History for April 12

History for April 12 - On-This-Day.com:
Henry Clay 1777 - "The Great Pacificator", U.S. Secretary of State under John Quincy Adams, three time unsuccessful candidate for president of United States. Quote: "I would rather be right than president.", Tiny Tim (Herbert Khaury) 1930 - Ukulele playing, falsetto singer ("Tiptoe Through the Tulips"), Ed O'Neill 1946 - Actor ("Married....with Children", "Wayne’s World")


Tom Clancy 1947 - Author, David Letterman 1947 - TV host, comedian ("Late Night With David Letterman"), David Cassidy 1950 - Singer, actor ("The Partridge Family")


1861 - Fort Sumter was shelled by Confederacy, starting America's Civil War.


1877 - A catcher's mask was used in a baseball game for the first time by James Alexander Tyng.


1938 - The first U.S. law requiring a medical test for a marriage license was enacted in New York.


1945 - In New York, the organization of the first eye bank, the Eye Bank for Sight Restoration, was announced.


1945 - U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt died in Warm Spring, GA. He died of a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 63. Harry S Truman became president.


1961 - Soviet Yuri Alexeyevich Gagarin became first man to orbit the Earth.


1985 - Federal inspectors declared that four animals of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus were not unicorns. They were goats with horns that had been surgically implanted.


1992 - Disneyland Paris opened in Marne-La-Vallee, France.