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On This Day | November 12

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2017
2017 Iran-Iraq earthquake

The 2017 Iran-Iraq earthquake had a moment magnitude of 7.3 and occured on the Iran-Iraq border, with the Iraqi Kurdish city of Halabja, and the Kurdish dominated places of Ezgeleh, Salas-e Babajani County, Kermanshah Province in Iran, closest to the epicentre, 30 kilometres (19 mi) south of the city of Halabja, Iraqi Kurdistan. It was felt as far away as Israel and the United Arab Emirates. With at least 630 people killed (mostly in Iraq's Kurdish Halabja area and the Iranian Kurdish dominated province of Kermanshah), and more than 8,100 injured, as well as many more unaccounted for, it was the deadliest earthquake of 2017.

1999
1999 Düzce earthquake

The 1999 Düzce earthquake had a moment magnitude of 7.2 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent), causing damage and at least 845 fatalities in Düzce, Turkey. The epicenter was approximately 100 km (62 mi) to the east of the extremely destructive 1999 Izmit earthquake that happened nearly three months earlier. Both strike-slip earthquakes were caused by movement on the North Anatolian Fault.

1936
San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge opened

The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, known locally as the Bay Bridge, is a complex of bridges spanning San Francisco Bay in California. As part of Interstate 80 and the direct road between San Francisco and Oakland, it carries about 260,000 vehicles a day on its two decks. It has one of the longest spans in the United States.

1902
William Henry Barlow died

William Henry Barlow was an English civil engineer of the 19th century, particularly associated with railway engineering projects. Barlow was involved in many engineering enterprises. He was engineer for the Midland Railway on its London extension and designed the company's London terminus at St Pancras. With John Hawkshaw, he completed Isambard Kingdom Brunel's Clifton Suspension Bridge. Following the Tay Bridge disaster he sat on the commission which investigated the causes and designed the replacement Tay Bridge. Barlow was also an inventor and experimenter, patenting a design for a rail and carrying out investigations on the use and design of steel structures.

1842
John William Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh was born

John William Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh was a British mathematician and physicist who made extensive contributions to science. He spent all of his academic career at the University of Cambridge. Among many honours, he received the 1904 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his investigations of the densities of the most important gases and for his discovery of argon in connection with these studies." He served as president of the Royal Society from 1905 to 1908 and as chancellor of the University of Cambridge from 1908 to 1919.

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