141 things happened on 12 November, from AD 607 to 2024. UK stories come first, then the rest of the world.
1835 · 191 years ago
Building work was completed on the Wilberforce Monument in Kingston upon Hull, the city where William Wilberforce was born. It is a column topped by a statue of him. Wilberforce was a Member of Parliament who led the campaign in Parliament against the British…
UK history first: stories from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
UK story
Plymouth in Devon became the first town to be incorporated by the English Parliament, which made it an official borough. Until then, the town had been known as Sutton. Plymouth later played a big part in English history. An English fleet based there defeated the Spanish Armada in 1588, and the Pilgrim Fathers set sail from Plymouth for the New World in 1620.
UK story
Building work was completed on the Wilberforce Monument in Kingston upon Hull, the city where William Wilberforce was born. It is a column topped by a statue of him. Wilberforce was a Member of Parliament who led the campaign in Parliament against the British slave trade for 20 years, until the Slave Trade Act of 1807. He died in 1833, just after hearing that a law to end slavery in most of the British Empire would pass.
UK story
The first series of Last of the Summer Wine began on BBC television, after a one-off trial episode in January. The sitcom, short for 'situation comedy', was set in Yorkshire and written by Roy Clarke. It ran until 2010, with 295 episodes over 31 series. That makes it the longest-running television sitcom in history.
UK story
English computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee published a formal proposal for the World Wide Web. He had first suggested his new way of managing information in March 1989. Berners-Lee went on to create the first web browser and web server. He also invented HTML, the language used to build web pages, and URLs, the system of web addresses. He was knighted in 2004 for his pioneering work.
UK story
Abdur Rahman Khan accepts the Durand Line as the border between the Emirate of Afghanistan and the British Raj.
UK story
First Balkan War: King George I of Greece makes a triumphal entry into Thessaloniki after its liberation from 482 years of Ottoman rule.
The San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge opened to traffic in California. It is a group of bridges crossing San Francisco Bay, linking the cities of San Francisco and Oakland. The bridge has two decks, one above the other, and carries about 260,000 vehicles a day. It includes one of the longest bridge spans in the United States.
A team of rock climbers led by Warren Harding completed the first climb of The Nose, a route up the huge rock wall of El Capitan in Yosemite Valley. El Capitan was once thought impossible to climb. The Nose is now famous around the world as a classic 'big wall' climb. Harding made some 28 first ascents in Yosemite in total.
NASA's space probe Voyager 1 made its closest approach to Saturn, passing about 124,000 kilometres above the planet's cloud tops. Its cameras revealed complex patterns in Saturn's rings. It also studied the atmospheres of Saturn and its giant moon Titan. Voyager 1 later became the most distant human-made object from Earth.
Space Shuttle Columbia launched on mission STS-2, its second trip into orbit. It was the first time a reusable spacecraft with a crew had gone back into space. The two astronauts, Joe Engle and Richard Truly, tested experiments including a robotic arm called Canadarm. They landed two days later.
In Shanghai, China, the Transrapid maglev train reached 501 kilometres per hour (311 mph), a world speed record for commercial railways. Maglev is short for magnetic levitation: the train uses magnets to float above its track. The Shanghai line was the world's first commercial high-speed maglev. Its record is still the fastest for an unmodified commercial train.
The European Space Agency's lander Philae touched down on comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, the first spacecraft ever to land on a comet. It had travelled through space with the Rosetta spacecraft for ten years and eight months. Its harpoons failed to fire, so it bounced twice before coming to rest. Even so, Philae took the first pictures from a comet's surface and sent back data for about 64 hours.
The 13-year-old Lothair III is crowned at the Abbey of Saint-Remi as king of the West Frankish Kingdom.
Future Byzantine empress Zoe takes the throne as empress consort to Romanos III Argyros.
Led by the voivode Basarab I, Wallachian forces defeated the Hungarian army in an ambush at the Battle of Posada (depicted).
William Heffelfinger was paid $500 by the Allegheny Athletic Association, becoming the first professional American football player.
Norway holds a referendum resulting in popular approval of the Storting's decision to authorise the government to make the offer of the throne of the newly independent country.
The Corozal, the most powerful dredger built to that time, was launched in London for service in construction of the Panama Canal.
