It happened on this day, August 12th.
Events:
636 – The Muslims, led by Khalid bin Al-Walid, defeat the Romans, led by Jaban, at the Battle of Yarmouk. 50,000 Romans and 3,000 Muslims are killed. Following this battle, the rest of the Levant is conquered and the Byzantine Empire falls.
1099 – The Battle of Ashkelon takes place, the last battle of the First Crusade and a victory for the Crusaders over the Fatimids.
1164 – Muslims are victorious over the Franks at the Battle of Harim under the leadership of Sultan Nur al-Din Zengi.
1783 – The Battle of Raqqa takes place between the Kuwaitis and the Bani Kaab tribe.
1809 – National leader Omar Makram is exiled to Damietta by decision of Muhammad Ali Pasha, despite Omar's role in bringing Muhammad Ali to power in Egypt in 1805.
1888 – Bertha Benz, wife of German inventor Karl Benz, becomes the first person in history to travel in a car powered by a steam engine.
1898 – Ownership of the Hawaiian Islands in the Pacific Ocean is transferred to the United States.
1928 – New York's first regular television broadcasts begin, lasting 2 hours, 3 days a week.
1940 – Start of “Operation Eagle”, the operation in which German aircraft destroy the British Royal Air Force and its air defenses during World War II.
(1945–The Soviet Union occupies North Korea
1946 – The United Kingdom orders a halt to Jewish immigration to Palestine and decides to imprison those who facilitate it in Cyprus.
1949 – Signing of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War.
1952 – West Germany and Japan join the International Monetary Fund. Eritrea officially joins Ethiopia.
1953 – The Soviet Union detonates its first hydrogen bomb.
1976 – The Tal al-Zaatar massacre took place in the Tal al-Zaatar Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon.
1981 – The emergence of the personal computer by IBM.
1995 – Iraqi Minister of Industrialization Hussein Kamel Hassan, his brother Saddam, their wives Raghad and Rana, daughters of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, and their children leave him and take refuge in Jordan.
2000 – Sinking of the Russian submarine Ki-141 Kursk.
2008 – The Lebanese National Unity Government won the confidence of the Parliament with 100 votes out of 107 participants, while 5 MPs refused to give confidence and 2 MPs abstained, and Vice President Hussein Al-Husseini announced his resignation as an MP in protest against the poor conditions.
2012 – Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi retires Defense Minister Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi and Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Sami Anan, and appoints General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi as Commander of the Armed Forces and Minister of Defense and Military Production. He also appoints Mahmoud Mekky as Vice President of the Republic.
2015 – Huge explosions in Tianjin, China, killing at least 50 people and injuring hundreds.
✴️ Al-Qassam Brigades seize Israeli Skylark 1 reconnaissance aircraft and put it into service.
2016 – Danish biologist Julius Nielsen publishes his research confirming that the Greenland shark is the longest-living vertebrate, with the average lifespan of an individual reaching around 400 years.
2017 – 3 people were killed and more than 30 injured following violence between white nationalist protesters (the American far right) and counter-protesters in the city of Charlottesville, Virginia.
2018 – NASA launches the Parker probe toward the Sun to study its outer corona. Caspian Sea countries sign a treaty on the legal status of the sea after 22 years of deliberations.
⚫⚫⚫⚫⚫⚫⚫⚫⚫⚫⚫A
Births:
1503 – King Christian III, King of Denmark and Norway.
1720 – Conrad Eickhoff, German actor.
1762 – King George IV, King of the United Kingdom and Hanover.
1866 – Jacinto Benapente, Spanish writer, Nobel Prize for Literature in 1922.
1887 – Erwin Schrödinger, Austrian physicist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1933.
1919 – Vikram Sarabhai, Indian physicist.
1924 – Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, President of Pakistan.
1935 – Jan Popluhar, Slovak footballer.
1936 – Ibrahim Khan, Sudanese actor of Egyptian origin.
1963 – Ahmed Fahd Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, Kuwaiti athlete.
1968 – Mead Awad, an Iraqi actress who worked in Kuwait.
1971 – Pete Sampras, American tennis player.
1972 – Takanohana Koji, Japanese sumo wrestler.
1975 – Casey Affleck, American actor.
1977 – Jesper Gronkjaer, Danish footballer.
1981 – Djibril Cissé, French footballer.
1982 – Rasha Mahdy, Egyptian actress.
** Alexandros Tzourvas, Greek footballer.
1983 – Klaas-Jan Huntelaar, Dutch footballer.
** Meryem Uzerli, Turkish/German actress.
1987 – Abdullah Al-Buraiki, Kuwaiti footballer.
1990 – Mario Balotelli, Italian footballer.
⚫⚫⚫⚫⚫⚫⚫⚫⚫⚫⚫A
Death:
1484 – Pope Sixtus IV, Pope of the Roman Catholic Church.
1827 – William Blake, English poet.
1848 – George Stevenson, English engineer.
1901 – Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld, Finnish-Swedish explorer.
1955 – Thomas Mann, German writer, Nobel Prize for Literature in 1929.
** James Sumner, American chemist who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1946.
1964 – Ian Fleming, British novelist.
1973 – Walter Hess, Swiss physiologist, Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1949.
** Karl Ziegler, German chemist who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1963.
** Muhammad Al-Tahir bin Ashour, Tunisian scholar and jurist, author of the Interpretation of Liberation and Enlightenment.
1977 – Kamal al-Din al-Ta'i, Iraqi Hanafi jurist and journalist.
1979 – Ernest Chain, British physician who won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1945.
1982 – Henry Fonda, American actor.
1985 – Sakamoto Kyo, Japanese singer.
1989 – William Shockley, American physicist, Nobel Prize in Physics in 1956.
2004 – Godfrey Hounsfield, English electrical engineer who won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1979.
2005 – Mansour Al-Kharqawi, Kuwaiti poet.
2010 – Tahar Ouattar, Algerian writer.
2018 – Fariha Al-Ahmad, Kuwaiti princess and humanitarian activist.
2020 – Sanaa Shafea, Egyptian actor and director.
⚫⚫⚫⚫⚫⚫⚫⚫⚫⚫⚫A
Public holidays and occasions:
⬅️ International Youth Day.
⬅️ Mother's Day in Thailand.
⬅️ Russian Air Force Day.
