August 12: What Happened on This Day in History (High_school Level)?

(Page last edited 10/12/2017)

1. In 1812, Dr. Joseph Lister is the first surgeon to use disinfectant during surgery.
2. In 1851, Isaac Singer patents the sewing machine.
3. In 1898, Hawaii is formally annexed to the United States.
4. In 1922, the house of Frederick Douglass in Washington, DC is dedicated as a national shrine.
5. In 1935, Babe Ruth plays his final baseball game at Fenway Park in Boston with 41,766 fans attending.
6. In 1939, The Wizard of Oz, starring Judy Garland had its world premiere in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin.
7. In 1953, the Soviet Union conducts a secret test of its first hydrogen bomb.
8. In 1981, IBM launches the personal computer (PC) and operating system PC-DOS Version 1.0.
9. In 1990, a skeleton of a 65 million year old Tyrannosaurus rex was found in South Dakota by fossil hunter Susan Hendrickson.
10. In 1998, Swiss banks agreed to pay $1.25 billion as restitution to Holocaust survivors to settle claims for their assets.
11. Famous Birthdays: Cecil B. DeMille (American director), Vincent Bendix (American inventor), Mary Roberts Rinehart (novelist), Katherine Lee Bates (author, educator, wrote "America the Beautiful")

For famous birthdays and other daily events in history, visit our Daily Dose Activities.

Click Here for Yesterday in History: August 11

Click Here for Tomorrow in History: August 13

For more history resources on Internet 4 Classrooms, visit our Social Studies and History index. For Pre K-8th Grade Level History and Social Studies Resources, visit our Grade Level Index.