July 12

The humanist scholar Desiderius Erasmus, editor of the Greek New Testament, died in Basel and was buried in the city's minster.

Ernesto Schiaparelli, the Italian Egyptologist who uncovered Queen Nefertari's painted tomb in the Valley of the Queens, was born in Biella.

France's Court of Cassation annulled the verdict against army captain Alfred Dreyfus, declaring him innocent and closing a case that had gripped Europe.

Gertrude Bell, who founded the Iraq Museum in Baghdad and served as the country's first Director of Antiquities, died in Baghdad.

D. T. Suzuki, the Japanese scholar whose writings introduced many Western readers to Zen Buddhism, died in Kamakura, Japan, at the age of 95.