A Brief History
This article presents a chronological list of notable events that happened on August 12th. For each date below, please click on the date to be taken to an article covering that date’s event.
Digging Deeper
On August 12th, 30 B.C., after the naval defeat of her and Mark Antony’s forces against those of Octavian, and in fear of the public humiliation of being dragged through Rome in chains, Cleopatra committed suicide by snake bite.
On August 12, 30 BC, Cleopatra VII Philopater committed suicide by means of an asp bite (small cobra snake) to the breast.
On August 12, 30 BC, Cleopatra VII Philopator is alleged to have committed suicide by allowing an Asp (a venomous snake of the cobra family) to bite her.
On August 12, 1676, John Alderman, known as a “Praying Indian” because he was a Native American converted to Christianity, shot and killed Chief Metacomet of the Wampanoag people, thus ending the conflict known as King Phillip’s War.
On August 12, 1883, the last known living specimen of the Quagga died, and the species became extinct.
On August 12, 1914, World War I was merely two weeks old and apparently the German and Belgian armies did not yet realize the futility of using mounted cavalry in an age of rapid firing repeating rifles and automatic machine guns.
August 12, 1915 marks the date of a story – which is not actually just a simple story – which tells of the vanishing of a group of British soldiers during the now infamous Gallipoli campaign, during World War One.
On August 12, 1944, German Nazi troops finished off a massacre of between 40,000 and 50,000 Poles, many of them Jewish.
On August 12, 1994, major league baseball players went on strike, ending the 1994 major league baseball season and causing the cancellation of the 1994 World Series.
On August 12, 2000, during the first major Russian naval exercise since the break-up of the USSR, the Russian Oscar II class cruise missile sub, the Kursk, blew up and sank in the Barents Sea, taking all 118 men aboard to their deaths.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Andrews, John and Matt Baker. Timeline of World History. Thunder Bay Press, 2020.
You can also watch video versions of this article on YouTube.
