Thursday 12th of May 1003

139th Pope Silvester II dies of unknown causes at the age of 57 in Vatican City, Rome, Lazio, Italy.

Tuesday 12th of May 1012

142nd Pope Sergius IV dies of unknown causes at the age of 42 in Vatican City, Rome, Lazio, Italy.

There was some suspicion that Sergius IV was murdered as he died within a week of Crescentius, considered by many to have been his patron.

Friday 12th of May 1820

Social reformer, statistician and modern nursing pioneer Florence Nightingale aka The Lady with the Lamp is born in Villa La Colombia, Via di Santa Maria a Marignolle 2, Firenze, Toscana, Italy.

Thursday 12th of May 1842

Composer Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet is born in Place de la Terrasse, Saint-Étienne, Montaud, Loire, France.

Thursday 12th of May 1870

1-year-old Johannes Swanenburg is poisoned with arsenic by serial poisoner Maria Swanenburg aka Goeie Mie in Leiden, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands.

Monday 12th of May 1884

Composer Bedřich Smetana dies of physical and mental decline due to syphilis at the age of 60 in Kateřinky Lunatic Asylum, Praha, Bohemia, Czechoslovakia.

Thursday 12th of May 1892

Sex killer Etienne Deschamps aka The Magnetic Doctor is executed by hanging at the age of 62 in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States.

Friday 12th of May 1893

Murderer John Z. Carlisle is executed by hanging at the age of 44 in Sherman, Texas, United States.

Friday 12th of May 1893

Murderer Charles Luttrell is executed by hanging in Sherman, Texas, United States.

Sunday 12th of May 1895

Spiritual leader Jiddu Krishnamurti is born in Madanapalle, Andhra Pradesh, India.

Sunday 12th of May 1895

17-year-old Adèle Augustine Mortureux is strangled and disemboweled by serial killer Joseph Vacher aka L’Eventreur du Sud-Est in Étaules, Franche-Comté, France.

Wednesday 12th of May 1897

Serial killer Earle Leonard Nelson aka The Gorilla Murderer is born in San Francisco, California, United States.

Sunday 12th of May 1907

Actress Katharine Houghton Hepburn is born in Hartford, Connecticut, United States.

Sunday 12th of May 1907

Writer Joris-Karl Charles Marie Georges Huysmans dies of cancer of the mouth at the age of 59 in Paris, Île-de-France, France.

Sunday 12th of May 1918

American Communist and Soviet spy Julius Rosenberg is born in New York City, New York, United States.

Thursday 12th of May 1921

Artist and pedagogue Joseph Heinrich Beuys is born in Krefeld, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany.

Monday 12th of May 1924

Comedian and actor Tony Anthony John Hancock is born in Southam Road, Birmingham, Hall Green, West Midlands, .

Saturday 12th of May 1928

Singer-songwriter and composer Burt Freeman Bacharach is born in Kansas City, Missouri, United States.

Thursday 12th of May 1932

Kidnapped 2-year-old Kidnap victim Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr. is found dead in a grove of trees by delivery truck driver William Allen in Hopewell Township, Mercer County, New Jersey, United States.

Tuesday 12th of May 1936

Physician and murderer Buck Ruxton is executed by hanging by Albert Pierrepoint at the age of 37 in Strangeways Prison, Manchester, Greater Manchester, United Kingdom.

Ruxton was executed despite a petition urging clemency for him from Lancaster residents having collected over 10.000 signatures.

Tuesday 12th of May 1936

Minimalist painter Frank Stella is born in Malden, Massachusetts, United States.

Tuesday 12th of May 1936

Television personality Tom Thomas James Snyder is born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States.

Tuesday 12th of May 1942

Musician Ian Robins Dury known from Ian Dury and the Blockheads is born in 43 Weald Rise, Harrow Weald, Greater London, United Kingdom.

Monday 12th of May 1947

Member of Zentralrat der Umherschweifenden Haschrebellen and Bewegung 2. Juni Georg von Rauch is born in Marburg-an-der-Lahn, Hessen, Germany.

Saturday 12th of May 1956

36-year-old Actor Montgomery Edward 'Monty' Clift crashes his car into a telephone pole on the way back from a dinner party at the house of Elizabeth Taylor in Tower Road, Beverly Hills, California, United States.

Alerted by friend Kevin McCarthy, who witnessed the accident, Taylor raced to Clift's side, manually pulling a tooth out of his tongue as he had begun to choke on it.

Sunday 12th of May 1957

Film director Erich von Stroheim aka The Man You Love to Hate dies of cancer at the age of 72 in Allée Eric Von Stroheim, Maurepas, Île-de-France, France.

Friday 12th of May 1972

Two pipe bombs from die Rote Armee Fraktion aka Baader-Meinhof Gruppe explode in office cabinets in Police Headquarters in Augsburg, Bayern, Germany.

