November 12

954 – The 13-year-old Lothair III is crowned at the Abbey of Saint-Remi as king of the West Frankish Kingdom. 1028 – Future Byzantine empress Zoe takes the throne as empress consort to Romanos III Argyros. 1330 – Battle of Posada ends: Wallachian Voievode Basarab I defeats the Hungarian army by ambush. 1439 – Plymouth becomes the first town incorporated by the English Parliament. 1835 – Construction is completed on the Wilberforce Monument in Kingston Upon Hull. 1892 – Pudge Heffelfinger becomes the first professional American football player on record, participating in his first paid game for the Allegheny Athletic Association. 1893 – Abdur Rahman Khan accepts the Durand Line as the border between the Emirate of Afghanistan and the British Raj. 1905 – Norway holds a referendum resulting in popular approval of the Storting's decision to authorise the government to make the offer of the throne of the newly independent country. 1912 – First Balkan War: King George I of Greece makes a triumphal entry into Thessaloniki after its liberation from 482 years of Ottoman rule. 1912 – The frozen bodies of Robert Scott and his men are found on the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica. 1918 – Dissolution of Austria-Hungary: Austria becomes a republic. After the proclamation, a coup attempt by the communist Red Guard is defeated by the social-democratic Volkswehr. 1920 – Italy and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes sign the Treaty of Rapallo. 1927 – Leon Trotsky is expelled from the Soviet Communist Party, leaving Joseph Stalin in undisputed control of the Soviet Union. 1928 – sinks approximately off Hampton Roads, Virginia, killing at least 110 passengers, mostly women and children who die after the vessel is abandoned. 1933 – Nazi Germany uses a referendum to ratify its withdrawal from the League of Nations. 1936 – In California, the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge opens to traffic. 1938 – Nazi Germany issues the Decree on the Elimination of Jews from Economic Life prohibiting Jews from selling goods and services or working in a trade, totally segregating Jews from the German economy.