Biographies on This Day in History: October 12
Born On
Hugh Jackman
Australian performer
October 12, 1968 -
Hugh Jackman is an Australian performer who was considered a “triple threat”—a successful actor, dancer, and singer. He is perhaps best known for his action movies and stage musicals. Jackman grew up in...
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Wilt Chamberlain
American basketball player
August 21, 1936 - October 12, 1999
Wilt Chamberlain was a professional basketball player, considered to be one of the greatest offensive players in the history of the game. More than 7 feet (2.1 metres) tall, Chamberlain was an outstanding...
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Robert E. Lee
Confederate general
January 19, 1807 - October 12, 1870
Robert E. Lee was a U.S. Army officer (1829–61), Confederate general (1861–65), college president (1865–70), and central figure in contending memory traditions of the American Civil War. Robert Edward...
Born On
Pedro I
emperor of Brazil
October 12, 1798 - September 24, 1834
Pedro I was the founder of the Brazilian empire and first emperor of Brazil, from Dec. 1, 1822, to April 7, 1831, also reckoned as King Pedro (Peter) IV of Portugal. Generally known as Dom Pedro, he was...
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Edward VI
king of England and Ireland
October 12, 1537 - July 6, 1553
Edward VI was the king of England and Ireland from 1547 to 1553. Edward was King Henry VIII’s only legitimate son; his mother, Henry’s third wife, Jane Seymour, died 12 days after his birth. Although Edward...
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Matthew Shepard
American murder victim
December 1, 1976 - October 12, 1998
Matthew Shepard was an American college student who was severely beaten because of his sexual orientation and was left to die in 1998. He was discovered and hospitalized, though he succumbed to his injuries....
Born On
Luciano Pavarotti
Italian opera singer
October 12, 1935 - September 6, 2007
Luciano Pavarotti was an Italian operatic lyric tenor who was considered one of the finest bel canto opera singers of the 20th century. Even in the highest register, his voice was noted for its purity...
Born On
Marion Jones
American athlete
October 12, 1975 -
Marion Jones is an American athlete, who, at the 2000 Olympic Games, became the first woman to win five track-and-field medals at a single Olympics. In 2007, however, she admitted to having used banned...
Born On
Ralph Vaughan Williams
British composer
October 12, 1872 - August 26, 1958
Ralph Vaughan Williams was an English composer in the first half of the 20th century, and the founder of the nationalist movement in English music. Vaughan Williams studied at Trinity College, Cambridge,...
Born On
Dick Gregory
American comedian and civil rights activist
October 12, 1932 - August 19, 2017
Dick Gregory was an American comedian, civil rights activist, and spokesman for health issues, who became nationally recognized in the 1960s for a biting brand of comedy that attacked racial prejudice....
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Roger B. Taney
chief justice of United States
March 17, 1777 - October 12, 1864
Roger B. Taney was the fifth chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, remembered principally for the Dred Scott decision (1857). He was the first Roman Catholic to serve on the Supreme...
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Gene Vincent
American singer
February 11, 1935 - October 12, 1971
Gene Vincent American rockabilly singer whose swaggering, black-leather-clad image defined the look of the rock rebel. Discharged from the U.S. Navy in 1955 following a motorcycle accident in which his...
Born On
Ramsay MacDonald
prime minister of United Kingdom
October 12, 1866 - November 9, 1937
Ramsay MacDonald was the first Labour Party prime minister of Great Britain, in the Labour governments of 1924 and 1929–31 and in the national coalition government of 1931–35. MacDonald was the son of...
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Doris Miller
United States naval serviceman
October 12, 1919 - November 24, 1943
Doris Miller was a U.S. naval serviceman noted for his bravery during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (1941). He was the first African American recipient of the Navy Cross for valour. Miller worked...
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Sonja Henie
American athlete
April 8, 1912 - October 12, 1969
Sonja Henie was a Norwegian-born American world champion figure skater and Olympic gold medalist who went on to achieve success as a professional ice-skater and as a motion-picture actress. (Read Scott...
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Edith Cavell
English nurse
December 4, 1865 - October 12, 1915
Edith Cavell was an English nurse who became a popular heroine of World War I and was executed for assisting Allied soldiers in escaping from German-occupied Belgium. Cavell entered the nursing profession...
