Explore 12 April

Explore 12 April: Yuri Gagarin becomes the first person in space, Confederate guns open fire on Fort Sumter, crusaders storm Constantinople and Britain annexes the Transvaal. Meet Herbie Hancock, Saoirse Ronan and Henry Clay, born on this date, and remember Josephine Baker and Joe Louis.

This day through time →15 verified events across 4 eras

⌛15Full
Timeline ◈4Historic
Moments ♙8Born
Today ✦5Lives
Remembered ◉2Firsts &
Discoveries ♫2Culture
Stories

Yuri Gagarin wearing his awards.

Image credit

Aleksandr Mokletsov (Sovinformburo) · CC BY 4.0Resized and cropped for display.

1961

Yuri Gagarin, the first person in space

On the morning of 12 April 1961 the Soviet air force pilot Yuri Gagarin, aged 27, was launched from Baikonur in the Vostok 1 capsule, calling out ‘Poyekhali!’, ‘Let’s go!’. He circled the Earth once in 108 minutes before parachuting down in a field near the Volga.

His flight made him a worldwide hero and gave the Soviet Union a stunning lead in the space race. The United Nations now marks 12 April as the International Day of Human Space Flight.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: United Nations: International Day of Human Space Flight ↗

The bombardment of Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbour, in a Currier and Ives lithograph of about 1861.

Image credit

Published by Currier and Ives · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

1861

The American Civil War begins at Fort Sumter

At 4.30 in the morning of 12 April 1861 a Confederate mortar fired a signal shell over Fort Sumter, a Union fort in the harbour at Charleston, South Carolina. Batteries around the harbour then opened fire.

After some 34 hours of bombardment the fort’s commander, Major Robert Anderson, surrendered. The attack began four years of civil war that killed more than 620,000 people and ended slavery in the United States.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: US National Park Service: The Battle of Fort Sumter, April 1861 ↗

The Entry of the Crusaders into Constantinople, painted by Eugène Delacroix in 1840.

Image credit

Eugène Delacroix · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

1204

Crusaders storm Constantinople

The Fourth Crusade had set out to attack Egypt, but debts to Venice and a quarrel over the Byzantine throne led it instead to the walls of Constantinople, the greatest Christian city of the day. On 12 April 1204 the crusaders forced their way in from the harbour.

Over the next three days they looted the city, carrying off treasures that still fill churches and museums in the West, and set up a Latin empire. The sack deepened the split between Catholic and Orthodox Christians. The date is by the Julian calendar.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: World History Encyclopedia: 1204, the sack of Constantinople ↗

A satirical print of 1877 showing Theophilus Shepstone raising the British flag over the Transvaal (Rijksmuseum).

Image credit

Rijksmuseum · CC0Resized and cropped for display.

1877

Britain annexes the Transvaal

On 12 April 1877 the British official Sir Theophilus Shepstone, who had ridden into Pretoria with a small escort, proclaimed the Boer republic of the Transvaal a British colony. Not a shot was fired.

Britain hoped to join southern Africa into one federation, but many Boers never accepted the takeover. Petitions failed, and at the end of 1880 they rose in revolt, winning back their independence in the First Anglo-Boer War.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: South African History Online: First Anglo-Boer War ↗

♙

PEOPLE

Born Today

Image credit

Julian Vannerson or Montgomery P. Simons · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

Born 1777

Henry Clay

American statesman, ‘the Great Compromiser’, who tried to hold the Union together.

Image credit

AnonymousUnknown author · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

Born 1885

Robert Delaunay

French painter of bright, circling colour, a pioneer of abstract art.

Image credit

Anefo / Croes, R.C. · CC0Resized and cropped for display.

Born 1903

Jan Tinbergen

Dutch economist who shared the first Nobel Prize in Economics, in 1969.

Image credit

Library of Congress Life · CC0Resized and cropped for display.

Born 1940

Herbie Hancock

American jazz pianist and composer of ‘Watermelon Man’ and ‘Rockit’.

Image credit

Etienne Ansotte · CC BY 4.0Resized and cropped for display.

Born 1942

Jacob Zuma

President of South Africa from 2009 to 2018.

Image credit

Unknown photographer · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

Born 1942

Carlos Reutemann

Argentine Formula One driver and later governor of Santa Fe province.

Image credit

Gabriel Hutchinson · CC BY-SA 4.0Resized and cropped for display.

Born 1956

Andy García

Cuban-born American actor of The Untouchables and The Godfather Part III.

Image credit

Martin Kraft · CC BY-SA 4.0Resized and cropped for display.

Born 1994

Saoirse Ronan

Irish actress of Atonement, Brooklyn and Lady Bird.

◉

IDEAS THAT CHANGED THINGS

Firsts, Science & Discoveries

Jonas Salk, who developed the first effective polio vaccine.

Image credit

SAS Scandinavian Airlines · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

1955

The polio vaccine is declared safe

In a packed hall at the University of Michigan on 12 April 1955, Dr Thomas Francis Jr announced the results of a trial involving more than 1.8 million children: Jonas Salk’s vaccine against polio was ‘safe, effective, and potent’.

Church bells rang across America. Polio had paralysed tens of thousands of children a year, and within a few years of mass vaccination the number of cases in the United States fell dramatically.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: University of Michigan School of Public Health: The 1954 polio vaccine trials ↗

Space Shuttle Columbia lifts off from Kennedy Space Center on the first shuttle mission, 12 April 1981.

Image credit

NASA · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

1981

The first Space Shuttle flies

Exactly 20 years after Gagarin’s flight, NASA’s Space Shuttle Columbia lifted off from Florida at 7 am on 12 April 1981, with John Young and Robert Crippen aboard. It was the first time astronauts had flown a new spacecraft on its very first launch.

After 37 orbits Columbia glided back to land on a runway in California, like an aeroplane. The shuttles flew 135 missions over 30 years, launching satellites and building the International Space Station.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: NASA: STS-1 ↗

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MUSIC • FILM • BOOKS • CULTURE

Culture Stories

Bill Haley, photographed in 1974.

Image credit

Anefo · CC0Resized and cropped for display.

1954

‘Rock Around the Clock’ is recorded

At a Decca studio in a former Masonic hall in New York on 12 April 1954, Bill Haley and His Comets recorded ‘Rock Around the Clock’ in the last 40 minutes of the session, as the B-side of another song.

It sold modestly at first. But when it played over the opening of the film Blackboard Jungle in 1955, it shot to number one, and became the record that carried rock and roll around the world.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Library of Congress, National Recording Registry: Rock Around the Clock (essay) ↗

The entrance to Disneyland Paris at Marne-la-Vallée.

Image credit

Sneeuwvlakte · CC BY-SA 4.0Resized and cropped for display.

1992

Euro Disney opens near Paris

The Euro Disney Resort opened at Marne-la-Vallée, about 32 kilometres east of Paris, on 12 April 1992. It was Disney’s second park outside the United States, after Tokyo.

Early years were difficult, with fewer visitors and more debt than planned, and some French critics called it a ‘cultural Chernobyl’. Renamed Disneyland Paris, it became one of Europe’s most visited attractions.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Disneyland Paris News: History ↗

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LIVES REMEMBERED