February 12
1606 | John Winthrop, the younger, was born.
1663 | Cleric Cotton Mather was born.
1733 | James Oglethorpe founded the colony of Georgia. He landed at Yamacraw Bluff with 114 settlers, establishing Savannah as a social experiment for the “worthy poor.”
1789 | Revolutionary War hero Ethan Allen died.
1791 | Entrepreneur Peter Cooper was born.
1793 | POTUS: President Washington signed the Fugitive Slave Act.
1809 | POTUS: President Abraham Lincoln was born.
1825 | Indian Wars: The Creek Indian Treaty was signed, requiring tribal relocation westward.
1839 | The Aroostook or “Pork Bean” War started. This “bloodless” conflict between the U.S. and Britain over the boundary between Maine and New Brunswick was settled without combat via the Webster-Ashburton Treaty.
1855 | Michigan State University was established. Originally chartered as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, it was the pioneer land-grant institution.
1856 | Inventor of Dry Cleaning, Thomas L. Jennings, died.
1865 | Civil Rights: African American minister Henry Highland Garnet preached to the U.S. Congress about abolishing slavery. His presence in the Capitol just weeks after the passage of the 13th Amendment was a massive symbolic victory.
1871 | Poet Alice Cary died.
1877 | The first telephone news dispatch occurred between Salem and Boston, Massachusetts.
1879 | Frederick Thayer patented the baseball catcher’s mask.
1879 | Madison Square Garden opened.
1893 | Army General Omar Bradley was born.
1898 | Composer Roy Harris was born.
1908 | The first NYC to Paris auto race started, lasting 88 days, with American George Schuster winning.
1909 | Civil Rights: The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded. On the centennial of Lincoln’s birth, a group of activists including W.E.B. Du Bois and Ida B. Wells formed the organization to fight lynching and Jim Crow laws.
1914 | First feature-length U.S. film, “The Squaw Man,” directed by Ceil B. DeMille, is released.
1914 | The Lincoln Memorial cornerstone was laid. The actual dedication ceremony where the memorial was opened to the public occurred on May 30, 1922.
1924 | Composer George Gershin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” premiered.
1926 | Historian Charles Van Doren was born.
1934 | Economist Anne Krueger was born.
1935 | The USS Macon airship crashes off the coast of California. The massive dirigible crashed during a storm. This disaster, following the crash of the Akron, effectively ended the U.S. Navy’s program for large, rigid airships.
1938 | Author Judy Blume was born.
1955 | POTUS: Republican President Eisenhower sent “advisors” to Vietnam.
1956 | Entertainer Arsenio Hall was born.
1959 | Replacing Sheaves of Wheat, the Lincoln Memorial impression was minted on the U.S. penny.
1962 | Civil Rights: Macon Georgia bus boycott started.
1967 | Jazz artist Francis “Muggsy” Spanier died.
1971 | Entrepreneur James Cash Penny died.
1973 | Vietnam War: First of 456 U.S. POWS released from North Vietnam.
1976 | Actor Sal Mineo died.
1965 | SCOTUS: Justice Brett Kavanaugh was born.
1980 | Poet Muriel Rukeyser died.
1988 | Cold War: U.S. Navy frigate USS Yorktown was bumped by Soviet frigate Bezzaventrny in the Baltic Sea to protest U.S. warships entering Soviet territorial waters. It was one of the last “hot” moments of the Cold War.
1998 | A federal court declared The line-item veto unconstitutional.
1999 | Congress: The Senate acquitted Democrat President Bill Clinton after his impeachment trial.
2000 | Cartoonist Charles M. Schultz died.