May 12
1870
Manitoba became a province of Canada.
1932
The body of Charles and Anne Lindbergh’s kidnapped baby was found.
1937
Britain’s King George VI was crowned at Westminster Abbey in London.
1943
Axis forces in North Africa surrendered.
1949
The Soviet blockade that prompted the Berlin airlift was ended.
1970
Mr. Cub, Ernie Banks, swatted his 500th home run.
2002
Former president Jimmy Carter became the first U.S. president (in or out of office) to visit Fidel Castro’s Cuba.
2008
Tens of thousands killed and thousands injured when a 7.9 magnitude earthquake strikes Sichuan, Gansu, and Yunnan Provinces in western China.
2012
The 2012 World Expo began in Yeosu, South Korea.
Birthdays
Florence Nightingale
1820–1910, English nurse, the founder of modern nursing, b. Florence, Italy.
Henry Cabot Lodge
U.S. Senator (1850)
Katharine Hepburn
actress (1907)
Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin
chemist, Nobel laureate (1910)
Yogi Berra
baseball player (1925)
Burt Bacharach
composer (1929)
George Carlin
comedian (1937)
Emilio Estevez
actor (1962)