What happened on December 12 ?

884 - Carloman, King of the West Franks

1212 - Geoffrey, Archbishop of York

1569 - Metropolitan Philip of Moscow (b. 1507)

1574 - Selim II, Ottoman Sultan (b. 1524)

1586 - Stefan Batory, King of Poland (b. 1533)

1685 - John Pell, English mathematician (b. 1610)

1751 - Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke, English statesman and philosopher (b. 1678)

1754 - Wu Jingzi, Chinese writer (b. 1701)

1766 - Johann Christoph Gottsched, German writer (b. 1700)

1789 - John Ponsonby, Irish politician (b. 1713)

1790 - Mikhail Shcherbatov, Russian philosopher and writer (b. 1733)

1843 - King William I of the Netherlands, (b. 1772)

1889 - Robert Browning, British poet (b. 1812)

1894 - Sir John Thompson, fourth Prime Minister of Canada (b. 1845)

1913 - Emperor Menelek II of Ethiopia (b. 1844)

1923 - Raymond Radiguet, French author (b. 1903)

1926 - Jean Richepin, French poet (b. 1849)

1929 - Charles Goodnight, American cattle baron (b. 1836)

1939 - Douglas Fairbanks, American actor (b. 1883)

1952 - Bed?ich Hrozný, Austro-Hungarian-born Czechoslovak orientalist and linguist (b. 1879)

1963 - Ozu Yasujiro, Japanese film director (b. 1903)

1968 - Tallulah Bankhead, American actress (b. 1902)

1970 - Doris Blackburn, Australian politician (b. 1889)

1971 - David Sarnoff, Russian-born American General Manager of RCA (b. 1891)

1976 - Vinko Zganec, Croatian ethnomusicologist (b. 1890)

1985 - Anne Baxter, American actress (b. 1923)

1993 - József Antall, Hungarian politician (b. 1932)

1994 - Stuart Roosa, American astronaut (b. 1933)

1996 - Vance Packard, American author (b. 1914)

1999 - Joseph Heller, American author (b. 1923)

2001 - Jean Richard, French actor (b. 1921)

2002 - Dee Brown, American author (b. 1908)

2003 - Geidar Aliev, President of Azerbaijan

2003 - Joseph Anthony Ferrario, American Catholic prelate (b. 1926)