994 Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong met his second wife, Carol Knight, a golf tournament in 1992, when they were seated together at breakfast. Two weeks later, he called her to ask what she was doing and she said cutting down a cherry tree. Half an hour later, he was at her house to help. They were married in Ohio on June 12, 1994, and stayed wed until his death.

1994 The Boeing 777 airliner made its first flight on June 12, 1994. A single Boeing 777 Engine delivers twice the horsepower of all the Titanic's steam engines combined. Most Boeing 777s have a secret stairway that leads to a set of windowless bedrooms for the crew. In the Boeing 777, pilots have their own overhead sleeping compartments which feature two roomy sleeping areas, two business-class seats, and enough room for a closet, sink, or lavatory.


2003 On June 12, 2003, Hollywood actor Gregory Peck died in his sleep at home from bronchopneumonia at the age of 87. His wife, Veronique, was by his side. Gregory Peck is entombed in the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels mausoleum in Los Angeles.

2011 Ed Sheeran signed for Atlantic Records in January 2011 and released "The A Team" as the first single from his debut album on June 12, 2011. "The A Team" is a true story, which was written by Sheehan after meeting a girl called Angel, whilst volunteering at a Crisis homeless shelter. The song became the highest selling debut single on the UK singles charts in the first half of 2011.

2016 In the early hours of June 12, 2016 shooter Omar Mateen opened fire on the patrons at Pulse Nightclub, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. Police later revealed that Mateen had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State. Forty-nine people were killed in the attack and another 53 were wounded. The shooting was the deadliest mass shooting by a single terrorist shooter in US history, until the Las Vegas shooting the following year.


2017 The Whitechapel Bell Foundry as a business in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets dates back to 1570. The foundry is notable for casting Philadelphia's Liberty Bell and the Houses of Parliament's Big Ben. The foundry closed on June 12, 2017, after nearly 450 years of bell-making. At the time of the closure of its Whitechapel premises, it was the oldest manufacturing company in Great Britain.

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