This Day in History is DUE’s daily dose of trivia for all the history buffs out there. So sit back and take a ride of all the fascinating things that happened on 12th April!
People are trapped in history and history is trapped in people, and hence, every day has been a significant one in the foibles of history. Now, let’s take a tour of “This Day in History – 12th April”.
1861: Battle of Fort Sumter
The Battle of Fort Sumter was the bombardment of Fort Sumter near Charleston, South Carolina by the South Carolina militia. It started the American Civil War- a war that lasted four years, costing 620,000 lives and freed 3.9 million enslaved people from bondage. The battle is usually recognized as the First Battle of American Civil War.
1943: Sumitra Mahajan is born
Sumitra Mahajan, an Indian politician who served as the Speaker of Lok Sabha from 2014 to 2019 was born on 12th April, 1943. She belongs to the Bharatiya Janata Party. In 2019, she retired from electoral politics after representing the Indore constituency of Madhya Pradesh from 1989 to 2019 as a longest-serving Woman Member of Parliament. She was awarded India’s third highest civilian award the Padma Bhushan in 2021.
1945: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt dies
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the 32nd president of the United States and served 4 terms in office starting 1933. A member of the Democratic Party, he directed the federal government during most of the Great Depression. He died at the age of 63 due to a massive cerebral hemorrhage. Upon his death, Vice President Harry S. Truman became in charge of the country which was still fighting the Second World War.
1961: Yuri Gagarin becomes the first person to travel into space
On this day in 1961, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space, making a 108-minute orbital flight in the Vostok 1 spacecraft. He also became the first man to orbit the Earth. To mark this historical day, the UN General Assembly in 2011, declared April 12 as the International Day of Human Space Flight.
1981: Launch of the first space shuttle
On this day in 1981, NASA launched the world’s first space shuttle- Columbia, or STS-1. Its design was such that it could orbit the Earth, transport people and cargo to and from orbiting spacecraft and glide to a runway landing on its return to Earth. Astronaut John Young commanded the mission. The shuttle was the world’s first reusable spacecraft.