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Tom Mix
American actor
January 6, 1880 - October 12, 1940
Tom Mix was an American film actor, a celebrated star of western cowboy films during the silent era. Mix worked as a cowhand in Texas, Arizona, Wyoming, and Montana and served in the U.S. Army in the Spanish-American...
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Hiroshige
Japanese artist
1797 - October 12, 1858
Hiroshige was a Japanese artist, one of the last great ukiyo-e (“pictures of the floating world”) masters of the colour woodblock print. His genius for landscape compositions was first recognized in the...
Born On
Bode Miller
American skier
October 12, 1977 -
Bode Miller is an American Alpine skier who won six Olympic medals—more than any other male American skier—and won the men’s World Cup overall championship in 2005 and 2008. Miller was born in the heart...
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Piero della Francesca
Italian painter
c.1416 or c.1417 - October 12, 1492
Piero della Francesca was a painter whose serene, disciplined exploration of perspective had little influence on his contemporaries but came to be recognized in the 20th century as a major contribution...
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Dean Acheson
United States statesman
April 11, 1893 - October 12, 1971
Dean Acheson was the U.S. secretary of state (1949–53) and adviser to four presidents. He became the principal creator of U.S. foreign policy in the Cold War period following World War II; he helped to...
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Maximilian II
Holy Roman emperor
July 31, 1527 - October 12, 1576
Maximilian II was the Holy Roman emperor from 1564, whose liberal religious policies permitted an interval of peace between Roman Catholics and Protestants in Germany after the first struggles of the Reformation....
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Joseph W. Stilwell
United States general
March 19, 1883 - October 12, 1946
Joseph W. Stilwell was a World War II army officer, who headed both U.S. and Chinese Nationalist resistance to the Japanese advance on the Far Eastern mainland. A 1904 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy...
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Anatole France
French writer
April 16, 1844 - October 12, 1924
Anatole France was a writer and ironic, skeptical, and urbane critic who was considered in his day the ideal French man of letters. He was elected to the French Academy in 1896 and was awarded the Nobel...
Born On
Edith Stein
German nun
October 12, 1891 - August 9, 1942 or August 10, 1942
Edith Stein ; canonized October 11, 1998; feast day August 9) was a Roman Catholic convert from Judaism, Carmelite nun, philosopher, and spiritual writer who was executed by the Nazis because of her Jewish...
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Elizabeth Fry
British philanthropist
May 21, 1780 - October 12, 1845
Elizabeth Fry was a British Quaker philanthropist and one of the chief promoters of prison reform in Europe. She also helped to improve the British hospital system and the treatment of the insane. The...
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Robert Stephenson
British engineer
October 16, 1803 - October 12, 1859
Robert Stephenson was an outstanding English Victorian civil engineer and builder of many long-span railroad bridges, most notably the Britannia Bridge over the Menai Strait, North Wales. He was the only...
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Konoe Fumimaro
prime minister of Japan
October 12, 1891 - December 16, 1945
Konoe Fumimaro was a political leader and prime minister of Japan (1937–39, 1940–41), who tried unsuccessfully to restrict the power of the military and to keep Japan’s war with China from widening into...
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Richard Meier
American architect
October 12, 1934 -
Richard Meier is an American architect noted for his refinements of and variations on classic Modernist principles: pure geometry, open space, and an emphasis on light. Meier graduated from Cornell University...
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Ram Manohar Lohia
Indian politician and activist
March 23, 1910 - October 12, 1967
Ram Manohar Lohia was an Indian politician and activist who was a prominent figure in socialist politics and in the movement toward Indian independence. Much of his career was devoted to combating injustice...
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Alf Landon
American politician
September 9, 1887 - October 12, 1987
Alf Landon was the governor of Kansas (1933–37) and an unsuccessful U.S. Republican presidential candidate in 1936. Landon went with his parents to Independence, Kan., in 1904. He received a law degree...
Born On
Carolee Schneemann
American multimedia artist
October 12, 1939 - March 6, 2019
Carolee Schneemann was an American multimedia artist whose feminist artworks dealt with identity and gender politics and social taboos. She is known for her provocative performance art practices and is...
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René Lacoste
French tennis player
July 2, 1904 - October 12, 1996
René Lacoste was a French tennis player who was a leading competitor in the late 1920s. As one of the powerful Four Musketeers (the others were Jean Borotra, Henri Cochet, and Jacques Brugnon), he helped...
