2016-05-12

In Postville, Iowa, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducted the largest-ever raid of a workplace and arrested nearly 400 immigrants for identity theft and document fraud.

Four students were shot and killed by Indonesian soldiers at Trisakti University in Jakarta, which led to widespread riots and the resignation of President Suharto nine days later.

The Coppergate Helmet (pictured), the best preserved of the six known Anglo-Saxon helmets, was discovered.

Juan María Fernández y Krohn attempted to assassinate Pope John Paul II with a bayonet in Fátima, Portugal.

The Cambodian navy seized the American container ship SS Mayaguez in what they claimed to be Cambodian territorial waters.

Vietnam War: The 1st Australian Task Force began the defence of Fire Support Base Coral in the largest unit-level action of the war for the Australian Army.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience released the critically acclaimed and widely influential debut album Are You Experienced.

The United Kingdom publicly announced that it was independently developing nuclear weapons, after the US Atomic Energy Act of 1946 ended cooperation on the matter.

German engineer Konrad Zuse presented the Z3, the first working programmable and fully automatic computer, to an audience of scientists in Berlin.

During an exercise to demonstrate air power, United States Army Air Corps bomber aircraft intercepted the Italian ocean liner SS Rex (pictured) 620 nautical miles (1,100 km) off the US Atlantic coast.