November 12 in History

1799 – Andrew Ellicott wrote the first known record of a meteor shower observed in the US. We now know they were the Leonids.

1847 – Sir James Young Simpson, the father of modern anesthetics, used chloroform (“perchloride of formyle”) for the first time as an anesthetic in an operation.

1892 – William “Pudge” Walter Heffelfinger was the first professional (paid) US Football player. He got $25 and a $500 bonus for a single game.

1922 (Volcano Eruption & Tsunami) Chile/Argentina – over 1,000 people were killed.

1927 – The Holland Tunnel connecting NY and NY – the world’s first underwater vehicular tunnel – officially opened.

1929 – Commander Richard E. Byrd made the first flight over the South Pole.

1933 – First known photo of the so-called Loch Ness Monster was taken by Hugh Gray, although George Spicer’s 1933 photograph is better known.

1936 – The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge opened to traffic.

1940 – The Armistice Day Blizzard killed nearly 150 people and stretched from Kansas to Michigan.

1946 – The Exchange National Bank of Chicago, Illinois, instituted the first drive in banking service in America.

1952 (Earthquake & Tsunami) Kamchatka.

1954 – Ellis Island in New York closed after providing entrance to the US for 12 million immigrants between 1892 and 1924.

1956 – The largest iceberg on record was sighted by the USS Glacier, a U. S. Navy icebreaker about 150 miles west of Scott Island in the Southern Hemisphere. It had broken from the Ross Ice Shelf in the Antarctic. It was about 208 miles long and 60 miles wide.

#1 Hit November 12, 1966 – November 18, 1966: Johnny Rivers – Poor Side Of Town

1966 – The first photograph was taken from Earth’s atmosphere by the satellite Gemini XII.

1970 – Sleuth (Broadway Play) Opened on November 12, 1970 and closed on October 13, 1973

1970 – The Oregon Highway Division attempts to destroy a beached eight-ton sperm whale near Florence, Oregon with half a ton of dynamite. It mainly made a bigger mess.

1981 – Mission STS-2, utilizing the Space Shuttle Columbia, marked the first time a manned spacecraft is launched into space twice.

1981 – First balloon crossing of Pacific was completed. The Double Eagle V launched from Nagashima, Japan on November 10, 1981.

#1 Hit November 12, 1983 – December 9, 1983: Lionel Richie – All Night Long (All Night)

#1 Hit November 12, 1988 – November 18, 1988: The Escape Club – Wild, Wild West

1989 – Grand Hotel (Broadway Musical) Opened on November 12, 1989 and closed on April 25, 1992

1993 – The first Ultimate Fighting Championship event, UFC 1, was held in Denver, Colorado.

1997 – Ramzi Yousef is found guilty of masterminding the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

2001 – In New York City, American Airlines Flight 587, an Airbus A300 on its way to the Dominican Republic, crashed minutes after takeoff from John F. Kennedy International Airport, killing all 260 on board and five on the ground.

2004 – A jury in Redwood City, California, convicted Scott Peterson of murdering his pregnant wife, Laci, and dumping her body in San Francisco Bay.

#1 Hit November 12, 2011 – January 6, 2012: Rihanna featuring Calvin Harris – We Foun