Historical events occurring on May 12 and 13

On May 12, significant events included Jozef Pilsudski’s 1926 coup in Poland, the 1943 surrender of General von Arnim, and the 2008 Sichuan earthquake that killed nearly 70,000 people. Irena Sendler and artist Robert Rauschenberg died in 2008, while Narendra Modi won the Indian election in 2014 and an Amtrak train derailed in 2015. On May 13, actor Gary Cooper died in 1961, and Israel established diplomatic ties with West Germany in 1965. Paris peace talks for the Vietnam War began in 1968, and Pope John Paul II survived an assassination attempt in 1981. Three astronauts repaired the Intelsat-6 satellite in 1992, and U.S. President George W. Bush signed a nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia in 2002. Furthermore, in 2009, the European Commission fined Intel 1.06 billion euros, and a 2014 mine explosion in Turkey claimed over 150 lives.