Today in History, April 12th
On April 12, 1861, Confederate guns fired on Fort Sumter, starting the Civil War. Plus Yuri Gagarin's flight and FDR's death.
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April 12 is best known for 1861, when Confederate guns opened fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor and the American Civil War began. The date also saw Yuri Gagarin become the first human in space in 1961 and President Franklin D. Roosevelt die in office in 1945.
The big story: The Civil War begins at Fort Sumter (1861)
By the spring of 1861, seven Southern states had left the Union, and a small federal garrison sat in the middle of Charleston Harbor, inside South Carolina, the first state to secede. Union Maj. Robert Anderson held Fort Sumter. Confederate Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard commanded the guns that ringed it. On April 12, 1861, the Confederate batteries opened fire. Over the next 34 hours, some 50 guns and mortars hurled more than 4,000 rounds at the fort. Anderson surrendered on April 13. Two days later, President Abraham Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to put down what he called an insurrection, and the country slid into full-scale war. About 620,000 Union and Confederate soldiers would die before it ended. The first shots at Sumter turned a long political crisis into open war.
More events on April 12
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1204 | During the Fourth Crusade, Alexius V, the last Greek emperor of a united Byzantium, fled Constantinople. |
| 1633 | Galileo Galilei went on trial for heresy for his belief that the Earth moves around the Sun. |
| 1770 | The British crown approved repeal of the Townshend Acts, which had taxed imports to the American colonies. |
| 1917 | Canadian forces captured Vimy Ridge in northern France from the Germans after three days of fighting. |
| 1945 | President Franklin D. Roosevelt died early in his fourth term, and Harry S. Truman became president. |
| 1954 | Bill Haley and His Comets recorded “Rock Around the Clock.” |
| 1955 | The results of a two-year trial of the polio vaccine were announced, and the vaccine was licensed the same day. |
| 1961 | Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space, aboard Vostok 1. |
| 1963 | Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested in Birmingham, Alabama, during protests against segregation. In jail, he wrote his “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” |
| 1981 | NASA launched Columbia from Cape Canaveral, the first flight of a space shuttle. |
| 2014 | A fire destroyed thousands of homes in Valparaíso, Chile, and killed at least 16 people. |
Born on April 12
- 1577: Christian IV, king of Denmark and Norway from 1588 to 1648, born at Frederiksborg Castle in Hillerød, Denmark.
- 1777: Henry Clay, “the Great Compromiser” of the U.S. Congress, born in Hanover County, Virginia.
- 1947: David Letterman, late-night TV host, born in Indianapolis.
Keep reading
Sources
- The Civil War begins, History.com
- This Day in History: April 12, History.com
- What happened on April 12, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Christian IV, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Henry Clay, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- David Letterman, Encyclopaedia Britannica
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