Five policemen were injured. Two hours later a Ford 12 van loaded with explosives blew up in the car park of the Criminal Investigation office in München. 60 cars were demolished. The Tommy Weissbecker Commando claimed responsability for the attack.

Saturday 12th of May 1973

Child killer Ali Ben Yanes aka l’Égorgeur de Gattières is executed by the Guillotine by André Olbrecht at the age of 34 in Baumettes Prison, 239 Chemin de Morgiou, Marseille, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France.

Tuesday 12th of May 1981

Irish republican hunger striker Francis Hughes dies after 59 days of hungerstriking at the age of 31 in Maze Prison, Lisburn, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom.

Hughes was the second to die in the 1981 Irish Hunger Strike.

Tuesday 12th of May 1981

25-year-old Dzung Ngoc Tu is raped and strangled by serial killer Michael Ross aka The Roadside Strangler in Cornell University Campus, Ithaca, New York, United States.

Wednesday 12th of May 1982

62-year-old Ioannes Paulus II is stabbed with a bajonet by 32-year-old traditionalist Catholic Spanish priest Juan María Fernández y Krohn in Santuário de Fátima, Fátima, Beira Litoral, Portugal.

Krohn claimed that the pope was an agent of Communist Moscow and of the Marxist Eastern Bloc.

Saturday 12th of May 1984

38-year-old Serial killer Michel Bellen aka The Strangler of the Left Bank has his second death-sentence commuted to life-imprisonment in Centrale Gevangenis, Geldenaakse Vest, Leuven, Vlaams-Brabant, Belgium.

Sunday 12th of May 1985

Art Brut artist Jean Philippe Arthur Dubuffet dies of emphysema at the age of 84 in Paris, VIe, Île-de-France, France.

Tuesday 12th of May 1987

Spree killer Michel Van Wijnendaele aka The Mad Cyclist commits suicide by a shot in the head at the age of 28 in Sirault, Hainaut, Belgium.

Van Wijnendaele killed himself after he was closed in by state police. Earlier that day he killed seven people; 90-year-old Jean Baptiste and 84-year-old Margriet Nechelput, 54-year-old Edgard, 46-year-old Liliane and 20-year-old Christian De Crem and the German Shepherd Tibo on a farm in Bogaarden, and 37-year-old Marie-Therese Walraevens and 3-year-old Ludovic De Rijck on another farm. In Denderwindeke he shot is parents-in-law, both survived.

Friday 12th of May 1989

44-year-old Serial killer Randy Steven Kraft aka The Scorecard Killer is found guilty of sixteen counts of murder, one count of sodomy, and one count of emasculation in Orange County, California, United States.

Wednesday 12th of May 1993

Cop killer Leonel Torres Herrera is executed by lethal injection at the age of 46 in Huntsville Prison, 815 12th Street, Huntsville, Texas, United States.

Monday 12th of May 1997

Serial killer Dimitris Vakrinos commits suicide by hanging with a shoelace at the age of 36 in Athens, Attica, Greece.

A guard found the Vakrinos hanging in the showers of the prison isolation ward where he was being held with two other prisoners.

Saturday 12th of May 2001

Aircraft designer Alexei Andreyevich Tupolev dies of a long illness at the age of 76 in Moscow, Central Federal District, Russia.

Saturday 12th of May 2001

Singer and television personality Perry Pierino Ronald Como dies in his sleep at the age of 89 in Jupiter Inlet Colony, Florida, United States.

Como was reported to have suffered from symptoms of Alzheimer's disease.

Monday 12th of May 2003

Actor Gregory Eldred Peck dies of bronchopneumonia at the age of 87 in Los Angeles, California, United States.

Friday 12th of May 2006

Over 150 die in pressurised petrol pipeline explosion and fire in Atlas Creek Island, Lagos, Lagos State, Nigeria.

Vandals drilled holes into the pipe to steal fuel and local people had then come down with jerrycans to fill them with fuel.

Monday 12th of May 2008

Artist Robert Milton Ernest Rauschenberg dies of heart failure at the age of 83 in Captiva Island, Florida, United States.

Rauschenberg's heart failure followed a personal decision to go off life support.

Wednesday 12th of May 2010

School attacker Wu Huanming commits suicide hanging at the age of 48 in Hanzhong, Shaanxi, China.

Earlier Wu hacked seven children and two adults to death with a meat cleaver in the Shengshui Temple kindergarten.

Wednesday 12th of May 2010

103 die in Al Afriqiyah Airways Flight 8U771 Airbus A330-201 crash in Tripoli International Airport, Tripoli, Greater Tripoli, Libya.

8-year-old Dutch Ruben van Assouw survived the crash with minor injuries.

Saturday 12th of May 2018

Serial killer Dennis Andrew Nilsen aka Killing For Company dies of natural causes at the age of 73 in HM Prison Full Sutton, Full Sutton, Yorkshire and the Humber, United Kingdom.