Today in History in 1933 Hugh Gray takes the first-known photograph alleged to show the Loch Ness Monster; and in 1958 a team of rock climbers led by Warren Harding completes the first successful climb of the "Nose" on El Capitan in Yosemite Valley, California.

The On This Day In History archives at “Simple English Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia” contains over 200,000 events, birthdays and deaths from 6,000 years of history. Here is a roundup of a few of them:

November 12 is the 316th day of the year (317th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 49 days remaining until the end of the year.

EVENTS

764 – Tibetan troops occupy Chang'an, the capital of the Chinese Tang Dynasty, for fifteen days.

1028 – Future Byzantine empress Zoe marries Romanus Argyrus according to the wishes of dying Constantine VIII

1439 – Plymouth, England, becomes the first town incorporated by the English Parliament.

1555 - The English Parliament decides that Roman Catholicism will be the state religion of England.

1602 - Sebastian Viscaino lands at, and names, San Diego, California.

1793 - Jean Sylvain Bailly, the first Mayor of Paris, is executed on the guillotine.

1892 - William Heffelfinger becomes the first professional American football player on record, taking part in his first paid game for the Allegheny Athletic Association.

1893 - The Treaty of the Durand is signed between present-day Pakistan and Afghanistan; the Durand Line has become the international border between the two countries.

1905 - Newly independent Norway holds a referendum on its system of government. Most voters decide to have a monarch as their Head of State, over having a president.

1908 - An explosion at a mine shaft in Hamm, present-day North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, kills 348 people.

1912 - The bodies of Robert Falcon Scott and his men are found on the Ross Ice Shelf.

1918 – Austria becomes a republic.

1920 - Italy and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes sign the Treaty of Rapallo.

1927 – Leon Trotsky is expelled from the Soviet Communist Party, leaving Joseph Stalin with complete control of the Soviet Union.

1928 - The ship SS Vestris sinks around 200 miles (320 kilometers) off Hampton Roads, Virginia, killing over 110 people.

1933 - Hugh Gray takes the first-known photograph alleged to show the Loch Ness Monster.

1936 – The San Francisco Bay Bridge is opened.

1942 – World War II: The Naval Battle of Guadalcanal between Japanese and American forces begins near Guadalcanal. The battle lasts for three days.

1944 – World War II: The Royal Air Force launches one of the most successful bombing attacks of war and sinks the German battleship Tirpitz off the coast of Norway.

1945 - Sudirman is elected as the first commander-in-chief of the Indonesian Armed Forces.

1948 - In Tokyo, an international war crimes tribunal sentences seven Japanese military and government officials, including Hideki Tojo, to death for their roles in World War II.

1956 - Morocco, Sudan and Tunisia join the UN.

1958 - A team of rock climbers led by Warren Harding completes the first successful climb of the "Nose" on El Capitan in Yosemite Valley, California.

1968 - Equatorial Guinea joins the UN.

1969 – Vietnam War: My Lai Massacre – Independent investigative journalist Seymour Hersh breaks the My Lai story.

1970 - The Oregon Highway Division attempt to destroy a rotting bleached sperm whale with explosives, leading to the now-infamous "exploding whale" incident.

1973 - It is announced that Gerald Ford is to succeed Spiro Agnew as Vice President of the United States.

1975 – The Comoros join the UN.

1980 – The Voyager 1 space probe takes images of Saturn's rings.

1981 - The Space Shuttle Columbia launches on its second flight.

1982 – In the Soviet Union, Yuri Andropov is selected to become the general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party's Central Committee, succeeding the late Leonid Brezhnev.

1982 – Polish Solidarity leader Lech Walesa is released.

1985 - Xavier Suarez becomes Miami's first Cuban-American Mayor.

1990 – Crown Prince Akihito is formally installed as Emperor Akihito of Japan, becoming the 125th Japanese monarch. He had already succeeded his father Hirohito, who died on January 7, 1989.

1990 - Tim Berners-Lee publishes a formal proposal for the World Wide Web.

1991 – Dili Massacre: Indonesian forces opened fire on a crowd of student protesters in Dili, East Timor.

1994 - Chandrika Kumaratunga becomes President of Sri Lanka.

1995 - Mozambique joins the Commonwealth of Nations. As a former Portuguese colony, it is the first Commonwealth member not to have had any historical links with the present-day United Kingdom.

1995 - Azerbaijan holds its first parliamentary elections.

1996 - A Saudi Arabian Airlines Boeing 747 and a Kazakh Ilyushin II-76 cargo plane collide in mid-air near New Delhi, India, killing 349 people in the deadliest mid-air collision to date.

1997 - Ramzi Yousef is found guilty of planning the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

2001 – Taliban forces abandon Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, ahead of advancing Northern Alliance troops.

2001 – A plane crash in the New York Borough of Queens kills all (260) of those on board, and 5 people on the ground. American Airlines Flight 587 had come down shortly after take-off and was bound for the Dominican Republic.

2003 - Iraq War: In Nasiriya, Iraq, at least 23 people, including the war's first Italian casualties, are killed in a suicide bomb attack on the Italian police base.

2003 - Shanghai Transrapid sets a new world speed record, 501 kilometers per hour (311 miles per hour), for commercial railways systems, which remains the fastest for unmodified commercial rail vehicles.

2004 – Official Guided by Voices Day in Los Angeles, California.

2004 – Resignation of Colin Powell as United States Secretary of Defense.

2010 - The 16th Asian Games begin in Guangzhou, China.

2011 – In the wake of an economic crisis, Silvio Berlusconi resigns as Prime Minister of Italy. Mario Monti is selected to replace him shortly after.

2013 - One World Trade Center is announced as being the tallest building in the United States.

2014 - The Philae lander from the European Space Agency's Rosetta probe lands on the surface of the Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. It is the first man-made object to land on a comet.

2015 - At least 40 people are killed in suicide bomb attacks in Beirut, Lebanon.

2017 - A magnitude 7.3 earthquake strikes the Iran-Iraq border area, killing at least 450 people and injuring hundreds.