Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/August 12
This is a list of selected August 12 anniversaries that appear in the "On this day" section of the Main Page. To suggest a new item, in most cases, you can be bold and edit this page. Please read the selected anniversaries guidelines before making your edit. However, if your addition might be controversial or on a day that is or will soon be on the Main Page, please post your suggestion on the talk page instead.
Please note that the events listed on the Main Page are chosen based more on relative article quality and to maintain a mix of topics, not based solely on how important or significant their subjects are. Only four to five events are posted at a time and thus not everything that is "most important and significant" can be listed. In addition, an event is generally not posted this year if it is also the subject of the scheduled featured article or picture of the day.
To report an error when this appears on the Main Page, see Main Page errors. Please remember that this list defers to the supporting articles, so it is best to achieve consensus and make any necessary changes there first.
August 12: Mother's Day and Queen Sirikit's Birthday in Thailand; International Youth Day
- 1676 – Praying Indian John Alderman shot and killed King Philip, the Wampanoag war chief, ending King Philip's War.
- 1877 – American astronomer Asaph Hall discovered Deimos, the smaller of the two moons of Mars.
- 1981 – The IBM Personal Computer (pictured), the original version and progenitor of the IBM PC compatible hardware platform, was introduced.
- 1990 – American paleontologist Sue Hendrickson found the most complete skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus near Faith, South Dakota, US.
- 2000 – The Oscar class submarine K-141 Kursk of the Russian Navy exploded and sank in the Barents Sea during a military exercise.
- 2005 – Foreign Minister of Sri Lanka Lakshman Kadirgamar was fatally shot by a Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam sniper as he was getting out of his swimming pool at his home in Colombo.