This Day in History May 12

This Day in History
       May 12

1780
Americans suffer
one of the worst
defeats of the
Revolution at
Charleston (more
than 3,000
surrendered)

1864
North and South
see one of the
bloodiest days of
the Civil War at
the “Bloody Angle”
during the Battle
of Spotsylvania

1929
Songwriter Burt Bacharach, who
composed hundreds of pop songs
from the late 1950s through the
1980s, is born in Kansas City,
Missouri—five of his songs hit #1 on
the Billboard Top 100, including “This
Guy’s in Love with You” (1968),
“Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head”
(1969), “(They Long to Be) Close to
You” (1970), “Arthur’s Theme (Best
That You Can Do)” (1981), and
“That’s What Friends Are For” (1986)

1932
The body of the
Lindbergh baby
is found more
than two
months after his
kidnapping

1936
George VI, the
father of Queen
Elizabeth II, is
crowned king of
the United
Kingdom

1949
The Soviet Union
lifts blockade of
Berlin after 11
months, ending
the first crisis of
the Cold War

1957
Race car driver
A.J. Foyt gets his
first professional
victory

1961
Vice President
Lyndon Johnson
visits South
Vietnamese
President Ngo Dinh
Diem in Saigon

1967
American Jimi Hendrix,
one of the greatest
guitarists in history,
releases his first
album, Are You
Experienced?—it
includes the hit songs
“Foxy Lady,” “Hey Joe,”
and “Purple Haze”

1970
Harry A. Blackmun,
appointed by
President Richard
Nixon, is confirmed to
the Supreme Court—
he is best known for
authoring the Court’s
opinion in Roe v.
Wade

1984
Lionel Richie’s “Hello,” a
song inspired by his
younger days when he was
too shy to talk to the ladies,
goes to #1 in America—
before his solo career,
Richie was a member of the
Commodores, an American
funk and soul band

1987
The “Black
Dragon” wildfire
kills 193 people
in China

1998
American Lenny
Kravitz releases his
fifth studio album,
aptly title 5—the
album features his
first Grammy
Award-winning hit,
“Fly Away”

2000
Fourth-
generation
NASCAR driver
Adam Petty dies
in a crash in New
Hampshire at age
19

2017
To commemorate the 30th
anniversary of their acclaimed
1987 album The Joshua Tree, U2
embarks on The Joshua Tree Tour
2017, with an opener in
Vancouver, Canada—the band
plays through the entire album
each night of the tour, including
songs that hadn’t been performed
live since the 1980s and “Red Hill
Mining Town,” which they had
never played live before

2020
The World Health
Organization
announces that work
is being accelerated on
seven or eight “top”
vaccine candidates to
combat the
coronavirus

2020
Nana Akufo-Addo,
president of the West
African nation of Ghana,
announces that 533
factory workers at a fish
processing plant in his
country have contracted
the coronavirus from
one infected worker

2020
Tesla reopens its
California factory,
which employs
10,000 people, in
defiance of local
government
coronavirus
orders

2020
C&C Breakfast and
Korean Kitchen, a
Colorado restaurant
that opened for full
service on Mother’s Day
in defiance of state
rules banning sit-down
dining, is ordered to
close and has its license
suspended indefinitely

2020
A program in the
UK that pays
workers furloughed
by the coronavirus
80% of their
salaries (up to
$1,300 per month)
is extended
through October

2020
Arizona Governor
Doug Ducey
announces that
professional sports
can resume in Arizona
with no fans in the
stands after the state’s
stay-at-home order
expires on May 15

2020
A 20-year-old American is
stopped while trying to sneak
into Germany to visit his
girlfriend during the
coronavirus lockdown—he
had flown from Washington,
D.C., to Frankfurt, Germany,
and was caught by airport
authorities as he tried to slip
past a security checkpoint
while carrying two trash bags
and wearing a janitor’s vest

2020
Brigham Young University
publishes a 6-year study on
video game addiction in
adolescents—the study
finds that only 10% of
gamers “can become truly
addicted to video games
and, as a result, can suffer
mentally, socially, and
behaviorally”

2021
The CDC advisory
committee meets
today and is
expected to
recommend the
Pfizer COVID-19
vaccine for
adolescents ages
12-15

2021
Former University
of Hawaii
quarterback Colt
Brennan, a 2007
Heisman Trophy
finalist, died
yesterday in
California at age 37
of a drug overdose

2021
Experts anticipate major
fuel shortages today on
the East Coast due to
the closure of a major
U.S. gasoline pipeline
over the weekend
because of a
ransomware attack on
its computer systems

2021
Tensions are on the
rise in the Middle
East as Israel stepped
up airstrikes on
Palestinians in the
Gaza Strip today as
Palestinians rained
down rockets on
parts of Israel

2021
A large fire broke out in
the new Interdisciplinary
Science and Technology
building that is currently
under construction at
Arizona State University’s
Tempe campus at 6 p.m.
yesterday