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HISTORY & TIMELINE
12 July

A journey through
12 July in history

The story of 12 July runs from the fall of Acre in 1191 to the launch of the space station’s living quarters in 2000. In between come Henry VIII’s sixth wedding, the burning of Maya books at Maní, the Mughal victory at Rajmahal that won Bengal, Napoleon’s Confederation of the Rhine, an American army crossing into Canada, the discovery of xenon, Heyerdahl’s reed boat reaching Barbados, the independence of São Tomé and Príncipe and of Kiribati, Messner’s climb of K2 without oxygen, Princess Mononoke and France’s first World Cup.

Begin the Timeline ↓ ← Back to Explore This Day
JUMP THROUGH TIME
II
THE MIDDLE AGES

Medieval History

Kingdoms, conflict, faith, power and the changing medieval world.

1191
The surrender of Acre to Philip Augustus and Richard I in 1191, in a 19th-century painting by Merry-Joseph BlondelThe surrender of Acre to Philip Augustus and Richard I in 1191, in a 19th-century painting by Merry-Joseph BlondelImage: Merry-Joseph Blondel · Public domain
world · Middle East

Acre surrenders to the kings of the Third Crusade

After Saladin took Jerusalem in 1187, the Christian kingdom in the Holy Land was reduced to a few coastal towns. In August 1189 King Guy of Jerusalem laid siege to the great port of Acre, and Saladin’s army in turn surrounded the besiegers. For almost two years the crusaders were trapped between the city walls and the Muslim field army, while disease and hunger killed thousands in the camps. The balance changed when the kings of the Third Crusade arrived: Philip II Augustus of France in April 1191 and Richard I of England in June, with fresh troops, ships and siege engines. With its walls battered and relief failing, the garrison agreed terms on 12 July 1191 and handed the city over. Saladin was to pay a ransom, free Christian prisoners and return the relic of the True Cross. When the payments were delayed, Richard had some 2,700 prisoners killed outside the walls in August. Acre became the capital of the crusader kingdom for the next century.

Source: World History Encyclopedia: The Siege of Acre, 1189-91 ↗
III
A CHANGING WORLD

Early Modern Era

Exploration, political change, scientific development and expanding global connections.

1543
Katherine Parr, Henry VIII's sixth wife, in a 16th-century portrait possibly by William ScrotsKatherine Parr, Henry VIII’s sixth wife, in a 16th-century portrait possibly by William ScrotsImage: anonymous · Public domain
politics · Europe

Henry VIII marries his sixth wife, Katherine Parr

Katherine Parr had already been widowed twice when Henry VIII chose her as his sixth queen. They were married on the morning of 12 July 1543 in the queen’s closet at Hampton Court Palace, before about 20 guests. A learned woman, she ruled as regent while Henry was at war in France in 1544 and published books of prayers under her own name. She outlived the king, remarried, and died in 1548.

Source: Historic Royal Palaces: Katherine Parr, scholar, stepmother, survivor ↗
1562
The old Franciscan church and convent at Maní in Yucatán, MexicoThe old Franciscan church and convent at Maní in Yucatán, MexicoImage: Hermann Luyken · CC BY-SA 3.0
culture · Americas

A Franciscan friar burns Maya books and images at Maní

Franciscan friars arrived in Yucatán soon after the Spanish conquest and baptised thousands of Maya. In May 1562 they discovered that many converts around the town of Maní were still honouring their old gods in secret. Fray Diego de Landa, head of the Franciscans in the province, launched a harsh inquiry in which many Maya were tortured, and some died. On 12 July 1562 he held an auto-da-fé, a public ceremony of penance and punishment, in the town square of Maní. By later accounts some 5,000 cult images were destroyed, along with 27 books: screenfold codices of bark paper recording Maya ritual, astronomy and history. Landa was called back to Spain to answer for exceeding his authority. There he wrote an account of Yucatán whose notes on Maya writing later helped scholars decipher the script. Only four Maya codices are known to survive today.

Source: Archaeological Institute of America, Archaeology magazine: Acts of Faith ↗
1576
The Battle of Rajmahal and the capture of Sultan Daud of Bengal, in a painting made for Akbar's court around 1590The Battle of Rajmahal and the capture of Sultan Daud of Bengal, in a painting made for Akbar’s court around 1590Image: Unknown Mughal court artist, c. 1590 · Public domain
world · Asia

The Mughals win Bengal at the Battle of Rajmahal

In the 1570s the rich lands of Bengal were ruled by Daud Khan Karrani, the last of a line of Afghan sultans. He refused to accept the overlordship of the Mughal emperor Akbar, struck coins and had the Friday prayers read in his own name. Defeated at Tukaroi in 1575, he made peace, but soon rose again and retook much of Bengal. Akbar sent his general Khan Jahan Husain Quli Beg against him, reinforced by the governor of Bihar with thousands of horsemen and boatloads of supplies. On 12 July 1576 the two armies met at Rajmahal, on the Ganges. Daud’s army was routed, and he was captured and put to death. The battle ended independent Afghan rule and began Mughal rule in Bengal, although local chiefs went on resisting for years.

