On this day: Clinton acquitted in impeachment trial

On this day in 1999, US president Bill Clinton narrowly escaped impeachment over his relationship with intern Monica Lewinsky. Picture: AP

Events, birthdays and anniversaries for 12 February

1689: Declaration of Rights in England, in which William and Mary were proclaimed King and Queen for life.

1747: Boxing gloves were patented by Jack Broughton of London.

1851: The gold-rush began in Australia after a discovery of gold at Summerhill Creek by Edward Hargraves.

1898: Henry Lindfield of Brighton became the first British motorist to be killed in a car crash.

1909: The National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People was founded in the United States.

1912: Manchu Dynasty, and its boy emperor, were overthrown in China and a provisional republic was established.

1924: Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin was the smash-hit at a concert in New York.

1934: Workers staged general strike in France.

1956: The first yellow No Parking lines made their appearance at Slough, Buckinghamshire.

1970: An Israeli air raid on scrap metal plant in Egypt killed 70 civilians.

1973: First group of US prisoners released from North Vietnam.

1986: Andrija Artukovic, 86, was extradited from US to Yugoslavia for trial over killing of more than 700,000 people during Nazi rule.

1990: Italian mountaineer Reinhold Messner and West German Arvel Fuchs became the first men to cross Antarctica without dogs or machinery, covering 1,550 miles in 91 days.

1991: China jailed two alleged masterminds of Tiananmen Square protests, Wang Juntao and Chen Ziming, for 13 years for conspiracy to overthrow the government.

1994: Norwegian Edvard Munch’s painting The Scream was stolen from a museum in Oslo. It was recovered three months later in a police operation.

1999: United States president Bill Clinton was acquitted by the Senate in an impeachment trial stemming from the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

2000: Peanuts creator Charles Schulz died at 77 following a battle with colon cancer, just as the last original comic strip of his half-century career was being published in newspapers worldwide.

2004: The city of San Francisco began issuing marriage licences to same-sex couples in response to a directive from mayor Gavin Newsom.

2009: Colgan Air Flight 3407 crashed into a house in New York, on approach to Buffalo-Airport, killing all 49 people on board and one on the ground.

BIRTHDAYS

Annette Crosbie OBE, Gorebridge-born actress, 80; Maud Adams, actress, 69; Steve Backley OBE, athlete, 45; Judy Blume, novelist, 76; Josh Brolin, actor, 46; Steve Hackett, former lead guitarist with Genesis, 64; “Prince” Naseem Hamed, former boxing champion, 40; Fergus Slattery, rugby player, 65; Franco Zeffirelli KBE, opera, film and theatrical producer, 91.

ANNIVERSARIES

Births: 1809 Charles Darwin, naturalist; 1809 Abraham Lincoln, 16th US president; 1912 RF Delderfield, playwright and novelist; 1934 Anthony Howard CBE, journalist and author; 1940 Ray Manzarek, keyboard player (The Doors); 1952 Simon MacCorkindale, actor.

Deaths: 1554: Lady Jane Grey, Queen of England for nine days (executed); 1804 Immanuel Kant, philosopher; 1929 Lillie Langtry, actress and mistress of the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII); 1935 Auguste Escoffier, chef; 1984 Tom Keating, art faker; 2009 Hugh Leonard, playwright.