May 12 in History
1364 Jagiellonian University, the oldest in Poland, is founded in Kraków by King Casimir III the Great. It is the 13th oldest university in continuous operation in the world.
1551 The National University of San Marcos, the oldest continuously operating university in the Americas, is founded in Lima, Peru.
1820 Florence Nightingale (“The Lady with the Lamp”), founder of modern nursing who comes to prominence during the Crimean War, is born in Florence, Italy, into a wealthy British family.
1938 —“Jeanne d’Arc au bûcher” (Joan of Arc at the Stake), an oratorio by Frenchmen Arthur Honegger (music) and Paul Claudel (libretto), premieres in Basel. It stars Ida Rubinstein, Russian dancer, actress, art patron and Belle Époque figure, who commissioned the 80-minute work. 1942 Second Battle of Kharkov: In eastern Ukraine, Red Army forces launch a major offensive against the German 6th Army from the Izium bridgehead. They are encircled by the troops of the Army Group South and destroyed by May 28. 1965 The Soviet spacecraft Luna 5, launched on May 9, crashes on the moon.
1982 During a procession outside the shrine of the Virgin Mary in Fátima, Portugal Pope John Paul II’s pilgrimage to give thanks for his life being spared after the attack by Turkish assassin Mehmet Ali Agcaat in St Peter’s Square on May 13 1981 security guards overpower Spanish priest Juan María Fernández y Krohn before he can attack the pope with a bayonet.
1996 Cyril Ramaphosa confirms his resignation as ANC secretary-general and from parliament. 1998 Four students, aged 19-21, are killed by security forces at Trisakti University, Jakarta, Indonesia, during protests demanding President Suharto’s resignation. Widespread riots follow. Suharto (in office since March 27 1968) offers to resign in 2003 and to reshuffle his cabinet. However, his political allies refuse to join the proposed new cabinet. He resigns on May 21. 2017 More than 300,000 computers across 150 countries are attacked by the WannaCry ransomware crypto worm, targeting computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system by encrypting data and demanding ransom payments in Bitcoins. The attack begins at
7.44am UTC and is halted at 3.03pm by the registration of a kill switch discovered by British computer security researcher Marcus Hutchins.