Browse Historical Events by Day: What Happened on November 12th?

King Cnut the Great of England, Denmark, and Norway dies, leading to a period of political instability.1050, November 9 - Henry III, Holy Roman Emperor, is born.

Pope Clement VI officially consecrates the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican.

American astronomer, Andrew Ellicott sees the Leonid meteor shower and records and reports the event in what it is believed to be the first time a meteor shower was recorded in North America. The Leonids are a prolific annual meteor shower associated with the comet Tempel–Tuttle . They occur between 15 and 20 November each year and are also known for their spectacular meteor storms that occur about every 33 years.res They enter the atmosphere at 44 miles per second, and begin to glow at an altitude of around 96 miles. More

The Ellis Island Immigration Gateway is officially closed. The processing center began receiving arriving immigrants on January 1, 1892. Over the next 62 years, more than 12 million, mostly working class immigrants, would arrive in the United States via Ellis Island. About 40% of people in the US are descendants of people who travelled through Ellis Island. First and second-class passengers bypassed the island and now could go straight ashore. But third class passengers were subjected to medical and legal checks. After 1924, Ellis Island changed from being a processing center to being a detention and deportation facility. More

The Bhola cyclone, the deadliest tropical cyclone ever recorded, and one of the deadliest natural disasters in modern times occurred on this day in East Pakistan, now Bangladesh. and India's West Bengal. The estimated fatalities were at least 300,000 and possibly as many as 500,000. primarily as a result of the storm surge that flooded much of the low-lying islands of the Ganges Delta. More

Congress changes the status of Arches to National Park in recognition of over 10,000 years of human history that flourished in this now-famous landscape of rock. Located in eastern Utah, U.S., on the Colorado River just north of Moab and northeast of Canyon lands National Park, it had been previously established as a National Monument in 1929. More

The U.S. space probe Voyager 1 reaches the planet Saturn. More

Tim Berners-Lee publishes a formal proposal for the World Wide Web, laying the foundation for the internet as we know it. More

The United States launches Operation Iron Hammer during the Iraq War.

The Rosetta spacecraft's Philae lander successfully lands on Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko.