1912 is a leap year starting on Monday.

Events

January-March

• January 1 - Establishment of Republic of China.
• January 6 - New Mexico is admitted as the 47th U.S. state.
• January 17 - British polar explorer Robert Falcon Scott and a team of four begin the second expedition to reach the South Pole.
• February 12 - Republic of China adopts the Gregorian calendar
• February 14 - Arizona is admitted as the 48th U.S. state.
• February 14 - In Groton, Connecticut, the first diesel-powered submarine is commissioned.
• March 1 - Albert Berry makes the first parachute jump from a moving airplane.
• March 1 - Georg Ritter von Trapp, head of the famous Austrian singing family memorialized in the musical The Sound of Music marries Agathe
• March 5 - Italian forces are the first to use airships for a military purpose by using them for reconnaissance west of Tripoli behind Turkish lines.
• March 7 - Roald Amundsen announces discovery of the South Pole
• March 7 – French aviator Henri Seimet makes the first non-stop flight from Paris to London in three hours
• March 12 - The Girl Guides (later renamed the Girl Scouts) are founded.
• March 16 – Lawrence Oates, ill member of Scott's South Pole expedition leaves the tent saying, "I am just going outside and may be some time"
• March 30 - France establishes a protectorate over Morocco.

April-September

• April 15 - Sinking of the RMS Titanic.
• April 17 – Solar eclipse in Europe.
• April 19 - United States Senate inquiry into the Titanic sinking begins.
• May 2 - British Board of Trade inquiry into the sinking of Titanic begins.
• May 13 - In the United Kingdom, the Royal Flying Corps (forerunner of the Royal Air Force) is established.
• June 4 - Fire in Constantinople - 1120 buildings destroyed
• June 5 - US Marines land on Cuba
• June 6-June 8 - Eruption of Novarupta in Alaska, second largest volcanic eruption in historic time.
• June 8 - Carl Laemmle incorporated Universal Pictures.
• July 19 - A meteorite with an estimated mass of 190 kg exploded over the town of Holbrook in Navajo County, Arizona causing approximately 16,000 pieces of debris to rain down on the town.
• July 30 - Mutsuhito, the Meiji Emperor of Japan, dies. He is succeeded by his son Yoshihito, the Taisho Emperor. In Japanese History, the event marks the end of the Meiji Era and the beginning of the Taisho Era.
• August 12 - Sultan Abd al-Hafiz of Morocco abdicates.
• August 25 - Kuomintang, the Chinese nationalist party is founded.
• September 25 - Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism founded in New York,_New York.

October-November

• October 8 - First Balkan War begins: Montenegro declares war against Turkey.
• October 14 - While campaigning in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, former president Theodore Roosevelt is shot by saloonkeeper William Schrank. With a fresh flesh wound and the bullet still in him, Roosevelt still delivers his scheduled speech.
• October 16 - Bulgarian pilots Radul Minkov and Prodan Toprakchiev perform the first bombing with an airplane in history at the railway station of Karaagac near Edirne against Turkey.
• November 5 - U.S. presidential election, 1912: Democratic challenger Woodrow Wilson wins a landslide victory over Republican incumbent William Howard Taft. Taft's base was undercut by Progressive Party candidate (and former Republican) Theodore Roosevelt, who finished second, ahead of Taft.
• November 7 - The Deutsche Opernhaus (now Deutsche Oper Berlin) opened in the Berlin neighborhood of Charlottenburg with a production of Beethoven's Fidelio.
• November 11 - Khios declares its independence from the Ottoman Empire.
• November 24 - Mine explosion in Hokkaido, Japan - 245 dead
• November 27 - Spain declares a protectorate over the north shore of Morocco.
• November 28 - Albania declares its independence from the Ottoman Empire.

December

• December 3 - First Balkan War ends temporarily - Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro, and Serbia (the Balkan League) sign an armistice with Turkey, ending the two-month long war.

unknown dates

• Sea Scouting begins under the aegis of the Boy Scouts of America
• Kazimierz Funk identifies vitamins.
• The first blues song, "The Memphis Blues ," is published.
• Alfred Wegener proposes the theory of continental drift
• Mount Katmai in Alaska explodes
• Piltdown Man presented in Britain
• British treasure hunters try to drain the Guatavita Lake to find gold – they find nothing
• African National Congress

Births

January-February

• January 1 - Kim Philby, spy (d. 1988)
• January 7 - Charles Addams, cartoonist (d. 1988)
• January 8 - José Ferrer, actor (d. 1992)
• January 14 - Rudolf Hagelstange , German lyricist, narrator and essayist (d. 1984)
• January 16 - Franz Tumler , Austrian narrator (d. 1998)
• January 28 - Jackson Pollock, painter, initiator of Dripping painting (d. 1956)
• January 30 - Barbara W. Tuchman, historian (d. 1989)
• February 4 - Erich Leinsdorf, Austrian conductor (d. 1993)
• February 6 - Eva Braun, Adolf Hitler's mistress (d. 1945)
• February 11 - Roy Fuller English poet/novelist (d. 1991)
• February 11 - Rudolf Firkusny Napajedla , Czechoslovakian, pianist.
• February 18 - Heinz Kühn , politician (d. 1992)
• February 19 - Stan Kenton, musician (d. 1979)
• February 20 - Pierre Boulle, author (d. 1994)
• February 27 - Lawrence Durrell, writer (d. 1990)

