August 12

Track	Year	Event	Artist	Song	Album
1	30 BC	Cleopatra VII Philopator, the last ruler of the Egyptian Ptolemaic dynasty, commits suicide, allegedly by means of an asp bite.	The Usaisamonster	Poison Snake	Tasheyana Compost
2	1851	Isaac Singer is granted a patent for his sewing machine.	Swingset	Sew?	More Kids, More Fun
3	1883	The last quagga dies at the Artis Magistra zoo in Amsterdam.	The Magnetic Fields	Zebra	69 Love Songs, Vol. 3
4	1898	The Hawaiian flag is lowered from Iolani Palace in an elaborate annexation ceremony and replaced with the flag of the United States to signify the transfer of sovereignty from the Republic of Hawai`i to the United States.	Yoshinori Sunahara	2300 Hawaii	Take Off and Landing
5	1952	The Night of the Murdered Poets: 13 prominent Jewish intellectuals are murdered in Moscow.	Joan Baez	Epitaph for a Poet	Baptism
6	1953	Nuclear weapons testing: the Soviet atomic bomb project continues with the detonation of Joe 4, the first Soviet thermonuclear weapon.	New Order	Who's Joe	Waiting for the Sirens' Call
7	1981	The IBM Personal Computer is released.	Kraftwerk	Home Computer	Computer World

(Historical facts about August 12 are from Wikipedia.)