May 12 in History

Year 113 (CXIII) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Celsus and Crispinus. The denomination 113 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.

The Council of Blachernae was a church council in the Byzantine Empire, convened in May 1157 at the imperial Palace of Blachernae, which condemned the newly elected Patriarch of Antioch Soterichos Panteugenos, and the rhetoricians Michael of Thessalonica and Nikephoros Basilakes.

The Prince of Anhua rebellion, or the Prince of Anhua's uprising, was a rebellion in China led by Zhu Zhifan, the Prince of Anhua, against the reigning Zhengde Emperor of the Ming dynasty. The rebellion took place in Ningxia, one of the nine military regions along the Mongolian frontier. In 1510, Liu Jin, a court eunuch who held significant power in the government thanks to the trust and support of the Zhengde Emperor, sent officials to Ningxia to enforce tax increases on military households and punish tax debtors, provoking anger and discontent among the local population. Taking advantage of the situation, Zhu Zhifan launched the rebellion on 12 May, declaring it a campaign against Liu Jin. The rebels seized control of the city of Ningxia and eliminated the leading local generals and officials, but the rebellion did not spread beyond the city’s immediate surroundings. In response to the rebellion, pro-government commanders in the region began gathering troops, while the government in Beijing appointed experienced military leaders familiar with local conditions—the general Shen Ying and the official Yang Yiqing—to organize the suppression of the uprising. As reinforcement for the local forces, the government also dispatched more than thirty thousand soldiers from the Beijing garrison against the rebels under the command of the eunuch Zhang Yong. The rebellion ended with little significant fighting on 30 May 1510, after lasting 18 days. Qiu Yue, who had pretended to support the rebels, led a group of pro-government soldiers in occupying the palace of the Prince of Anhua and capturing him. Government forces then cleared the city and its surrounding areas of rebel presence, apprehending or eliminating the rebel leaders. After the arrival of Shen Ying, Yang Yiqing, and Zhang Yong in Ningxia, an investigation into the rebellion was conducted, compensation was provided for the damages, and the captured rebels were transported to Beijing for punishment. Nearly one hundred rebels were executed, while twice as many were exiled. The Prince of Anhua was ultimately ordered to commit suicide.

Thomas Kyd was an English playwright, the author of The Spanish Tragedy and one of the most important figures in the development of Elizabethan drama.

During the aftermath of World War II and the Cold War, the Indochina wars were a series of wars which were waged in Indochina from 1945 to 1991, by communist forces against the opponents. The term "Indochina" referred to former French Indochina, which included the current states of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. In current usage, it applies largely to a geographic region, rather than to a political area. The wars included:The First Indochina War began after the end of World War II with the War in southern Vietnam (1945–1946), which acted as the precursor to the First Indochina War. The conflict officially began in 1946 as a battle of independence against colonialist powers and lasted until the French defeat in 1954. After a long campaign of unsuccessful resistance against the French and the Japanese, Viet Minh forces claimed a victory in the August Revolution after Japanese forces surrendered to the Allies on 15 August 1945, leading to the fall of the Empire of Vietnam and Nguyễn dynasty. In the War in southern Vietnam (1945–1946), British forces temporarily occupied the South with the objective of disarming Japanese forces, starting from 13 September 1945, only to restore French colonial control in 1946. Meanwhile, the communist Viet Minh sought to consolidate power by terrorizing and purging rival Vietnamese nationalist groups and Trotskyist activists. Additionally, other recently formed groups in Cambodia and Laos, such as the Khmer Issarak and the Lao Issara, also began their own guerrilla movements, advocating for independence in their respective countries. In the United Nations, and through their alliance with the United Kingdom and the United States, the French demanded return of their former Indochina colony prior to agreeing to participate in the NATO alliance opposing Soviet expansion beyond the countries of the Warsaw Pact in the Cold War. With support from China and the Soviet Union, the communist Viet Minh continued fighting the French Union, including the anti-communist State of Vietnam, ultimately forcing the NATO-backed French out of North Vietnam as a result of the 1954 Geneva Conference. The Second Indochina War was a group of interconnected civil wars in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. Most often, it refers to what is called the Vietnam War in the United States. It began as a conflict between the United States-backed South Vietnamese government and its opponents, both the North Vietnamese-based communist Viet Cong and the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN), known in the West as the North Vietnamese Army (NVA). The conflict began in 1955 and lasted until 1975 when the North Vietnamese army conquered South Vietnam. The United States, which had supported France and its native vassal during the First Indochina war, backed the Republic of Vietnam government in opposition to the communist Viet Cong and PAVN. The North benefited from military and financial support from China, the Soviet Union, and other members of the communist bloc. Fighting also occurred during this time in Cambodia between the US-backed government, the PAVN, and the communist-backed Khmer Rouge, which also fought alongside deposed King Sihanouk's government in exile and in Laos between the US-backed government, the PAVN, and the communist-backed Pathet Lao. The Third Indochina War was a period of prolonged conflict following the Second Indochina War. The conflict began in 1978 and lasted until the 1991 Paris Peace Agreements on 23 October 1991, in which several wars were fought:The Cambodian–Vietnamese War began when Vietnam invaded Cambodia and deposed the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime. The war lasted from 21 December 1978 to 23 October 1991. Cambodia's constitutional monarchy was then restored in 1993.The Sino-Vietnamese War was a four-week war fought in February–March 1979 between the People's Republic of China and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. The Chinese launched a punitive expedition in revenge for the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, and withdrew a month later to prewar positions. Skirmishes along the border would continue until the two countries normalized relations on 5 November 1991.After the triumph of the Pathet Lao, an anti-communist insurgency in Laos lasted until most Hmong insurgents surrendered in 2007, though some resistance cells remained active for several years after. Thailand, which supported the Lao insurgents, as well as the anti-Vietnamese forces in the Third Indochina War, fought a few skirmishes with Vietnam in 1984, and a short conflict with Laos in 1987.FULRO insurgency in Vietnam – United Front for the Liberation of Oppressed RacesThe Communist Party of Thailand fought an insurgency from 1965 to 1989. They received backing from Laos and Vietnam from 1975 to 1979 but were expelled from their bases and lost most of their supply lines after they sided with the Cambodian-Chinese aligned forces, rather than the pro-Soviet Vietnamese and Laotian regimes.

Two major bombings took place in residential compounds in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on 12 May 2003, 39 people were killed, and over 160 wounded when bombs went off at three compounds in Riyadh—Dorrat Al Jadawel, Al Hamra Oasis Village, and the Vinnell Corporation Compound. On 8 November, a bomb was detonated outside the Al-Mohaya housing compound west of Riyadh, killing at least 17 people and wounding 122, mostly Arab foreigners.

On 12 May 2018, a 20-year-old Chechnya-born French citizen, armed with a knife, killed one pedestrian and injured four others near the Palais Garnier opera house in Paris, France, before being fatally shot by police. The stabbings were in the area of Rue Saint-Augustin and Passage Choiseul. French President Emmanuel Macron said France had "paid once again the price of blood but will not cede an inch to the enemies of freedom." The suspect, identified as Khamzat Azimov, had been on a counter-terrorism watchlist since 2016. Amaq News Agency posted a video of a hooded person pledging allegiance to Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, claimed to be the attacker. Europol classified the attack as jihadist terrorism.