March 12
1864 - Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant assumed command as General-in-Chief of the Union armies in the Civil War.
1912 - Juliette Gordon Low of Savannah, Georgia founded the Girl Scouts (then known as the "Girl Guides").
1925 - Chinese revolutionary leader Sun Yat-sen died in Beijing.
1930 - Mohandas Gandhi began his 200-mile march to protest the British salt tax.
1933 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave the first of his nation-wide "fireside chats" on radio.
1938 - "Anschluss" took place when Adolf Hitler incorporated his homeland of Austria into the Third Reich.
1947 - President Harry S. Truman established the "Truman Doctrine" to aid in the containment of Communism.
1955 - Legendary jazz saxophonist Charlie “Bird” Parker died in New York at age 34.
1971 - Hafez Assad was confirmed as president of Syria in a referendum.
1980 - A Chicago jury found John Wayne Gacy Jr. guilty of the murders of 33 men and boys. (The next day, Gacy was sentenced to death; he was executed in May 1994.)
1987 - The musical play "Les Miserables" opened on Broadway.
1993 - Janet Reno was sworn in as America's first female attorney general.
1994 - The Church of England ordained female priests for the first time.
2002 - The color-coded terror alert system was unveiled by the Department of Homeland Security.
2003 - The prime minister of the Serbian state of Serbia and Montenegro, Zoran Djindic, was assassinated.
2003 - Elizabeth Smart, the 15-year-old girl who vanished from her bedroom nine months earlier, was found alive in a Salt Lake City suburb with two drifters, Brian David Mitchell and Wanda Barzee. (Mitchell is serving a life sentence; Barzee was released from prison on September 2018.)
2009 - Disgraced financier Bernard Madoff pleaded guilty in New York to pulling off perhaps the biggest swindle in Wall Street history; he would be sentenced to 150 years behind bars. (Madoff died in prison in April 2021.)
2011 - Fifteen passengers were killed when a tour bus returning from a Connecticut casino scraped along a guard rail on the outskirts of New York City, tipped on its side and slammed into a pole that sheared it nearly end to end.
2012 - Greece implemented the biggest debt write-down in history, swapping the bulk of its privately held bonds with new ones worth less than half their original value.
2013 - Black smoke poured from the Sistine Chapel chimney, signaling that cardinals had failed on their first vote of the papal conclave to choose a new leader of the Catholic Church to succeed Benedict XVI.
2017 - A bus plowed into people taking part in an early morning street festival in Haiti, killing at least 34 of them.
2018 - Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee said they’d completed a draft report concluding that there was no collusion or coordination between Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and Russia.
2021 - The city of Minneapolis agreed to pay $27 million to settle a civil lawsuit from George Floyd’s family over the Black man’s death in police custody.
2022 - Russian forces pounding the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol shelled a mosque that was sheltering more than 80 people, including children.
Birthdays
21 - Malina Weissman (actress)
30 - Tyler Patrick Jones (actor)
40 - Jaimie Alexander (actress)
41 - Samm Levine (actor)
43 - Holly Williams (singer)
45 - Rhys Coiro (actor)
55 - Jake Tapper (reporter)
56 - Aaron Eckhart (actor)
61 - Jake Weber (actor)
61 - Julia Campbell (actress)
62 - Darryl Strawberry (baseball player)
62 - Titus Welliver (actor)
64 - Courtney B. Vance (actress)
64 - Jason Beghe (actor)
67 - Marlon Jackson (singer)
67 - Jerry Levine (actor)
68 - Lesley Manville (actress)
74 - Jon Provost (actor)
76 - James Taylor (singer)
78 - Liza Minnelli (actress/singer)
91 - Barbara Feldon (actress)
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Today in Sports History - March 12
1913 - The American League approved the name change of the New York Highlanders to the Yankees.
1956 - Dick Farley (Syracuse) fouled out after playing just five minutes. It was the fastest disqualification in NBA history.
1966 - Bobby Hull (Chicago Black Hawks) became the first player in the NHL to score more than 50 goals in a season. Hull ended the season with 54 goals.
1971 - Gordie Howe (Detroit Red Wings) announced his retirement after playing 26 seasons in the NHL. He came out or retirement two years later to play for the Houston Aeros of the World Hockey Association.
1972 - The Boston Celtics retired Bill Russell's No. 6.
1985 - Larry Bird, of the NBA’s Boston Celtics, scored a club-record 60 points. The game was against the Atlanta Hawks.
1985 - In Katmandu, Nepal, 80 people were trampled to death because stadium doors had been locked during a soccer game. The people had been seeking cover during a violent hail storm.
1987 - David Robinson of the U.S. Naval Academy scores 50 points in an NCAA Tournament basketball game.
1992 - Moses Malone (Milwaukee Bucks) became the fourth all-time scorer in NBA history.
1992 - Coach Don Nelson (Golden State Warriors) became the first man in NBA history to participate in 2,500 games as a player and coach.
2020 - The NHL joined the NBA in suspending their season due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
2020 - Due to COVID-19, the NCAA canceled the men's basketball tournament for the first time since it began in 1939; the women's tournament was also called off.
