41st year - Nr 132 Tuesday, 12 May 2026

BIRTH(+)FACT(᙮)DEATH(-)
41st year - Nr 132 Tuesday, 12 May 2026

12 May / Today's 45 Events:

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(-) 1023 years ago Thursday 12th of May 1003 139th Pope Silvester II, originally Gerbert of Aurillac dies of unknown causes at the age of 57 in Vatican City, Rome, Lazio, Italy.

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(-) 1014 years ago Tuesday 12th of May 1012 142nd Pope Sergius IV, originally Pietro Martino Buccaporci dies of unknown causes at the age of 42 in Vatican City, Rome, Lazio, Italy. There was some suspicion that Sergius IV was murdered as he died within a week of Crescentius, considered by many to have been his patron.

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(+) 206 years ago Friday 12th of May 1820 Social reformer, statistician and modern nursing pioneer Florence Nightingale aka The Lady with the Lamp is born in Villa La Colombia, Via di Santa Maria a Marignolle 2, Firenze, Toscana, Italy.

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(+) 184 years ago Thursday 12th of May 1842 Composer Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet is born in Place de la Terrasse, Montaud, Saint-Étienne, Loire, France.

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(-) 156 years ago Thursday 12th of May 1870 Johannes Swanenburg is poisoned with arsenic by serial poisoner Maria Swanenburg aka Goeie Mie in Leiden, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands.

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(-) 142 years ago Monday 12th of May 1884 Composer Bedřich Smetana dies of physical and mental decline due to syphilis at the age of 60 in Kateřinky Lunatic Asylum, Praha, Bohemia, Czechoslovakia.

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(-) 134 years ago Thursday 12th of May 1892 Sex killer Etienne Deschamps aka The Magnetic Doctor is executed by hanging at the age of 62 in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States.

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(-) 133 years ago Friday 12th of May 1893 Murderer John Z. Carlisle is executed by hanging at the age of 44 in Sherman, Texas, United States.

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(-) 133 years ago Friday 12th of May 1893 Murderer Charles Luttrell is executed by hanging in Sherman, Texas, United States.

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(-) 131 years ago Sunday 12th of May 1895 Adèle Augustine Mortureux is strangled and disemboweled by serial killer Joseph Vacher aka L’Eventreur du Sud-Est in Étaules, Franche-Comté, France.

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(+) 131 years ago Sunday 12th of May 1895 Spiritual leader Jiddu Krishnamurti is born in Madanapalle, Andhra Pradesh, India.

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(+) 129 years ago Wednesday 12th of May 1897 Serial killer Earle Leonard Nelson aka The Gorilla Murderer is born in San Francisco, California, United States.

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(-) 119 years ago Sunday 12th of May 1907 Writer Joris-Karl Charles Marie Georges Huysmans dies of cancer of the mouth at the age of 59 in Paris, Île-de-France, France.

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(+) 119 years ago Sunday 12th of May 1907 Actress Katharine Houghton Hepburn is born in Hartford, Connecticut, United States.

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(+) 108 years ago Sunday 12th of May 1918 American Communist and Soviet spy Julius Rosenberg is born in New York City, New York, United States.

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(+) 105 years ago Thursday 12th of May 1921 Artist and pedagogue Joseph Heinrich Beuys is born in Krefeld, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany.

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(+) 102 years ago Monday 12th of May 1924 Comedian and actor Tony Anthony John Hancock is born in Southam Road, Hall Green, Birmingham, West Midlands, .

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(+) 98 years ago Saturday 12th of May 1928 Singer-songwriter and composer Burt Freeman Bacharach is born in Kansas City, Missouri, United States.

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(x) 94 years ago Thursday 12th of May 1932 2-year-old Kidnap victim Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr. is found dead in a grove of trees by delivery truck driver William Allen in Mercer County, Hopewell Township, New Jersey, United States.

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(+) 90 years ago Tuesday 12th of May 1936 Minimalist painter Frank Stella is born in Malden, Massachusetts, United States.

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(+) 90 years ago Tuesday 12th of May 1936 Television personality Tom Thomas James Snyder is born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States.

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(-) 90 years ago 10.000 Signatures Could Be Wrong Tuesday 12th of May 1936 Physician and murderer Buck Ruxton, originally Bukhtyar Chompa Rustomji Ratanji Hakim is executed by hanging by Albert Pierrepoint at the age of 37 in Strangeways Prison, Manchester, Greater Manchester, United Kingdom. Ruxton was executed despite a petition urging clemency for him from Lancaster residents having collected over 10.000 signatures.

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(+) 84 years ago He Was a Spasticus Autisticus Tuesday 12th of May 1942 Musician Ian Robins Dury known from Ian Dury and the Blockheads is born in 43 Weald Rise, Harrow Weald, Greater London, United Kingdom.

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(+) 79 years ago Monday 12th of May 1947 Member of Zentralrat der Umherschweifenden Haschrebellen and Bewegung 2. Juni Georg von Rauch is born in Marburg-an-der-Lahn, Hessen, Germany.

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(x) 70 years ago Came Along the Tooth Fairy Saturday 12th of May 1956 36-year-old Actor Montgomery Edward 'Monty' Clift crashes his car into a telephone pole on the way back from a dinner party at the house of Elizabeth Taylor in Tower Road, Beverly Hills, California, United States. Alerted by friend Kevin McCarthy, who witnessed the accident, Taylor raced to Clift's side, manually pulling a tooth out of his tongue as he had begun to choke on it.

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(-) 69 years ago Sunday 12th of May 1957 Film director Erich von Stroheim, originally Erich Oswald Stroheim aka The Man You Love to Hate dies of cancer at the age of 72 in Allée Eric Von Stroheim, Maurepas, Île-de-France, France.