Source: Banglapedia, Asiatic Society of Bangladesh: Rajmahal, The battle of ↗
IV
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

The 1800s

Industry, empire, invention, reform and a century of enormous transformation.

1806
A medal marking the founding of the Confederation of the Rhine in 1806, with Napoleon as its ProtectorA medal marking the founding of the Confederation of the Rhine in 1806, with Napoleon as its ProtectorImage: Bertrand Andrieu, Nicolas Guy Antoine Brenet · Public domain
politics · Europe

Napoleon creates the Confederation of the Rhine

By 1806 Napoleon had beaten Austria at Austerlitz and redrawn the map of southern and western Germany. Bavaria and Württemberg had been raised to kingdoms, and many small states had been swallowed by larger neighbours. The Holy Roman Empire, which had bound the German lands together for about a thousand years, was an empty shell. On 12 July 1806 sixteen German states signed a treaty in Paris forming the Confederation of the Rhine. Napoleon became its Protector, and the Archbishop Karl Theodor von Dalberg its Prince-Primate. The members promised Napoleon an army of 63,000 men, and on 1 August they declared that they had left the Holy Roman Empire. Five days later Francis II laid down the imperial crown, and the empire was over. Almost every German state except Austria and Prussia later joined, but the confederation collapsed after Napoleon’s defeat at Leipzig in 1813.

Source: Fondation Napoléon: Creation of the Confederation of the Rhine, 12 July 1806 ↗
1812
General William Hull, painted by Gilbert StuartGeneral William Hull, painted by Gilbert StuartImage: Gilbert Stuart · Public domain
world · Americas

An American army crosses into Canada

A month after the United States declared war on Britain, General William Hull, governor of Michigan Territory, led his army across the Detroit River on 12 July 1812 and occupied Sandwich, now Windsor, Ontario, unopposed. He called on Canadians to throw off British rule, but hesitated to attack the British fort at Amherstburg. By August he had fallen back to Detroit, which he surrendered to Isaac Brock and Tecumseh without a fight.

Source: The Canadian Encyclopedia: Capture of Detroit, War of 1812 ↗
1898
Solid and liquid xenon seen through the window of an insulated cell at Lawrence Berkeley National LaboratorySolid and liquid xenon seen through the window of an insulated cell at Lawrence Berkeley National LaboratoryImage: Solypewo · CC BY-SA 4.0
science · Europe

Ramsay and Travers discover xenon in London

In the 1890s William Ramsay, a chemist at University College London, showed that the air held a family of unreactive gases nobody had noticed. With Lord Rayleigh he found argon in 1894, and a year later he identified helium on Earth. In 1898 he and his assistant Morris Travers used a new machine for liquefying air to hunt for more, letting the liquid boil off slowly and studying what was left. That summer they found krypton and then neon. Working through the heaviest traces left behind by krypton, they found a gas with a new set of spectral lines, and on 12 July 1898 they had xenon, the rarest of the stable gases in the atmosphere. They named it from the Greek xenos, ‘stranger’. Ramsay won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1904. Xenon now lights camera flashes and car headlamps and drives the ion engines of spacecraft.

Source: University of Waterloo, Department of Chemistry: Xenon ↗
V
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

The 1900s

War and peace, technological leaps, social change, politics, sport and popular culture.

1970
The papyrus boat Ra II on display in the Kon-Tiki Museum in OsloThe papyrus boat Ra II on display in the Kon-Tiki Museum in OsloImage: GAD · CC BY-SA 3.0
world · Americas

Heyerdahl’s reed boat Ra II reaches Barbados

Thor Heyerdahl believed that ancient peoples could have crossed the Atlantic in boats made of reeds. His first papyrus boat, Ra, broke up in 1969 short of its goal. A second, smaller boat, Ra II, sailed from Safi in Morocco on 17 May 1970 with a crew of eight from different countries, and on 12 July, after 57 days and about 6,100 kilometres, it reached Barbados. The boat is now in the Kon-Tiki Museum in Oslo.

