Today in History, January 12th
On January 12, 2010, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake devastated Haiti. Plus the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate and Super Bowl III.
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January 12 is best known for the 2010 earthquake that devastated Haiti, one of the deadliest natural disasters of modern times. The date also saw Hattie Caraway become the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate in 1932 and Joe Namath’s New York Jets pull off their guaranteed Super Bowl upset in 1969.
The big story: Earthquake Devastates Haiti (2010)
At 4:53 p.m. on January 12, 2010, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck about 15 miles southwest of Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s crowded capital. The quake was shallow, and the city had few building codes worth the name, so concrete homes, schools and government buildings came down in seconds. The National Palace, the cathedral, the parliament and the United Nations headquarters were all badly damaged. The nearby town of Léogâne was nearly flattened. About three million people, close to a third of the country, were affected, and more than a million lost their homes. The death toll is disputed. Haiti’s government eventually put the toll at 316,000, while a draft U.S. government report suggested a far lower number. Blocked roads and broken communications slowed the relief effort. Then, in October, cholera broke out, an epidemic the UN later admitted playing a role in.
More events on January 12
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1773 | The first public museum in what became the United States was established in Charleston, South Carolina. |
| 1888 | The “Schoolchildren’s Blizzard” swept the northern Plains, killing 235 people, many of them children walking home from school. |
| 1904 | Henry Ford drove his “999” race car 91.37 mph on frozen Lake St. Clair in Michigan, a new land speed record. |
| 1919 | The leaders of Britain, France, Italy and the United States met for the first time in Paris to shape the peace after World War I. |
| 1932 | Hattie Caraway of Arkansas became the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate. She had been appointed to her late husband’s seat two months earlier. |
| 1954 | Secretary of State John Foster Dulles announced the Cold War policy of “massive retaliation” against Communist aggression. |
| 1959 | Berry Gordy launched Tamla Records, the label that grew into Motown. |
| 1960 | Britain formally ended the state of emergency in Kenya that it had declared during the Mau Mau Rebellion. |
| 1969 | The New York Jets, 18-point underdogs, beat the Baltimore Colts 16-7 in Super Bowl III, just as Joe Namath had guaranteed. |
| 1986 | Franklin Chang-Díaz became the first Hispanic American in space, flying aboard the shuttle Columbia. |
| 2005 | NASA launched Deep Impact, a space probe sent to study a comet up close. |
Born on January 12
- 1628: Charles Perrault, French writer of the Tales of Mother Goose.
- 1876: Jack London, author of The Call of the Wild and White Fang.
- 1944: Joe Frazier, world heavyweight boxing champion.
- 1964: Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.
Sources
- 2010 Haiti Earthquake, Britannica
- What Happened on January 12, History.com
- On This Day: January 12, Britannica
- Charles Perrault, Britannica
- Jack London, Britannica
- Joe Frazier, Britannica
- Jeff Bezos, Britannica
