Today in History: The First Tennis Court Opened in Istanbul Moda

August 12 is the 224th (225th in leap years) day of the year according to the Gregorian calendar. The number of days left until the end of the year is 141.

Railways

• August 12, 1869 Porthole Company Board of Directors withdrew from Rumeli railways business with a surprising decision. This decision was only reported to Babıali on August 16.
• 12 August 1888 European lines were contacted and the first train from Istanbul to Vienna departed from the famous “Orient Express = Orient Express” Sirkeci station.
• 12 August 1939 Payas-İskenderun (19 km) line was taken over with the annexation of Hatay.

Events

• 1281 – Mongolian expeditions to Japan: Kublai Khan's fleet is sunk by a typhoon while approaching Japan.
• 1499 – Burak Reis, one of the commanders of the Ottoman Navy under the command of Küçük Davut Pasha, died in the Battle of Sapienza with the Venetian Navy encountered near the island of Sapienza.
• 1687 – Second Battle of Mohacs: It was fought between the Ottoman Army and the Army of the Archduchy of Austria led by the Habsburg Dynasty, in the area 24 km southwest of Mohacs. The war ended with the victory of the Archduchy of Austria.
• 1851 - Isaac Singer patented the sewing machine.
• 1877 - Asaph Hall discovered Mars' moon Deimos.
• 1908 - Ford begins mass production of the T model.
• 1910 – The first tennis court was opened in Istanbul Moda.
• 1914 – World War I: The United Kingdom declares war on the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
• 1921 – Atatürk became the head of the Army as the Commander-in-Chief in Polatlı.
• 1927 - 80 Indians in Bolivia rebelled against the Government.
• 1930 – Free Republican Party was established, Fethi Okyar was appointed as its General President.
• 1943 - Philadelphia Experiment: The alleged experiment on the USS Eldridge of the US Navy.
• 1944 - Tan newspaper it is closed.
• 1953 - The Soviet Union tests an atomic bomb in Kazakhstan.
• 1954 - UN troops begin to withdraw from Korea.
• 1960 - Echo 1A, the first American communications satellite, was launched.
• 1961 – Istanbul's 92-year-old trams made their last journey.
• 1964 – The Republic of South Africa is banned from the Olympic Games due to its apartheid policies that advocate racial discrimination.
• 1964 – Turkey ended military flights over Cyprus upon the call of the UN Security Council. The Council decided that the Peace Corps should create a buffer zone between the two communities on the island.
• 1981 - IBM releases its first personal computer.
• 1985 – Japan Airlines Boeing 123 jumbo jet with flight number JAL747 crashes on Mount Takamagahara, Japan: 520 dead, 4 survivors.
• 1990 – In the secret session of the Turkish Grand National Assembly, the government was allowed to intervene in the event of a war.
• 1992 - Canada, Mexico and the USA announced that they had completed the preliminary negotiations of the NAFTA treaty.
• 1996 – A natural gas agreement was signed between Turkey and Iran.
• 2000 – The Russian submarine Kursk sank in the Barents Sea with a crew of 112.
• 2002 – CHP returned to the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, where they had been away for 1999 years (for the first time) since 3, after Gaziantep Independent Deputy Mustafa Yılmaz, who resigned from the DSP, joined the CHP.
• 2005 - Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar was killed by a sniper.

