site.btaObservances: August 12

The world:

- International Youth Day (declared on December 17, 1999, by UN General Assembly resolution; first observed on August 12, 2000).

On this date in Bulgarian history:

• 1875: In Bucharest, the Bulgarian Revolutionary Central Committee decides that an uprising against Ottoman rule must be declared immediately.
• 1879: Danubian Flotilla set up in Ruse. Birthday of Bulgarian Navy.
• 1888: Tsaribrod-Sofia-Vakarel-Belovo railway, designed and built by Bulgarians only, opens to international traffic. Sofia's railway station is inaugurated.
• 1960: Higher Military Medical Institute (now Military Medical Academy) is established.
• 1999: Bulgaria starts clearing Cold War landmine fields near villages of Chakalarovo, Gorno Kapinovo and Draganovo in Kardzhali Region (on border with Greece) under Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction.