May 12

Roman Emperor Trajan dedicates Trajan's Column in Rome, commemorating his military victory over Dacia.

Roman Emperor Trajan dedicated the massive marble column bearing his name in Rome, its spiraling relief carvings depicting his military campaigns against Dacia in extraordinarily vivid, continuous narrative detail across 190 scenes. The column, standing nearly 100 feet tall, remains today one of the best-preserved and most studied monuments of the ancient Roman world.

Warlord Zhu Wen forces the last Tang emperor to abdicate, ending the nearly three-century-old Tang dynasty in China.

Military strongman Zhu Wen forced the last Tang emperor, a young puppet ruler, to formally abdicate the throne, ending the nearly three-century-old Tang dynasty and plunging China into the fractured, chaotic period known as the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms that lasted for the following half-century.

Jagiellonian University is founded in Kraków, becoming Poland's oldest institution of higher learning.

Jagiellonian University was founded in Kraków by King Casimir III the Great, becoming Poland's oldest institution of higher learning and one of the oldest universities in Central Europe, later counting astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus and Pope John Paul II among its most famous students and alumni.

British forces capture Charleston, South Carolina, in the largest Continental Army defeat of the American Revolutionary War.

British forces under General Henry Clinton captured Charleston, South Carolina, after a lengthy siege, forcing the surrender of the entire Continental Army garrison of roughly 5,000 troops, which remains the largest single American military defeat of the entire Revolutionary War in terms of prisoners lost.

The Donner Party sets out for California on what became a disastrous, tragic year-long journey west.

The Donner Party, a group of roughly 90 American pioneers led by brothers George and Jacob Donner, departed for California on a journey that would become infamous after the group took an ill-advised shortcut and became trapped by early, severe winter snowfall in the Sierra Nevada mountains, resorting to cannibalism as nearly half the party died before rescue arrived.

Union troops assault entrenched Confederate positions at the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House during the American Civil War.

Union troops under Ulysses S. Grant launched a costly, ultimately unsuccessful assault on heavily entrenched Confederate positions at the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House in Virginia, part of a grueling, attritional overland campaign marked by brutal close-quarters fighting at a salient nicknamed the "Bloody Angle."

King George VI and Queen Elizabeth are crowned at Westminster Abbey in London.

King George VI and Queen Elizabeth were crowned at Westminster Abbey in a lavish ceremony broadcast by radio to millions, following the abdication crisis the previous year that had unexpectedly placed the reluctant George on the throne after his brother Edward VIII chose to marry the divorced American Wallis Simpson.

The Soviet Union lifts its blockade of West Berlin, ending an eleven-month Cold War standoff resolved by the Berlin Airlift.

The Soviet Union lifted its eleven-month blockade of West Berlin, ending a major early Cold War confrontation that had been overcome by the massive Western Berlin Airlift, which supplied the isolated city with food, coal, and other essential goods entirely by continuous round-the-clock cargo flights.

A magnitude 8.0 earthquake strikes Sichuan, China, killing over 69,000 people.

A massive magnitude 8.0 earthquake struck Sichuan province in southwestern China, killing more than 69,000 people and injuring hundreds of thousands more while destroying vast amounts of housing, schools, and infrastructure across the densely populated mountainous region, prompting a massive national relief and rebuilding effort.

The WannaCry ransomware attack strikes more than 400,000 computers worldwide, disrupting hospitals, businesses, and government systems.

The WannaCry ransomware attack rapidly spread across the globe within hours, exploiting a leaked Windows vulnerability to infect more than 400,000 computers in over 150 countries, crippling Britain's National Health Service, businesses, and government agencies before a security researcher accidentally discovered a hidden kill switch that halted its spread.