February 12 in History

February 12 is the 43rd day of the year. There are 323 days remaining until the end of the year.

• 1554 – Lady Jane Grey was beheaded for treason a year after claiming the throne of England for nine days.
• 1733 – Georgia was founded as the 13th colony in America by James Oglethorpe, and Savannah as its first city.
• 1809 – Charles Darwin, English naturalist, was born. He died in 1882.
• 1809 – Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States, was born. He died in 1865.
• 1825 – The Creek ceded the last of their lands in Georgia to the US government by the Treaty of Indian Springs, and migrated west. 
• 1855 – Michigan State University was established.
• 1909 – The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded.
• 1912 – Puyi, the Xuantong Emperor, abdicated the throne. He was the last Emperor of China.
• 1914 – The first stone of the Lincoln Memorial was set in place in Washington, D.C.
• 1974 – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, author and 1970 Nobel Laureate, was exiled from the USSR.
• 1990 – Carmen Lawrence became the first female Premier in Australia when she became Premier of Western Australia.
• 1994 – “The Scream” by Edward Munch was stolen from the National Gallery of Norway by four men. It was recovered in May 1994.
• 1999 – President Bill Clinton was acquitted by the United States Senate in his impeachment trial.
• 2004 – The city of San Francisco, California began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.