February 12 ...

In 1541 the city of Santiago, Chile, was founded. In 1554 Lady Jane Grey, who'd claimed the throne of England for nine days, and her husband, Guildford Dudley, were beheaded after being condemned for high treason. In 1733 Savannah, GA, was founded by English colonist James Oglethorpe. In 1809 Abraham Lincoln was born in Hardin (now Larue) County, KY; also on this day, Charles Darwin was born in Shewsbury, England. In 1870 women in the Utah Territory gained the right to vote. In 1893 Omar Bradley, American commander of the US 12th Army Group in Europe, and later the first official Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was born in Clark, MO. In 1909 the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded. In 1912 the last emperor of China Pu Yi abdicated, marking the end of the Qing Dynasty. In 1915 the cornerstone of the Lincoln Memorial was laid in Washington, DC. In 1924 George Gershwin performed his Rhapsody In Blue for the first time in public in front of bandleader Paul Whiteman and his Orchestra; also on this day, President Calvin Coolidge made the first presidential political speech on radio. It originated from New York City and was broadcast on five radio stations, with some five million people tuned in. In 1934 basketball Hall of Famer Bill Russell was born in Monroe, LA. In 1941 Erwin Rommel was made commander of the German Afrika Korps; also on this day, the first injection of penicillin into a human test subject was conducted on a patient who had scratched his face on a rose bush. In 1950 Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-WI) announced that he had a list of 205 communist government employees -- the list underestimated the number according to documents since unearthed after the fall of the Soviet Union; also on this day, Albert Einstein warned against the hydrogen bomb. In 1964 The Beatles played two concerts at New York City's Carnegie Hall. In 1999 the Senate acquitted President Clinton of perjury and obstruction of justice. In 2000 Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz died in Santa Rosa, CA, at age 77. In 2001 the NEAR spacecraft touched down on Eros, completing the first landing on an asteroid; also on this day, scientists published their first examinations of nearly all the human genetic code.