Births

• 1686 – John Balguy, English philosopher (d. 1748)
• 1773 - Karl Faber, German historian (d. 1853)
• 1844 – Mohammed Ahmed, founder of the Mahdist movement in Sudan (d. 1885)
• 1856 – Diamond Jim Brady, American financier (d. 1917)
• 1856 – Eduardo Dato, Spanish politician and lawyer (d. 1921)
• 1875 – Mehmet Rauf, Turkish writer (d. 1931)
• 1880 – Christy Mathewson, American baseball player (d. 1925)
• 1881 – Cecil B. DeMille, American director (d. 1959)
• 1887 – Erwin Schrödinger, Austrian physicist and Nobel Prize laureate in Physics (d. 1961)
• 1902 – Mohammad Hatta, Indonesian politician and leader of the Indonesian independence movement (d. 1980)
• 1905 – Hans Urs van Balthasar, considered one of the most important Roman Catholic thinkers and theologians of the 20th century (d. 1988)
• 1912 – Samuel Fuller, American film director (d. 1997)
• 1916 – Bruno de Leusse, French diplomat (d. 2009)
• 1921 – Matt Gillies, Scottish football player and manager (d. 1998)
• 1924 – Zia-ul-Haq, Pakistani soldier and President (d. 1988)
• 1930 – George Soros, Hungarian-Jewish American financial speculator
• 1931 – William Goldman, American screenwriter, novelist, and Academy Award winner for Best Adapted Screenplay (d. 2018)
• 1932 - Sirikit, former Thai queen
• 1932 – Gönül Yazar, Turkish sound and cinema artist
• 1935 – John Cazale, American actor (d. 1978)
• 1936 – Kjell Grede, Swedish film director and screenwriter (d. 2017)
• 1938 – Jean-Paul L'Allier, Canadian liberal politician and journalist (d. 2016)
• 1939 – George Hamilton, American stage, film and television actor, voice actor
• 1939 – Sushil Koirala, Nepali politician and 37th Prime Minister of Nepal (d. 2016)
• 1939 – Helene Partik-Pablé, Austrian politician and retired judge
• 1941 – LM Kit Carson, American actor and screenwriter (d. 2014)
• 1941 – Réjean Ducharme, Quebec novelist and playwright (d. 2017)
• 1947 – Kâmuran Akkor, Turkish arabesque fantasy music artist
• 1949 – Mark Knopfler, English musician
• 1950 – Jim Beaver, American stage, film, and television actor
• 1951 – Klaus Toppmöller, Former football player and manager
• 1954 – François Hollande, French politician and President
• 1954 – Sam J. Jones, American comedian, actor, and voice actor
• 1954 – Pat Metheny, American jazz guitarist and composer
• 1954 – Leung Chun-ying, third and incumbent president of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region
• 1955 – Ardan Zentürk, Turkish journalist and writer
• 1956 Bruce Greenwood, Canadian actor
• 1957 Amanda Redman, English actress
• 1960 – Laurent Fignon, French professional road cyclist (d. 2010)
• 1963 – Cihan Demirci, Turkish cartoonist, journalist, poet and screenwriter
• 1963 – Anthony Ray, American Grammy-winning hip hop music artist
• 1964 – Txiki Begiristain, Spanish former international football player
• 1965 – Peter Krause, American actor and producer
• 1966 – Sibel Gönül, Turkish architect and politician
• 1969 – Tanita Tikaram, English pop-folk singer and songwriter
• 1971 - Pete Sampras, former American tennis player
• 1972 – Demir Demirkan, Turkish singer
• 1972 – Werner Becher, Austrian software developer and politician
• 1972 – Mark Kinsella, Irish football player and manager
• 1973 – Mark Iuliano, Italian former international football player
• 1975 – Burcu Güneş, Turkish singer
• 1975 - Casey Affleck, American actress and winner of the Academy Award for Best Actor
• 1976 – Linde Lindström, Finnish musician
• 1977 – Jesper Grønkjær, Danish former international football player
• 1977 – Günce Koral, Turkish singer
• 1979 - Cindy Klassen, Canadian speed skater
• 1980 – Javier Chevanton, Uruguayan football player
• 1980 – Rojda Demirer, Turkish actress
• 1980 – Dominique Swain, American actress
• 1980 – Matt Thiessen, Canadian-American musician
• 1981 – Djibril Cissé, French former football player
• 1982 – Alexandros Corvas, Greek former goalkeeper
• 1983 – Klaas-Jan Huntelaar, Dutch national football player
• 1983 – Meryem Uzerli, Turkish actress
• 1984 – Filipe Gonçalves, Portuguese football player
• 1984 – Sherone Simpson, Jamaican athlete
• 1985 – Danny Graham, English football player
• 1988 – Tyson Fury, British professional boxer
• 1989 – Tom Cleverley, English football player
• 1989 – Hong Jeong-ho, South Korean national football player
• 1990 – Mario Balotelli, Ghana-born Italian football player
• 1990 – Marvin Zeegelaar, Dutch football player
• 1992 - Cara Delevingne, British model
• 1993 – Ewa Farna, Polish-Czech singer
• 1993 – Luna, South Korean singer, actress, and host
• 1994 – Ryan Aloali'i Mitchell, American national football player
• 1999 – Matthijs de Ligt, Dutch national football player

