May 12

1551 – The National University of San Marcos, the oldest university in the Americas, is founded in Lima, Peru.

1780 – In the largest defeat of the Continental Army, Charleston, South Carolina is taken by British forces.

1846 – The Donner Party of pioneers departs Independence, Missouri for California.

1865 – More than a month after General Robert E Lee surrendered his Confederate forces at Appomattox Court House, the last battle of the civil war begins at Palmito Ranch, east of Brownsville, Texas along the banks of the Rio Grande river, even though the commanders of both sides had been informed of the surrender.

1926 – On a flight from from Ny-Ålesund at Svalbard Norway, to Teller, Alaska, the Italian built dirigible Norge, piloted by Roald Amundsen, Lincoln Ellsworth and Umberto Nobile becomes the first aircraft to fly over the North Pole.

1932 – Ten weeks after his abduction, Charles Lindbergh Jr., the infant son of Charles Lindbergh, is found dead near Hopewell, New Jersey, just a few miles from the family home.

1933 – The Agricultural Adjustment Act, which restricted agricultural production through government purchase of livestock for slaughter and paying subsidies to farmers when they remove land from planting, is signed into law by President Roosevelt.

1942 – During World War II, the U.S. tanker SS Virginia is torpedoed in the mouth of the Mississippi River by the German submarine U-507.

1949 – Thwarted by the western nation’s continuous airlift of supplies to the city from the previous June, the Soviet Union lifts its failed blockade of Berlin.

1989 – A runaway Southern Pacific freight train derailment on Duffy Street in San Bernardino, California kills 4 people.

2002 – Former President Carter arrives in Cuba for a 5 day visit with Fidel Castro, becoming the first President, in or out of office, to visit the island since Castro’s 1959 revolution.

2003 – al Qaeda terrorists attack a foreign worker’s compound in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, killing 26 people including 9 U.S. citizens.

2008 – U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers conduct the largest ever raid of a workplace in Postville, Iowa, arresting  398 illegal aliens.

2015 – An  Amtrak Northeast Regional train derailment in Philadelphia kills 8 people and injures more than 200.