Today in History, 5/12

1191: The Battle of Lewes, between King Henry III of England and the rebel Simon de Montfort begins.1780: During the American Revolution, Charleston, South Carolina is taken by the British.
1797: Napoleon I of France takes Venice.
1820: Florence Nightingale is born.1850: Henry Cabot Lodge is born.1862: Union troops occupy Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
1907: Katharine Hepburn is born.

1918: Julius Rosenberg is born.1925: Yogi Berra is born.1930: Jesus Franco is born. He made innumerable trashy European films in the 1970's with titles like Vampyros Lesbos and She Killed in Ecstasy.1932: 10 weeks after his abduction, the body of the infant son of Charles Lindbergh is found in Hopewell, NJ, just a few miles from his home.
1937: George Carlin is born.

1941: Konrad Zuse presents the Z3, the world's first programmable, fully automatic computer in Berlin.1943: Axis forces in North Africa surrender.
1949: The Soviet Union lifts the Berlin Blockade.
1950: Gabriel Byrne is born.

1959: Ving Rhames is born.1961: Bruce McCulloch is born. He was one of the Kids in the Hall and is the guy who invented "a pill that gives worms to ex-girlfriends" in Brain Candy.

1962: Emilio Estevez is born.1962: Douglas MacArthur gives his famous "Duty, Honor, Country" speech at West Point.
1963: Vanessa Williams is born.1965: The Soviet spacecraft Luna 5 crashes into the moon.
1967: At Queen Elizabeth Hall, Pink Floyd gives the first quadraphonic rock concert.
1969: Kim Fields is born. She played Tootie on The Facts of Life.1970: Samantha Mathis is born. She played Christian Slater's love interest in the teen angst epic Pump Up the Volume.

Today in History elements mostly cribbed from The History Channel, Wikipedia, The New York Times, The Jewish World Review, The Writer's Almanac and anything else I can dig up.