Deaths

• 30 BC – VII. Cleopatra, last Hellenistic Queen of Ancient Egypt (b. 69 BC)
• 875 – II. Ludwig, King of Italy (b. 825)
• 1424 – Yonglo, Emperor of China (b. 1360)
• 1484 – IV. Sixtus, pope from August 9, 1471 – August 12, 1484 (b. 1414)
• 1499 – Burak Reis, Ottoman sailor (b. ?)
• 1546 – ​​Francisco de Vitoria, Dominican Priest, Spanish Catholic theologian (b. 1486)
• 1633 – Jacopo Peri, Italian composer and singer (b. 1561)
• 1689 – XI. Innocentius, 240th Pope of the Catholic Church (b. 1611)
• 1827 – William Blake, English poet and painter (b. 1757)
• 1848 – George Stephenson, English mechanical engineer (who designed the first steam locomotive, the "Rocket") (b. 1781)
• 1864 – Sakuma Shōzan, pioneer of Westernization in Japan (b. 1811)
• 1900 – Wilhelm Steinitz, Austrian chess player and first World Chess Champion (b. 1836)
• 1904 – William Renshaw, English tennis player (b. 1861)
• 1901 – Francesco Crispi, Italian statesman (b. 1819)
• 1922 – Arthur Griffith, Irish nationalist politician and journalist (founder of the Irish liberation movement Sinn Féin (“We Ourselves”), first Vice-President and later President of the Republic of Ireland) (b. 1872)
• 1926 – Petras Vileišis, Lithuanian engineer, political activist, and philanthropist (b. 1852)
• 1926 – Carlos Brown, Argentine football player (b. 1882)
• 1928 – Leoš Janáček, Czech composer (b. 1854)
• 1948 – Kajimukan Munaytpasov, Kazakh wrestler (b. 1871)
• 1955 – Thomas Mann, German author and Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1875)
• 1955 – James B. Sumner, American chemist and Nobel Prize laureate in Physics (b. 1887)
• 1964 – Ian Fleming, English writer (b. 1908)
• 1973 – Karl Ziegler, German chemist and Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1898)
• 1977 – Kerim Sadi, Turkish research writer (b. 1900)
• 1978 – Gregor Wentzel, German physicist (b. 1898)
• 1979 – Ernst Boris Chain, British biochemist (b. 1906)
• 1981 – Aleš Bebler, Slovenian-born Yugoslav lawyer and diplomat (b. 1907)
• 1982 – Henry Fonda, American actor (b. 1905)
• 1983 – Artemio Franchi, Italian football man (b. 1922)
• 1985 – Kyu Sakamoto, Japanese singer and actor (b.1941)
• 1988 – Jean-Michel Basquiat, American graffiti artist and neo-expressionist painter (b. 1960)
• 1989 – William B. Shockley, American physicist, inventor, and Nobel Prize laureate in Physics (b. 1910)
• 1992 – John Cage, American composer (b. 1912)
• 1995 – Rıdvan Özden, Turkish soldier (b. 1949)
• 1996 – Victor Ambartsumian, Soviet-Armenian scientist and one of the founders of theoretical astrophysics (b. 1908)
• 1999 – Abbas Sayar, Turkish writer, poet and painter (b. 1923)
• 1999 – Can Yücel, Turkish poet and translator (b. 1926)
• 2000 – Güzin Özipek, Turkish cinema and theater artist (b. 1925)
• 2000 – Loretta Young, American actress (b. 1913)
• 2004 – Godfrey Hounsfield, English electrical engineer and Nobel Prize laureate in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1919)
• 2007 – Ralph Asher Alpher, American cosmologist (b. 1921)
• 2009 – Les Paul, American singer, songwriter, and actor (b. 1915)
• 2010 – Guido de Marco, Maltese politician (b. 1931)
• 2013 – Friso, younger brother of Dutch King Willem-Alexander (b. 1968)
• 2014 – Lauren Bacall, American actress and model (b. 1924)
• 2014 – Cevad Heyit, Iranian Azerbaijani surgeon, Turcologist (b. 1925)
• 2014 – Arlene Martel, American actress and life coach (b. 1936)
• 2017 – Bryan Murray, Canadian ice hockey player, coach, and manager (b. 1942)
• 2018 – Samir Amin, Egyptian-French Marxist critic and economist (b. 1931)
• 2019 – DJ Arafat, Ivory Coast native DJ, musician and singer (b. 1986)
• 2019 – José Luis Brown, Argentine national football player and manager (b. 1956)
• 2019 – Terence Knapp, English actor, theater director, educator and writer (b. 1932)
• 2020 – Pavol Biroš, former Czechoslovak football player (b. 1953)
• 2020 – Mary Hartline, American model and actress (b. 1926)
• 2020 – Mac Jack, South African educator and politician (b. 1965)
• 2020 – Gergely Kulcsár, Hungarian javelin thrower (b. 1934)
• 2020 – Mónica Miguel, Mexican actress, television director and singer (b. 1936)
• 2020 – Gian Carlo Vacchelli, Peruvian sports commentator and politician (b. 1981)