Dissolution of Austria-Hungary: Austria becomes a republic. After the proclamation, a coup attempt by the communist Red Guard is defeated by the social-democratic Volkswehr.
The Kingdom of Italy and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes signed the Treaty of Rapallo to establish national borders east of the Adriatic Sea.
At the request of the Government of Western Australia, the Australian military officially resumed fighting the Emu War after their prior withdrawal.
World War II: Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov arrived in Berlin to discuss the possibility of the Soviet Union joining the Axis powers.
World War II: Free French forces captured Gabon from Vichy France.
World War II: The Soviet cruiser Chervona Ukraina is destroyed during the Battle of Sevastopol.
World War II: Temperatures around Moscow drop to −12 °C (10 °F) as the Soviet Union launches ski troops for the first time against the freezing German forces near the city.
World War II: The Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, the decisive engagement in a series of sea battles between Allied and Japanese forces during the months-long Guadalcanal campaign in the Solomon Islands, began.
Ellis Island ceases operations.
Morocco, Sudan and Tunisia join the United Nations.
The Oregon Highway Division unsuccessfully attempted to destroy a rotting beached sperm whale near Florence, Oregon, with dynamite.
Vietnam War: As part of Vietnamization, U.S. President Richard Nixon sets February 1, 1972 as the deadline for the removal of another 45,000 American troops from Vietnam.
The Comoros joins the United Nations.
France conducts the Oreste nuclear test as 14th in the group of 29, 1975–78 French nuclear tests series.
USSR: Yuri Andropov becomes the General Secretary of the Communist Party's Central Committee, succeeding Leonid I. Brezhnev.
Crown Prince Akihito is formally installed as Emperor Akihito of Japan, becoming the 125th Japanese monarch.
Space Shuttle Atlantis launches on STS-74 to deliver the Mir Docking Module to the Russian space station Mir.
Erdut Agreement regarding the peaceful resolution to the Croatian War of Independence is reached.
Although the Georgian government declared it illegal, South Ossetia held a referendum on independence, with more than 99 percent of voters in favour of preserving the region's status as a de facto independent state.
Silvio Berlusconi tenders his resignation as Prime Minister of Italy, effective November 16, due in large part to the Euro area crisis.
The PlayStation 5 is released.
The Los Angeles Superior Court formally ends the 14-year conservatorship to pop singer Britney Spears.
Every answer is somewhere on this page. Have a go, then check!
In which year did this happen: “Tim Berners-Lee publishes his plan for the World Wide Web”?
B: 1990. 1990 — that’s 36 years ago. Find it on the page
In which year did this happen: “The first series of Last of the Summer Wine begins on the BBC”?
B: 1973. 1973 — that’s 53 years ago. Find it on the page
Which of these happened first?
B: Plymouth becomes the first town incorporated by Parliament. 1973: The first series of Last of the Summer Wine begins on the BBC · 1439: Plymouth becomes the first town incorporated by Parliament · 1990: Tim Berners-Lee publishes his plan for the World Wide Web Find it on the page
“Plymouth becomes the first town incorporated by Parliament” happened in 1439. How many years ago was that?
C: 587 years. 2026 − 1439 = 587. Find it on the page
Famous people whose birthday is 12 November.
UK story
John William Strutt, later Lord Rayleigh, was born. This British physicist explained why the sky is blue: very tiny particles scatter sunlight, an effect now called Rayleigh scattering. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1904 for discovering the gas argon. His book The Theory of Sound is still used by engineers. He also served as President of the Royal Society.
Well-known people who died on 12 November.
Festivals, holidays and saints’ days celebrated on 12 November somewhere in the world.
Content note: these entries mention things like war, violence, deaths, disasters or crime. They are part of history, but they can be upsetting. Grown-ups and teachers: you may want to read them first. They come straight from Wikipedia and have not been rewritten for children.
Stories with a heading have been written for young readers by A Day in the Past, using the linked articles as sources. Other entries show text from Wikipedia’s “November 12” page and its “On this day” feed, written by Wikipedia contributors and shared under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. Each “Read more” link goes to the article an entry is based on. Photos are credited under each picture. Spotted a mistake? Please tell us.