July 12
1948
Palestinian expulsion from Lydda and Ramle
In July 1948, during Operation Dani, Israeli forces captured the central Palestinian towns of Lydda (al-Lydd) and Ramle (ar-Ramla). Over a matter of days — roughly July 11–12, 1948 — fighting, mass detentions, and orders to leave produced one of the largest single displacements of the 1947–49 war: tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians forced onto the road under summer heat, many never to return. Read more
1943
Michniów massacre (pacification of Michniów)
On July 12–13, 1943, German security forces carried out a punitive pacification in the small Polish village of Michniów, murdering 204 civilians, burning homes and barns, and leaving survivors homeless. The action became a lasting symbol of Nazi collective punishment of rural communities and is commemorated at a national memorial on the site. Read more
1943
Battle of Prokhorovka
On July 12, 1943, near the village of Prokhorovka southeast of Kursk, Soviet 5th Guards Tank Army and elements of the German II SS Panzer Corps collided in a brutal, short‑range armored clash. The fighting unfolded across mined wheat fields and sunken embankments; it did not produce a decisive breakthrough for either side but helped blunt the German southern offensive during Operation Citadel and marked a turning point in the Eastern Front campaign. Read more
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1917
Bisbee Deportation
On July 12, 1917, in the copper town of Bisbee, Arizona, a thousand-plus miners and suspected labor organizers—many recent immigrants and Mexican nationals—were rounded up by deputized posses, loaded into boxcars and cattle cars, and carried into the New Mexico desert, where they were dumped without food or shelter. The mass expulsion, driven by company power, wartime fears, and local vigilante organization, became a landmark episode in American labor and civil‑liberties history.
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