June 12

Anne Frank, whose diary of hiding during the German occupation of the Netherlands became one of the most widely read books of the twentieth century, was born in Frankfurt.

Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the seventh leader of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, died in Brooklyn at the age of 92.

Gopinath Kaviraj, an eminent scholar of Sanskrit and Tantra and a Sahitya Akademi Award winner, died at Varanasi on this day in 1976.

Karl von Drais made the first documented ride of his Laufmaschine near Mannheim, a steerable two-wheeled running machine that was the ancestor of the bicycle.