What are the important events that happened on May 12? Here are historical events, facts, and some myths about this day.
May 12: Facts & Myths About This Day
May 12 is the 132nd day of the year 2025 in the Gregorian calendar. There are 233 days remaining until the end of this year. The day of the week is Monday.
Under the Julian calendar, this day is April 29, 2025 – a Monday. Both day of the week are the same but did you notice the difference with the Gregorian calendar?
When this day started, 1,747,008,000 seconds has elapsed since midnight of January 1, 1970 – the Unix epoch.
Strange as it may, if we name this day after a polygon then it will be called ‘hectatriacontadigon’ day.
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Taurus is the zodiac sign of a person born on this day. Emerald is the modern birthstone for this month. Sapphire is the mystical birthstone from Tibetan origin that dates back over a thousand years.
According to the lunisolar Chinese calendar, there are 281 days remaining before the start of the next Chinese New Year.
The ancient Maya civilization believes that the end of the world will happen on December 21, 2012. There are now 4,525 days since this fabled cataclysmic event.
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May 12 Historical Events
- 1364 –Jagiellonian University, the oldest university in Poland, is founded in Kraków, Poland.
- 1689 –King William’s War: William III of England joins the League of Augsburg starting a war with France.
- 1743 –Maria Theresa of Austria is crowned Queen of Bohemia after defeating her rival, Charles VII, Holy Roman Emperor.
- 1862 –U.S. federal troops occupy Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
- 1937 –George VI and Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon are crowned King and Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
- 1942 –Holocaust: 1,500 Jews are sent to gas chambers in Auschwitz.
- 1965 –The Soviet spacecraft Luna 5 crashes on the Moon.
- 2002 –Former US President Jimmy Carter arrives in Cuba for a five-day visit with Fidel Castro becoming the first President of the United States, in or out of office, to visit the island since Castro’s 1959 revolution.
- 2007 –Riots in which over 50 people are killed and over 100 are injured take place in Karachi upon the arrival in town of the Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry.
- 2008 –An earthquake (measuring around 8.0 magnitude) occurs in Sichuan, China, killing over 69,000 people.
Who were born on May 12?
- 1401 –Emperor Shōkō, 101st Japanese Emperor (d. 1428)
- 1842 –Jules Massenet, French composer (d. 1912)
- 1945 –Nicky Henson, British actor
- 1947 –Michael Ignatieff, Canadian politician
- 1958 –Andreas Petroulakis, Greek political caricaturist
- 1968 –Mark Clark, American baseball player
- 1975 –Lawrence Phillips, American football player
- 1978 –Hossein Reza Zadeh, Iranian weightlifter
- 1981 –Kentaro Sato, Japanese composer
- 1992 –Malcolm David Kelley, American actor
Who died on May 12?
- 1684 –Edme Mariotte, French physicist and priest
- 1784 –Abraham Trembley, Swiss naturalist (b. 1710)
- 1842 –Walenty Wańkowicz, Polish painter (b. 1799)
- 1907 –Joris-Karl Huysmans, French author (b. 1848)
- 1925 –Amy Lowell, American poet (b. 1874)
- 1970 –Nelly Sachs, German writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1891)
- 1990 –Chen Kenmin, Japanese chef (b. 1912)
- 1992 –Nikos Gatsos, Greek poet and lyricist (b. 1911)
- 1995 –Mia Martini, Italian singer and songwriter (b. 1947)
- 2005 –Monica Zetterlund, Swedish actress and singer (b. 1937)
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