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Cesar Pelli
American architect
October 12, 1926 - July 19, 2019
Cesar Pelli was an Argentine-born American architect who was widely regarded as one of the 20th century’s preeminent architects. After earning a bachelor’s degree in architecture at the National University...
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Max Wertheimer
Czech-born psychologist
April 15, 1880 - October 12, 1943
Max Wertheimer was a Czech-born psychologist, one of the founders, along with Kurt Koffka and Wolfgang Köhler, of Gestalt psychology (q.v.), which attempts to examine psychological phenomena as structural...
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Lyman Beecher
American minister
October 12, 1775 - January 10, 1863
Lyman Beecher was a U.S. Presbyterian clergyman in the revivalist tradition and an important figure in the Second Great Awakening. A graduate of Yale University in 1797, he held pastorates at Litchfield,...
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Carel Fabritius
Dutch painter
February 27, 1622 - October 12, 1654
Carel Fabritius was a Dutch Baroque painter of portraits, genre, and narrative subjects whose concern with light and space influenced the stylistic development of the mid-17th-century school of Delft....
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Kurokawa Kishō
Japanese architect
April 8, 1934 - October 12, 2007
Kurokawa Kishō was a Japanese architect, who was one of the leading members of the Metabolist movement in the 1960s and ’70s. In his later work he achieved increasingly poetic qualities. The son of a respected...
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Frederick IV
king of Denmark and Norway
October 11, 1671 - October 12, 1730
Frederick IV was the king of Denmark and Norway (1699–1730), who succeeded his father, King Christian V. He continued the Danish efforts to sever the House of Gottorp’s link with Sweden, but his first...
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Dmitry Donskoy
prince of Moscow
October 12, 1350 - May 19, 1389
Dmitry (II) Donskoy was the prince of Moscow, or Muscovy (1359–89), and grand prince of Vladimir (1362–89), who won a victory over the Golden Horde (Mongols who had controlled Russian lands since 1240)...
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Sir Ian Hamilton
British general
January 16, 1853 - October 12, 1947
Sir Ian Hamilton was a British general, commander in chief of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force in the unsuccessful campaign against Turkey in the Gallipoli Peninsula during World War I. Hamilton joined...
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Edwin
king of Northumbria
- October 12, 632
Edwin was an Anglo-Saxon king of Northumbria from 616 to 633. He was the most powerful English ruler of his day and the first Christian king of Northumbria. The son of King Aelle of Deira, one of the two...
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François Guizot
French politician and historian
October 4, 1787 - October 12, 1874
François Guizot was a French political figure and historian who, as leader of the conservative constitutional monarchists during the July Monarchy (1830–48), was the dominant minister in France. Guizot’s...
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Harry Micajah Daugherty
American lawyer and political manager
January 26, 1860 - October 12, 1941
Harry Micajah Daugherty was an American lawyer and political manager for Warren G. Harding who was accused of corruption during his tenure as Harding’s attorney general (1921–24). After receiving a law...
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Honorius I
pope
- October 12, 638
Honorius I was a pope from 625 to 638 whose posthumous condemnation as a heretic subsequently caused extensive controversy on the question of papal infallibility. Nothing is known of his life before he...
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Eugenio Montale
Italian author
October 12, 1896 - September 12, 1981
Eugenio Montale was an Italian poet, prose writer, editor, and translator who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1975. As a young man, Montale trained as an opera singer. He was drafted to serve in...
Born On
Robert Fitzgerald
American poet
October 12, 1910 - January 16, 1985
Robert Fitzgerald was an American poet, educator, and critic who was best known for his translations of Greek classics. Fitzgerald grew up in Springfield, Illinois, and attended Harvard University, from...
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William J. Hardee
Confederate general
October 12, 1815 - November 6, 1873
William J. Hardee was a Confederate general in the American Civil War (1861–65) who wrote a popular infantry manual used by both the North and the South. An 1838 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at...
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Jean Ribaut
French naval officer
c.1520 - October 12, 1565
Jean Ribaut was a French naval officer, explorer, and colonizer. Jean Ribaut began his naval career as a youth, rising through the ranks to become one of the most dependable officers serving under Admiral...
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Bernarr Macfadden
American physical culturist and publisher
August 16, 1868 - October 12, 1955
Bernarr Macfadden was an American physical culturist who, by sometimes eccentric means, spread the gospel of physical fitness and created a popular magazine empire. Macfadden, often dubbed the “father...