THE DAY IN HISTORY · DECEMBER 12

December 12 in history

What happened on December 12: 4 moments from the Maps of History atlases, in 1936, 1937, 1963 and 1989, each linked to the map that shows it.

1936 — Xi’an Incident

12 Dec 1936 — Zhang Xueliang kidnaps his own commander-in-chief, Chiang, to force a united front against Japan. Chiang had refused to fight for Zhang’s homeland, Manchuria. Stalin urges Chiang’s release, and Zhou Enlai negotiates it. A warlord’s desire to recover his homeland has suspended the civil war by mutiny and helped the CCP survive 1936.

READ THIS MOMENT → · SEE IT ON THE CHINA IN REVOLUTION MAP → · THE FULL STORY →

1937 — USS Panay incident

12 Dec 1937 — Japanese aircraft sink an American gunboat in daylight as it evacuates civilians up the Yangtze. Tokyo apologizes and pays compensation. Washington accepts, but remembers the attack.

READ THIS MOMENT → · SEE IT ON THE ROAD TO WAR MAP → · THE FULL STORY →

1963

At midnight in Nairobi the Union flag comes down. Kenya becomes independent ten years after the Emergency began, with Jomo Kenyatta, once jailed as its organiser, as prime minister.

READ THIS MOMENT → · SEE IT ON THE TWO ROADS TO INDEPENDENCE MAP →

1989 — Whitehead Detention Centre

1989–97 — At Ma On Shan, Hong Kong held “screened-out” Vietnamese—people judged not to be refugees—in a fenced camp. Riots and hunger strikes followed, and on 12 December 1989 a forced flight returned 51 people to Hanoi at dawn. Whitehead became a symbol of the end of automatic asylum.

READ THIS MOMENT → · SEE IT ON THE UPROOTED MAP → · THE FULL STORY →