Monday 12th of August 0030bc

Last active ruler of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt Cleopatra VII Philopator commits suicide by allowing an asp to bite her at the age of 39 in Alexandria, Alexandria, Egypt.

Tuesday 12th of August 1484

212th Pope Sixtus IV known for building the Sistine Chapel dies of unknown causes at the age of 70 in Vatican City, Rome, Lazio, Italy.

Friday 12th of August 1689

Innocentius XI aka The Blessed dies of a kidney disease at the age of 78 in Vatican City, Rome, Lazio, Italy.

When Innocentius' body was exhumed for beatification 267 years later it was discovered that it had remained preserved. He is regarded by many Catholics to be the first pope whose body was discovered to be incorrupt.

Sunday 12th of August 1827

Poet and painter William Blake dies of gallstones at the age of 70 in Fountain Court, Strand, London, Soho, Greater London, United Kingdom.

Friday 12th of August 1831

Theosophist, occultist and spirit medium Helena Petrovna Blavatsky aka Madame Blavatsky is born as Yelena Petrovna Blavatskaya in Ekaterinoslav, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, Ukraine.

Sunday 12th of August 1866

Chemist, murderer and playwright Roland Burnham Molineux is born in New York City, New York, United States.

Wednesday 12th of August 1868

Victim of Henri Désiré Landru aka Le Barbe-Bleue de Gambais Thérèse Laborde-Line is born in Chascomús, Gran Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Friday 12th of August 1881

Film director Cecil Blount DeMille is born in Ashfield, Massachusetts, United States.

Monday 12th of August 1912

Film director Samuel Michael Fuller is born in Worcester, Massachusetts, United States.

Tuesday 12th of August 1924

52-year-old Boxer Norman Selby aka Kid McCoy kills his 39-year-old lover Theresa Mors by a single gunshot to the head in Unit 212, 2819 Leeward Avenue, Los Angeles, California, United States.

The next morning Selby robbed and held captive some 12 people at Mors' antique shop and shot one man who was trying to escape in the leg. He also had forced at least six other men to remove their trousers after divesting them of their money.

Friday 12th of August 1927

Murderer John Robinson is executed by hanging by Robert Baxter at the age of 36 in HM Prison Pentonville, Caledonian Road, London, Islington, Greater London, United Kingdom.

Sunday 12th of August 1928

Composer Leoš Leo Eugen Janáček dies of pneumonia at the age of 74 in Sanatorium dr. Kleina, Hornopolní ulice, Ostrava, Moravskoslezský Kraj, Czechoslovakia.

Friday 12th of August 1938

Cop killer Robert Joseph Suhay is executed by hanging at the age of 25 in United States Penitentiary, Metropolitan Avenue, Leavenworth, Kansas, United States.

Suhay was along with Glenn J. Applegate the first double hanging in Leavenworth.

Friday 12th of August 1938

Cop killer Glenn J. Applegate is executed by hanging at the age of 45 in United States Penitentiary, Metropolitan Avenue, Leavenworth, Kansas, United States.

Applegate was along with Robert Suhay the first double hanging in Leavenworth.

Friday 12th of August 1949

Spree killer Mark James Robert Essex is born in Emporia, Kansas, United States.

Tuesday 12th of August 1952

Thirteen members of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee are excuted in what was remembered as The Night of the Murdered Poets in Lubyanka Prison, Lubyanskaya Square, Moscow, Meshchansky, Central Federal District, Russia.

The thirteen JAC members were 57-year-old Yiddish poet Peretz Markish, 63-year-old Yiddish poet David Hofstein, 52-year-old Yiddish poet Itzik Feffer, 62-year-old Yiddish poet Leib Kvitko, 68-year-old writer David Bergelson, 74-year-old director of the Soviet Information Bureau Solomon Lozovsky, 60-year-old Medical Director of the Botkin Clinical Hospital Boris Shimeliovich, 53-year-old director of the Moscow State Jewish Theater Benjamin Zuskin, 62-year-old researcher Joseph Yuzefovich, 59-year-old journalist Leon Talmy, 65-year-old editor of Eynikeyt newspaper Ilya Vatenberg, 51-year-old wife of Ilya, Chaika Vatenburg-Ostrovskaya and 47-year old deputy editor of the Diplomatic Dictionary Emilia Teumin.

