January 12 Birthdays

January 12 in History

1773

The first public museum in the U.S. was established in Charleston, S.C.

1896

H. L. Smith took the first X-ray photograph. It was a hand with a bullet in it.

1915

The U.S. House of Representatives rejected a proposal to give women the right to vote.

1932

Hattie W. Caraway, a democrat from Arkansas became the first woman to be elected to the U.S. Senate.

1964

One month after Zanzibar became independent, the ruling Zanzibar Nationalist Party was overthrown in a violent coup.

1991

A divided Congress gave President Bush the go-ahead on the Persian Gulf War.

1998

Nineteen European countries signed an agreement banning human cloning.

2010

Haiti is dealt a catastrophic blow when a magnitude 7.0 earthquake strikes 10 miles southwest of Port-au-Prince, the country's capital. It is the region's worst earthquake in 200 years. The number of fatalities were between 46,000 and 85,000 people.