Today is Wednesday, April 12, the 102nd day of the year. There are 263days remaining until the end of the year.
On April 12, 1861, the Civil War began as Confederate forces opened fire on Fort Sumter in South Carolina.
In 1777 American statesman Henry Clay, who sought to shield the country from sectional discord over slavery, was born in Hanover county, Virginia.
In 1892 A patent for the first portable typewriter was issued in the United States.
In 1939, a Plan to stabilize U.S. stocks in event of war discussed by bankers at meeting in New York City.
In 1941, Nazi-occupied Denmark declared 'void' the agreement signed between U.S. and Danish envoy in Washington.
In 1945 President Franklin Delano Roosevelt died in Warm Springs, Ga.
In 1960, Foreign ministers of France, Britain and the U.S. met in Washington, D.C., to discuss tactical and procedural questions relating to the projected summit conference.
In 1961, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human in outer space.
In 1966, Greek Prime Minister Stephanopoulos announced his determination to remain in office despite loss of a parliamentary majority following resignations of the foreign minister and welfare minister.
In 1977, President Jimmy Carter reduced from 20 to 8 years the prison term of G. Gordon Liddy, the only one of the original Watergate-burglary defendants still serving a sentence.
In 1981, American Joe Louis, world heavyweight boxing champion from 1937 to 1949, died at age 66.
Also in 1981, NASA launched the first space shuttle, Columbia, which was designed to orbit Earth, transport people and cargo to and from orbiting spacecraft, and glide to a runway landing on its return to Earth.
In 1988, a chartered DC-3 Dakota airliner, ferrying jockeys from races in Bloemfontein, crashes near Henneman, S.Af.; all 23 persons aboard are killed.
In 1989, American boxer Sugar Ray Robinson, a six-time world champion who was considered by many to have been the best fighter in history, died at age 67.
In 2007, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announce that fluoroquinolones, a class of antibiotics that includes Cipro, should no longer be used to treat gonorrhea, which has mutated to become resistant to drugs of that class; the disease became resistant to penicillin, which necessitated the move to fluoroquinolones.
In 2014, activists in Syria report that a poisongas attack took place the previous day in the rebelheld village of Kfar Zeita, Hama province, when government helicopters dropped bombs containing a substance that may have been chlorine.