Wednesday 12th of August 1953

Double murderer Mack Oran Hill is born in Fort Worth, Texas, United States.

Friday 12th of August 1955

Writer, social critic and philanthropist Thomas Paul Mann dies of athorasclerosis at the age of 80 in Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland.

Monday 12th of August 1957

Murderer William William Lawrence Nicholson is executed by hanging in Cape Town, Cape Province, South Africa.

Wednesday 12th of August 1964

Writer, journalist and naval intelligence officer Ian Lancaster Fleming known for the James Bond spy novels dies of a heart attack at the age of 56 in Canterbury, Kent, United Kingdom.

Sunday 12th of August 1973

Terrorist Richard Colvin Reid aka The Shoe Bomber aka Abdel Rahim aka Abdul Rof is born in London, Bromley, Greater London, United Kingdom.

Sunday 12th of August 1979

30-year-old Murderer Peter Carlier shoots a 21-year-old neighbour girl to death due to a sadistic obsession in Kortrijk, West-Vlaanderen, Belgium.

Thursday 12th of August 1982

Actor Henry Jaynes Fonda dies of heart failure at the age of 77 in Los Angeles, California, United States.

Monday 12th of August 1985

520 die in Japan Airlines Flight 123 Boeing 747-SR46 crash into a mountain in Osutaka Ridge, Ueno, Mount Takamagahara, Kantō, Japan.

The four all female survivors were seated on the left side and toward the middle of seat rows 54–60 in the rear of the aircraft. They were 26-year-old Yumi Ochiai, 34-year-old Hiroko Yoshizaki and her 8-year-old daughter Mikiko and 12-year-old Keiko Kawakami.

Wednesday 12th of August 1992

Composer, music theorist and artist John Milton Cage dies of a stroke at the age of 80 in New York, Manhattan, New York, United States.

Thursday 12th of August 1993

Double murderer David Lee Holland is executed by lethal injection at the age of 58 in Huntsville Prison, 815 12th Street, Huntsville, Texas, United States.

Tuesday 12th of August 1997

Serial killer Ali Reza Khoshruy Kuran Kordiyeh aka The Tehran Vampire is executed by hanging from a crane at the age of 28 in Tehran, Tehran, Iran.

Twenty thousand spectators turned out for the event chanting "Allahu Akbar" while Kordiyeh received a flogging of 214 lashes from relatives of his victims and then tied to a yellow building crane and lifted, legs kicking, high into the air with a rope around his neck. Relatives of the victims had called for Kordiyeh to be stoned to death. They had also called for his hands to be cut off before execution because he had also been accused of theft.

Tuesday 12th of August 1997

38-year-old Bégonia Valencia is abducted and killed by unidentified serial killer Le Dépeceur de Mons aka The Trash Bag Killer in Mons, Hainaut, Belgium.

Saturday 12th of August 2000

118 die in K-141 Kursk nuclear-powered cruise-missile submarine explosion in Murmanskaya Oblast, the Barents Sea.

The explosion was caused by a faulty weld on a 65–76 "Kit" practice torpedo, leading to an explosion of high-test peroxide and secondary detonation of 5 to 7 torpedo warheads.

Wednesday 12th of August 2009

50-year-old Performance artist Danny Devos aka DDV performs 'James Lee Byars was Never in Art Ghraib' and 'And Did Those Eyes in Recent Time' at R.I.T.E.S. in Old School, Mount Sophia, Singapore, Singapore.

I drew the sign of the 'Red Dragon' on a sheet of paper with red paint. Then I stood for a while on a piece of cloth with a ritual milk 'kavadi' on my head. The kavadi was filled with red paint that I slowly poured over my head. Then I made a wad out of a piece of gold cloth filled with earth from my hole. I lay down on a sloping piece of wood, my head immersed in a tub of water. I stuffed the wad in my mouth and an unopened lotus flower into the wad. I remained with my head in the water until the wad and the lotus flower were completely sodden and I couldn't breathe no more.

Sunday 12th of August 2012

A snail in an acrobatic performance in Abbazia di Santa Maria di Sitria, Scheggia e Pascelupo, Umbria, Italy.

Tuesday 12th of August 2014

Actress Lauren Bacall dies of a stroke at the age of 90 in The Dakota, 72nd Street and Central Park West, New York, Manhattan, New York, United States.