Source: Kon-Tiki Museum: Ra, 1969 - Ra II, 1970 ↗
1975
Manuel Pinto da Costa, the country's first president, greeted by a US State Department delegation at Andrews Air Force Base in 1986Manuel Pinto da Costa, the country’s first president, greeted by a US State Department delegation at Andrews Air Force Base in 1986Image: Kenneth E. Noyes · Public domain
politics · Africa

São Tomé and Príncipe becomes independent

The islands of São Tomé and Príncipe, in the Gulf of Guinea off the coast of Central Africa, were uninhabited when Portuguese sailors reached them around 1470. Portugal settled them with plantations worked by enslaved Africans, first for sugar and later for coffee and cocoa, and forced contract labour continued long after slavery was abolished. From 1960 a liberation movement, later called the MLSTP, organised in exile. After the Carnation Revolution of April 1974 ended Portugal’s dictatorship, the new government agreed to hand over power. The terms were settled with the MLSTP in Algiers in November 1974, and on 12 July 1975 the islands became independent, with the movement’s leader, Manuel Pinto da Costa, as president. Most Portuguese settlers left. The country was a one-party state until 1990, when a new constitution brought multiparty elections, and it has since become one of Africa’s more stable democracies.

Source: Britannica: History of Sao Tome and Principe ↗
1979
K2 with the line of the Abruzzi Spur, the route of Messner and Dacher's climbK2 with the line of the Abruzzi Spur, the route of Messner and Dacher’s climbImage: Svy123 (route line added by EMajor) · CC BY 3.0
sport · Asia

Messner and Dacher climb K2 without bottled oxygen

K2, on the border of Pakistan and China, is the world’s second-highest mountain at 8,611 metres and is often called harder than Everest. In 1978 the South Tyrolean climber Reinhold Messner had climbed Everest without supplementary oxygen. On 12 July 1979 he and the German Michael Dacher reached the top of K2 by the Abruzzi Spur, also without bottled oxygen, in a small, fast expedition. By 1986 Messner had climbed all 14 of the world’s 8,000-metre peaks.

Source: Guinness World Records: First ascent of Everest and K2 without supplementary oxygen ↗
1997
Moss-covered forest on Yakushima, the Japanese island whose woods inspired the film's settingMoss-covered forest on Yakushima, the Japanese island whose woods inspired the film’s settingImage: Σ64 · CC BY 3.0
culture · Asia

Princess Mononoke opens in Japanese cinemas

Hayao Miyazaki spent years developing Princess Mononoke at Studio Ghibli. Set in a mythical version of medieval Japan, it follows the young prince Ashitaka, cursed by a raging boar god, into a war between Lady Eboshi’s iron-making town, which is cutting down the forest, and the animal gods who defend it, led by San, a girl raised by wolves. There are no simple villains: the film asks how people can live alongside nature without destroying it. It opened in Japan on 12 July 1997 and became the highest-grossing film ever shown there, overtaking E.T., until Titanic passed it the following year. Its ancient forests were inspired by the woods of Yakushima, an island south of Kyushu. An English version, with a script by Neil Gaiman, followed in 1999 and helped carry Miyazaki’s work to audiences around the world.

Source: Studio Ghibli: Princess Mononoke ↗
1998
The ball used in the 1998 final, displayed in an exhibition beside Aimé Jacquet's France shirtThe ball used in the 1998 final, displayed in an exhibition beside Aimé Jacquet’s France shirtImage: Liondartois · CC BY-SA 4.0
sport · Europe

France beat Brazil to win their first World Cup

France had given the world the idea of the World Cup, but in 1998, when they hosted it for the second time, they had never won it. Coached by Aimé Jacquet and captained by Didier Deschamps, the team reached the final at the new Stade de France in Saint-Denis, where they met Brazil, the holders. Hours before kick-off Brazil’s star striker Ronaldo had suffered a fit, and he played but was far from his best. On 12 July 1998 Zinedine Zidane, not known for his heading, rose to head in two corners in the first half. France held on after Marcel Desailly was sent off, and Emmanuel Petit added a third in stoppage time to make it 3-0. Vast crowds filled the Champs-Élysées that night, and the team, with players whose families came from across the world, was hailed as a symbol of a diverse France.

Source: FIFA: Zidane ends France’s long wait ↗
VI
2000 TO TODAY

Modern Day

The events of recent decades that have already become part of the historical record.

2000
A Proton rocket carrying Zvezda lifts off from Baikonur in July 2000A Proton rocket carrying Zvezda lifts off from Baikonur in July 2000Image: NASA · Public domain
science · Global

The space station’s living quarters, Zvezda, are launched

The Russian service module Zvezda, ‘Star’, lifted off on a Proton rocket from Baikonur in Kazakhstan on 12 July 2000; in the United States it was still the evening of 11 July. On 26 July it docked with the first two modules of the International Space Station. Zvezda brought living quarters, life support and engines, and made it possible for the first resident crew to move in that November. It is still in use today.

Source: NASA: Space Station 20th, Zvezda Service Module reaches ISS ↗
RESEARCH

Sources & Further Reading

Selected authoritative references supporting the events on this page.

WHY THESE MOMENTS?

Significance before volume

This page is not the longest possible list of events. It is a chronological journey through 12 July, where each entry is chosen for historical significance, human interest and reliability.

Facts are checked against authoritative museums, archives, universities and reference works. Where sources disagree, the page says so.

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