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Newport Beach

: 12 Apr – Soldiers of the Fourth Crusade conquer and sack the Byzantine capital of Constantinople (1204). 12 Apr – Confederate artillery under PGT Beauregard begins shelling Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina, beginning the American Civil War (1861). 12 Apr – The Soviet Comonaut Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin (1934-1968) became the first human in space and the first to orbit the earth aboard Vostok 3KA-3 (1961). 12 Apr – First launch (STS-1) of the first US Space Shuttle, Columbia, from Cape Canaveral (1981). John W. Young was Mission Commander and Robert L. Crippen was the pilot.