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(x) 54 years ago Friday 12th of May 1972 Two pipe bombs from die Rote Armee Fraktion aka Baader-Meinhof Gruppe explode in office cabinets in Police Headquarters in Augsburg, Bayern, Germany. Five policemen were injured. Two hours later a Ford 12 van loaded with explosives blew up in the car park of the Criminal Investigation office in München. 60 cars were demolished. The Tommy Weissbecker Commando claimed responsability for the attack.

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(-) 53 years ago Saturday 12th of May 1973 Child killer Ali Ben Yanes aka l’Égorgeur de Gattières is executed by the Guillotine by André Olbrecht at the age of 34 in Baumettes Prison, 239 Chemin de Morgiou, Marseille, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France.

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(-) 45 years ago Tuesday 12th of May 1981 Irish republican hunger striker Francis Hughes, originally Proinsias Ó hAodha dies after 59 days of hungerstriking at the age of 31 in Maze Prison, Lisburn, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom. Hughes was the second to die in the 1981 Irish Hunger Strike.

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(-) 45 years ago Tuesday 12th of May 1981 Dzung Ngoc Tu is raped and strangled by serial killer Michael Ross aka The Roadside Strangler in Cornell University Campus, Ithaca, New York, United States.

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(x) 44 years ago Wednesday 12th of May 1982 62-year-old Ioannes Paulus II, originally Karol Józef Wojtyła is stabbed with a bajonet by 32-year-old traditionalist Catholic Spanish priest Juan María Fernández y Krohn in Santuário de Fátima, Fátima, Beira Litoral, Portugal. Krohn claimed that the pope was an agent of Communist Moscow and of the Marxist Eastern Bloc.

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(x) 42 years ago Saturday 12th of May 1984 38-year-old Serial killer Michel Bellen aka The Strangler of the Left Bank has his second death-sentence commuted to life-imprisonment in Centrale Gevangenis, Geldenaakse Vest, Leuven, Vlaams-Brabant, Belgium.

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(-) 41 years ago Sunday 12th of May 1985 Art Brut artist Jean Philippe Arthur Dubuffet dies of emphysema at the age of 84 in VIe, Paris, Île-de-France, France.

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(-) 39 years ago Tuesday 12th of May 1987 Spree killer Michel Van Wijnendaele aka The Mad Cyclist commits suicide by a shot in the head at the age of 28 in Sirault, Hainaut, Belgium. Van Wijnendaele killed himself after he was closed in by state police. Earlier that day he killed seven people; 90-year-old Jean Baptiste and 84-year-old Margriet Nechelput, 54-year-old Edgard, 46-year-old Liliane and 20-year-old Christian De Crem and the German Shepherd Tibo on a farm in Bogaarden, and 37-year-old Marie-Therese Walraevens and 3-year-old Ludovic De Rijck on another farm. In Denderwindeke he shot is parents-in-law, both survived.

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(x) 37 years ago Friday 12th of May 1989 44-year-old Serial killer Randy Steven Kraft aka The Scorecard Killer is found guilty of sixteen counts of murder, one count of sodomy, and one count of emasculation in Orange County, California, United States.

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(-) 33 years ago Wednesday 12th of May 1993 Cop killer Leonel Torres Herrera is executed by lethal injection at the age of 46 in Huntsville Prison, 815 12th Street, Huntsville, Texas, United States.

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(-) 29 years ago He Took a Final Shower Monday 12th of May 1997 Serial killer Dimitris Vakrinos commits suicide by hanging with a shoelace at the age of 36 in Athens, Attica, Greece. A guard found the Vakrinos hanging in the showers of the prison isolation ward where he was being held with two other prisoners.

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(-) 25 years ago Saturday 12th of May 2001 Singer and television personality Perry Pierino Ronald Como dies in his sleep at the age of 89 in Jupiter Inlet Colony, Florida, United States. Como was reported to have suffered from symptoms of Alzheimer's disease.

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(-) 25 years ago Saturday 12th of May 2001 Aircraft designer Alexei Andreyevich Tupolev dies of a long illness at the age of 76 in Moscow, Central Federal District, Russia.

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(-) 23 years ago Monday 12th of May 2003 Actor Gregory Eldred Peck dies of bronchopneumonia at the age of 87 in Los Angeles, California, United States.

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(x) 20 years ago Friday 12th of May 2006 Over 150 die in pressurised petrol pipeline explosion and fire in Atlas Creek Island, Lagos, Lagos State, Nigeria. Vandals drilled holes into the pipe to steal fuel and local people had then come down with jerrycans to fill them with fuel.

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(-) 18 years ago He Personally Decided to Die Monday 12th of May 2008 Artist Robert Milton Ernest Rauschenberg dies of heart failure at the age of 83 in Captiva Island, Florida, United States. Rauschenberg's heart failure followed a personal decision to go off life support.

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(x) 16 years ago Wednesday 12th of May 2010 103 die in Al Afriqiyah Airways Flight 8U771 Airbus A330-201 crash in Tripoli International Airport, Tripoli, Greater Tripoli, Libya. 8-year-old Dutch Ruben van Assouw survived the crash with minor injuries.

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(-) 16 years ago Wednesday 12th of May 2010 School attacker Wu Huanming commits suicide hanging at the age of 48 in Hanzhong, Shaanxi, China. Earlier Wu hacked seven children and two adults to death with a meat cleaver in the Shengshui Temple kindergarten.

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(-) 8 years ago Saturday 12th of May 2018 Serial killer Dennis Andrew Nilsen aka Killing For Company dies of pulmonary embolism and retroperitoneal haemorrhage at the age of 73 in HM Prison Full Sutton, Full Sutton, Yorkshire and the Humber, United Kingdom. Nilsen's body was cremated in June 2018.

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