12 History Lessons + 7 Births & 7 Deaths for November 12, 2025
Today’s History:
- 1927 – Leon Trotsky is expelled from the Soviet Communist Party.
- 1936 – The San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge opens to traffic.
- 1942 – The Naval Battle of Guadalcanal begins in the Pacific Theater of WWII.
- 1944 – RAF bombers sink the German battleship Tirpitz in Norway.
- 1954 – Ellis Island closes as a U.S. immigration station.
- 1956 – Morocco and Tunisia are admitted to the United Nations.
- 1969 – Investigative reports on the My Lai massacre are first published, igniting global outrage.
- 1970 – The Bhola cyclone strikes East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) and India, becoming one of the deadliest tropical cyclones on record.
- 1991 – Indonesian troops open fire on a pro-independence march in Dili, East Timor (the “Santa Cruz massacre”).
- 2001 – American Airlines Flight 587 crashes in Queens, New York; all 260 aboard and 5 on the ground are killed.
- 2014 – ESA’s Philae becomes the first spacecraft to land on a comet (67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko).
- 2019 – Historic flooding (“acqua alta”) inundates Venice, reaching some of the city’s highest water levels.
Today’s Birthdays:
- 1945 – Neil Young, singer-songwriter and guitarist (80).
- 1961 – Nadia Comăneci, Romanian gymnast, first perfect 10 at the Olympics (64).
- 1968 – Sammy Sosa, MLB outfielder, 609 career home runs (57).
- 1970 – Tonya Harding, figure skater, two-time U.S. champion (55).
- 1980 – Ryan Gosling, actor/filmmaker (“La La Land,” “Drive”) (45).
- 1982 – Anne Hathaway, actor (“Les Misérables,” “The Devil Wears Prada”) (43).
- 1988 – Russell Westbrook, NBA guard, 2017 league MVP (37).
Today’s Deaths:
- 1035 – Cnut the Great, king of England, Denmark, and Norway (c. 40).
- 1916 – Percival Lowell, American astronomer (61).
- 1994 – Wilma Rudolph, American sprinter, triple Olympic gold medalist (54).
- 2003 – Jonathan Brandis, American actor (“seaQuest DSV”) (27).
- 2008 – Mitch Mitchell, drummer for The Jimi Hendrix Experience (61).
- 2010 – Henryk Górecki, Polish composer (“Symphony of Sorrowful Songs”) (76).
- 2018 – Stan Lee, Marvel Comics writer, editor, and publisher (95).
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