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.
— Xi’an Incident
12 Dec 1936 — Zhang Xueliang — whose Manchuria Chiang would not fight for — kidnaps his own commander-in-chief to force a united front against Japan. Stalin urges Chiang’s release; Zhou Enlai negotiates it. Civil war is suspended by mutiny: the CCP survives 1936 because a warlord wanted his homeland back.
READ THIS MOMENT → · SEE IT ON THE CHINA IN REVOLUTION MAP → · THE FULL STORY →
— USS Panay incident
12 Dec 1937 — Japanese aircraft sink an American gunboat evacuating civilians up the Yangtze, in plain daylight. Tokyo apologizes and pays; Washington accepts — and remembers.
READ THIS MOMENT → · SEE IT ON THE ROAD TO WAR MAP → · THE FULL STORY →
At midnight in Nairobi the Union flag comes down and Kenya becomes independent, ten years after the Emergency began; Jomo Kenyatta, once jailed as its organiser, is prime minister.
READ THIS MOMENT → · SEE IT ON THE TWO ROADS TO INDEPENDENCE MAP →
— Whitehead Detention Centre
1989–97 — Hong Kong holds “screened-out” Vietnamese, those judged not to be refugees, in a fenced camp at Ma On Shan. Riots, hunger strikes and the dawn deportation flight of 12 December 1989 made it the symbol of the end of automatic asylum.
READ THIS MOMENT → · SEE IT ON THE UPROOTED MAP → · THE FULL STORY →
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