| 12 February 1554 | England [crime and punishment] | Following the dangerous Wyatt's Rebellion against Queen Mary I of England, Lady Jane Grey, titular queen of England for nine days (1553), her father (Henry, duke of Suffolk), her husband (Lord Guildford Dudley), and 46 commoners are beheaded in London, England (16). |
| 12 February 1577 | Holy Roman Empire, Spanish Netherlands [Dutch Revolt (1598–1609)] | Don John of Austria, the new Habsburg governor of the Spanish Netherlands, issues the Perpetual Edict to settle the civil war – without consulting the Dutch stadtholder (provincial executive officer) William the Silent, Prince of Orange, or the rebel provinces of Holland and Zeeland; all Spanish troops are to leave, the states are to pay the wage arrears of the loyal Netherlandish and German troops, and the liberties and prerogatives of the Dutch communities are to be restored. |
| 12 February 1658 | Sweden, Denmark-Norway [wars] | Having marched his forces across the frozen sea of the Little Belt to Fyn and the Great Belt to Zealand, King Charles X of Sweden besieges the Danish capital, Copenhagen; Denmark surrenders, effectively ending the (First) Northern War. |
| 12 February 1663 | America [births and deaths] | Cotton Mather, New England author, educator, and Congregational minister, son of Increase Mather, born in Boston, Massachusetts (–1728). |
| 12 February 1804 | Prussia [births and deaths] | Immanuel Kant, German philosopher whose work had a major influence on subsequent philosophy, dies in Königsberg, Prussia (80). |
| 12 February 1809 | USA [births and deaths] | Abraham Lincoln, sixteenth president of the USA 1861–65, a Republican, born in Hodgenville, Kentucky (–1865). |
| 12 February 1809 | England [births and deaths] | Charles Robert Darwin, English naturalist who develops the theory of evolution through natural selection, born in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England (–1882). |
| 12 February 1818 | Chile, Spain [decolonization] | The Spanish colony of Chile proclaims itself independent. |
| 12 February 1895 | China, Japan [wars] | The Japanese navy achieves a resounding victory over Chinese forces at Weihaiwei during the Sino-Japanese war. |
| 12 February 1907 | USA [transport disasters] | The passenger steamer Larchmont sinks in the Long Island Sound off New York City, killing 131 people. |
| 12 February 1912 | China [law and government] | P'u-i, the last Manchu emperor of China, abdicates, and China becomes a republic under provisional president Sun Zhong Shan (Sun Yat-sen). |
| 12 February 1999 | USA [administration] | After a month-long impeachment trial, the US Senate acquits President Bill Clinton of perjury and obstruction of justice, 55–45 and 50–50. The charges would have needed a two-thirds majority to dismiss the president from office. |
