| 129001 | November 12 | Event | 1928 – SS Vestris sinks approximately 200 miles (320 km) off Hampton Roads, Virginia, killing at least 110 passengers, mostly women and children who die after the vessel is abandoned. |
| 129002 | November 12 | Event | 1933 – Hugh Gray takes the first known photos alleged to be of the Loch Ness Monster. |
| 129003 | November 12 | Event | 1936 – In California, the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge opens to traffic. |
| 129004 | November 12 | Event | 1940 – World War II: The Battle of Gabon ends as Free French Forces take Libreville, Gabon, and all of French Equatorial Africa from Vichy French forces. |
| 129005 | November 12 | Event | 1940 – World War II: Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov arrives in Berlin to discuss the possibility of the Soviet Union joining the Axis Powers. |
| 129006 | November 12 | Event | 1941 – World War II: Temperatures around Moscow drop to -12 °C as the Soviet Union launches ski troops for the first time against the freezing German forces near the city. |
| 129007 | November 12 | Event | 1941 – World War II: The Soviet cruiser Chervona Ukraina is destroyed during the Battle of Sevastopol. |
| 129008 | November 12 | Event | 1942 – World War II: Naval Battle of Guadalcanal between Japanese and American forces begins near Guadalcanal. The battle lasts for three days and ends with an American victory. |
| 129009 | November 12 | Event | 1944 – World War II: The Royal Air Force launches 29 Avro Lancaster bombers, which sink the German battleship Tirpitz, with 12,000 lb Tallboy bombs off Tromsø, Norway. |
| 129010 | November 12 | Event | 1945 – Sudirman is elected the first commander-in-chief of the Indonesian Armed Forces. |
| 129011 | November 12 | Event | 1948 – In Tokyo, an international war crimes tribunal sentences seven Japanese military and government officials, including General Hideki Tojo, to death for their roles in World War II. |
| 129012 | November 12 | Event | 1956 – Morocco, Sudan and Tunisia join the United Nations. |
| 129013 | November 12 | Event | 1956 – In the midst of the Suez Crisis, Palestinian refugees are shot dead in the village of Rafah by Israeli soldiers following the invasion of the Gaza Strip. |
| 129014 | November 12 | Event | 1958 – A team of rock climbers led by Warren Harding completes the first ascent of The Nose on El Capitan in Yosemite Valley. |
| 129015 | November 12 | Event | 1968 – Equatorial Guinea joins the United Nations. |
| 129016 | November 12 | Event | 1969 – Vietnam War: My Lai Massacre – Independent investigative journalist Seymour Hersh breaks the My Lai story. |
| 129017 | November 12 | Event | 1970 – The Oregon Highway Division attempts to destroy a rotting beached Sperm whale with explosives, leading to the now infamous "exploding whale" incident. |
| 129018 | November 12 | Event | 1970 – The 1970 Bhola cyclone makes landfall on the coast of East Pakistan becoming the deadliest tropical cyclone in history. |
| 129019 | November 12 | Event | 1971 – Vietnam War: As part of Vietnamization, US President Richard Nixon sets February 1, 1972 as the deadline for the removal of another 45,000 American troops from Vietnam. |
| 129020 | November 12 | Event | 1975 – The Comoros joins the United Nations. |
| 129021 | November 12 | Event | 1978 – Pope John Paul II takes possession of his Cathedral Church, the Basilica of St. John Lateran, as the Bishop of Rome. |
| 129022 | November 12 | Event | 1979 – Iran hostage crisis: In response to the hostage situation in Tehran, US President Jimmy Carter orders a halt to all petroleum imports into the United States from Iran. |
| 129023 | November 12 | Event | 1980 – The NASA space probe Voyager I makes its closest approach to Saturn and takes the first images of its rings. |
| 129024 | November 12 | Event | 1981 – Space Shuttle program: Mission STS-2, utilizing the Space Shuttle Columbia, marks the first time a manned spacecraft is launched into space twice. |
| 129025 | November 12 | Event | 1982 – In the Soviet Union, Yuri Andropov becomes the General Secretary of the Communist Party's Central Committee, succeeding Leonid I. Brezhnev. |
| 129026 | November 12 | Event | 1990 – Crown Prince Akihito is formally installed as Emperor Akihito of Japan, becoming the 125th Japanese monarch. |
| 129027 | November 12 | Event | 1990 – Tim Berners-Lee publishes a formal proposal for the World Wide Web. |
| 129028 | November 12 | Event | 1991 – Santa Cruz massacre: Indonesian forces open fire on a crowd of student protesters in Dili, East Timor. |
| 129029 | November 12 | Event | 1993 – The first Ultimate Fighting Championship event, UFC 1, is held in Denver, Colorado. |
| 129030 | November 12 | Event | 1996 – A Saudi Arabian Airlines Boeing 747 and a Kazakh Ilyushin Il-76 cargo plane collide in mid-air near New Delhi, killing 349. The deadliest mid-air collision to date. |