📜 This Day in History
February 12
1502Queen Isabella I issued an edict outlawing Islam in the Crown of Castile, forcing virtually all her Muslim subjects to convert to Christianity.- 1909The ferry SS Penguin struck a rock in Wellington Harbour and sank, killing 75 people in New Zealand's worst maritime disaster of the 20th century.
- 1935USS Macon, one of the largest helium-filled airships ever created, crashed into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California.
- 1988While claiming the right of innocent passage through Soviet territorial waters in the Black Sea, the American cruiser USS Yorktown and destroyer USS Caron were bumped by Soviet warships.
- 2001The NASA space probe NEAR Shoemaker touched down on Eros, becoming the first spacecraft to land on an asteroid.
- 2019After being informed that its recently purchased coffin of Nedjemankh had been looted, the Metropolitan Museum of Art shuttered its ongoing exhibition Nedjemankh and His Gilded Coffin two months early and later returned the artifact to Egypt.
