May 12 in History
1881 — The Treaty of Bardo establishes Tunisia as a French protectorate, with France taking responsibility for the country’s defence and foreignpolicy decisions. France revokes the protectorate clause in 1956 and recognises the complete independence of the Kingdom of Tunisia under Muhammad VIII al-Amin on March 20.
1907 — Katharine Hepburn, actress, is born in Hartford, Connecticut. She wins her first Oscar in 1934 for “Morning Glory” and is nominated for “Alice Adams” in 1936. But after a series of commercial failures, she is labelled “box office poison” in 1938. She masterminds her own comeback. Between 1941 and ’63 she receives seven more Oscar nominations and then wins another three golden statues: for “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” in 1968, “The Lion in
Winter” (shared with Barbra Streisand for “Funny Girl”) in 1969 and “On Golden Pond” in 1982.
1915 — De Nationale Pers Beperkt (now Naspers) is founded after a meeting of 16 prominent Cape Afrikaners in Stellenbosch on December 18 1914. 1926 — Italian pilot and aeronautical engineer Umberto Nobile pilots his Norge airship over the North Pole with Norwegian and American explorers Roald Amundsen and Lincoln Ellsworth on board. It is the first verified trip of any kind to the North Pole. 1929 — Sam (Samuel Shafiishuna Daniel) Nujoma, first president of Namibia (1990-2005), is born in Ongandjera, South West Africa.
1937 — The Duke of York is crowned George VI, King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth, at Westminster Abbey following the abdication of his brother Edward VIII. 1941 — German scientist Konrad Zuse presents his Z3, the world’s first working programmable and fully automatic digital computer, at the German Laboratory for Aviation in Berlin.
1943 — The battle for North Africa — incited when Italy’s fascist dictator Benito Mussolini declared war on England and France on June 10 1940 and ordered the invasion of Egypt in September — ends when 275,000 Axis forces surrender in Tunisia. This is the first major Allied victory of World War 2.
1949 — The Soviet Union announces an end to the Berlin Blockade. One of the first major international crises of the Cold War started on June 24 1948 during the multinational occupation of post-World War 2 Germany when the Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies’ railway, road and canal access to the sectors of Berlin under Western control.
2008 — A magnitude 7.9 earthquake strikes the mountainous central region of Sichuan province in southwestern China, killing almost 90,000 people and injuring 375,000.