March-April

• March 5 - David Astor, British newspaper publisher (d. 2001)
• March 8 - Preston Smith, Governor of Texas (d. 2003)
• March 12 - Irving Layton, poet
• March 14 - Les Brown, band leader (d. 2001)
• March 15 - Lightnin' Hopkins, musician (d. 1982)
• March 16 - Pat Nixon, actress, First Lady of the United States (d. 1993)
• March 17 - Bayard Rustin, civil rights activist (d. 1987)
• March 18 - Lucien Laurin, Secretariat's Hall of Fame trainer (d. 2000)
• March 22 - Karl Malden, actor
• March 23 - Wernher von Braun, physicist and engineer (d. 1977)
• March 27 - James Callaghan, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 2005)
• March 31 - Hermann Höcherl , politician (d. 1989)
• April 8 - Sonja Henie, Olympic and World Champion figure skater (d. 1969)
• April 19 - Glenn T. Seaborg, American atomic scientist (d. 1999)
• April 22 - Kathleen Ferrier, American contralto (d. 1953)
• April 26 - A. E. van Vogt, science fiction writer (d. 2000)
• April 28 - Odette Sansom, SOE agent, WW II heroine (d. 1995)

May-July

• May 9 - Pedro Armendáriz , actor (d. 1963)
• May 11 - Foster Brooks, American actor and comedian (d. 2001)
• May 12 - Archibald Cox, Watergate special prosecutor (d. 2001)
• May 14 - Ben Hogan, golfer (d. 1997)
• May 16 - Studs Terkel, writer
• May 18 - Walter Sisulu, anti-apartheid activist (d. 2003)
• May 18 - Perry Como, singer (d. 2001)
• May 21 - Monty Stratton, Major League Baseball pitcher (d. 1982)
• May 23 - John Payne (actor) (d. 1989)
• May 27 - Sam Snead (d. 2002)
• May 28 - Patrick White, author (d. 1990)
• May 30 - Joseph Stein , playwright
• May 30 - Julius Axelrod, biochemist and Nobel laureate (d. 2004)
• May 31 - Alfred Deller, English countertenor (d. 1979)
• June 6 - Maria Montez, actress (d. 1951)
• June 23 - Alan Turing, mathematician (d. 1954)
• June 25 - William T. Cahill, governor of New Jersey
• June 26 - Jay Silverheels, actor (d. 1980)
• July 1 - David R. Brower, major environmentalist (d. 2000)
• July 14 - Woody Guthrie, folk musician (d. 1969)
• July 17 - Art Linkletter, television host

August-November

• August 14 - John Jacob Astor V, member of the Astor family (d. 1992)
• August 23 - Gene Kelly, actor (d. 1996)
• August 30 - Nancy Wake, WW II heroine
• September 5 - John Cage, American composer (d. 1992)
• September 5 - Kristina Söderbaum, German actress and photographer (d. 2001)
• September 12 - Jacques Fath , French couturier (d. 1954)
• September 19 - Kurt Sanderling, conductor
• September 21 - Chuck Jones, animator (d. 2002)
• September 22 - Martha Scott, American actress (d. 2003)
• September 29 - Michelangelo Antonioni, Italian film director
• October 5 – Karl Hass, convicted Nazi war criminal (d. 2004)
• October 17 - Pope John Paul I (d. 1978)
• October 21 - Georg Solti, Hungarian conductor (d. 1997)
• October 22 - Johan Hendrik Weidner, Belgian born WW II hero (d. 1994)
• October 27 - Conlon Nancarrow, composer (d. 1997)
• November 4 - Vadim Salmanov, composer (d. 1978)
• November 10 - Birdie Tebbetts, Major League Baseball catcher and manager (d. 1999)
• November 14 – Barbara Hutton, America's "Poor Little Rich Girl" (d. 1979)
• November 21 - Eleanor Powell, actress, dancer (d. 1982)
• November 26 - Eugene Ionesco, playwright (d. 1994)

December

• December 11 - Carlo Ponti, Italian film producer
• December 12 - Henry Armstrong, American boxing champion (d. 1988)
• December 25 - Natalino Otto, Italian singer
• December 27 - Conroy Maddox, British painter (d. 2005)
• (unknown) - Laurence Henry Hicks, composer (d. 1997)

Deaths

• January 28 - Gustave de Molinari, Belgian economist
• February 16 - Nikolai of Japan, Eastern Orthodox monk priest, saint
• March 1 - George Grossmith, English actor and comic writer (b. 1847)
• March 29 - Robert Falcon Scott, explorer
• March 30 - Karl May, author
• April 15 - Victims of the RMS Titanic disaster
  • John Jacob Astor IV, businessman
  • Archibald Butt, presidential aide
  • Benjamin Guggenheim, businessman
  • William Thomas Stead, journalist
  • Isidor Straus, owner of Macy's
• May 14 - August Strindberg
• May 25 - Austin Lane Crothers, politician.
• May 30 - Wilbur Wright of the Wright brothers, American co-inventor of the airplane
• July 1 - Harriet Quimby, American pilot
• July 2 - Tom Richardson, cricket bowler (b. 1870)
• July 30 - Meiji Emperor of Japan
• August 7 - François-Alphonse Forel, Swiss hydrologist (b. 1841)
• August 8 - Ross Winn, anarchist writer and publisher
• October 24 - Mykola Lysenko, composer
• October 30 - James S. Sherman, United States vice-president
• November 10 - Louis Cyr, famous Canadian strongman (b. 1863)
• December 23 - Otto Schoetensack, German anthropologist (b. 1850)

Nobel Prizes

• Physics - Nils Gustaf Dalén
• Chemistry - Victor Grignard, Paul Sabatier
• Medicine - Alexis Carrel
• Literature - Gerhart Johann Robert Hauptmann
• Peace - Elihu Root