Following are some of the major events to have occurred on February 12:
1929 – Lily Langtry, actress and King Edward VII’s mistress, died.
1946 – Operation Deadlight ends after scuttling 121 of 154 captured U-boats.
1963 – Construction begins on Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri.
1993 – Two-year-old James Bulger is abducted in Manchester.
1996 – Yasser Arafat took office as the first Palestinian president.
1999 – U.S. President Bill Clinton acquitted in impeachment trial.
2001 – Scientists celebrated the publication of the sequencing of the human genetic code.
2001 – Space probe NEAR Shoemaker came to a bouncing landing on the asteroid Eros, the first time any craft had landed on this kind of space rock.
2002 – The trial of Slobadan Milosevic opened in the Hague. He was charged with crimes against humanity in Croatia and Kosovo and genocide in the 1992-95 Bosnian war.
2006 – American Peter Benchley, author of the bestseller “Jaws,” which was the basis for the blockbuster movie that terrified beachgoers and kept many out of the water for years, died aged 65.
2012 – Singer Adele wins six Gammy Awards.
(Reuters, Photo from Associated Press)