1864 - Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant assumed command as General-in-Chief of the Union armies in the Civil War.
1912 - Juliette Gordon Low of Savannah, Georgia founded the Girl Scouts (then known as the "Girl Guides").
1925 - Chinese revolutionary leader Sun Yat-sen died in Beijing.
1930 - Mohandas Gandhi began his 200-mile march to protest the British salt tax.
1933 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave the first of his nation-wide "fireside chats" on radio.
1938 - "Anschluss" took place when Adolf Hitler incorporated his homeland of Austria into the Third Reich.
1947 - President Harry S. Truman established the "Truman Doctrine" to aid in the containment of Communism.
1955 - Legendary jazz saxophonist Charlie “Bird” Parker died in New York at age 34.
1971 - Hafez Assad was confirmed as president of Syria in a referendum.
1980 - A Chicago jury found John Wayne Gacy Jr. guilty of the murders of 33 men and boys. (The next day, Gacy was sentenced to death; he was executed in May 1994.)
1987 - The musical play "Les Miserables" opened on Broadway.
1993 - Janet Reno was sworn in as America's first female attorney general.
1994 - The Church of England ordained female priests for the first time.
2002 - The color-coded terror alert system was unveiled by the Department of Homeland Security.
2003 - The prime minister of the Serbian state of Serbia and Montenegro, Zoran Djindic, was assassinated.
2003 - Elizabeth Smart, the 15-year-old girl who vanished from her bedroom nine months earlier, was found alive in a Salt Lake City suburb with two drifters, Brian David Mitchell and Wanda Barzee. (Mitchell is serving a life sentence; Barzee was released from prison on September 2018.)
2009 - Disgraced financier Bernard Madoff pleaded guilty in New York to pulling off perhaps the biggest swindle in Wall Street history; he would be sentenced to 150 years behind bars. (Madoff died in prison in April 2021.)
2011 - Fifteen passengers were killed when a tour bus returning from a Connecticut casino scraped along a guard rail on the outskirts of New York City, tipped on its side and slammed into a pole that sheared it nearly end to end.
2012 - Greece implemented the biggest debt write-down in history, swapping the bulk of its privately held bonds with new ones worth less than half their original value.
2013 - Black smoke poured from the Sistine Chapel chimney, signaling that cardinals had failed on their first vote of the papal conclave to choose a new leader of the Catholic Church to succeed Benedict XVI.
2017 - A bus plowed into people taking part in an early morning street festival in Haiti, killing at least 34 of them.
2018 - Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee said they’d completed a draft report concluding that there was no collusion or coordination between Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and Russia.
2021 - The city of Minneapolis agreed to pay $27 million to settle a civil lawsuit from George Floyd’s family over the Black man’s death in police custody.
2022 - Russian forces pounding the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol shelled a mosque that was sheltering more than 80 people, including children.
Birthdays
21 - Malina Weissman (actress)
30 - Tyler Patrick Jones (actor)
40 - Jaimie Alexander (actress)
41 - Samm Levine (actor)
43 - Holly Williams (singer)
45 - Rhys Coiro (actor)
55 - Jake Tapper (reporter)
56 - Aaron Eckhart (actor)
61 - Jake Weber (actor)
61 - Julia Campbell (actress)
62 - Darryl Strawberry (baseball player)
62 - Titus Welliver (actor)
64 - Courtney B. Vance (actress)
64 - Jason Beghe (actor)
67 - Marlon Jackson (singer)
67 - Jerry Levine (actor)
68 - Lesley Manville (actress)
74 - Jon Provost (actor)
76 - James Taylor (singer)
78 - Liza Minnelli (actress/singer)
91 - Barbara Feldon (actress)
=================================
Today in Sports History - March 12
1913 - The American League approved the name change of the New York Highlanders to the Yankees.
1956 - Dick Farley (Syracuse) fouled out after playing just five minutes. It was the fastest disqualification in NBA history.
1966 - Bobby Hull (Chicago Black Hawks) became the first player in the NHL to score more than 50 goals in a season. Hull ended the season with 54 goals.
1971 - Gordie Howe (Detroit Red Wings) announced his retirement after playing 26 seasons in the NHL. He came out or retirement two years later to play for the Houston Aeros of the World Hockey Association.
1972 - The Boston Celtics retired Bill Russell's No. 6.
1985 - Larry Bird, of the NBA’s Boston Celtics, scored a club-record 60 points. The game was against the Atlanta Hawks.
1985 - In Katmandu, Nepal, 80 people were trampled to death because stadium doors had been locked during a soccer game. The people had been seeking cover during a violent hail storm.
1987 - David Robinson of the U.S. Naval Academy scores 50 points in an NCAA Tournament basketball game.
1992 - Moses Malone (Milwaukee Bucks) became the fourth all-time scorer in NBA history.
1992 - Coach Don Nelson (Golden State Warriors) became the first man in NBA history to participate in 2,500 games as a player and coach.
2020 - The NHL joined the NBA in suspending their season due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
2020 - Due to COVID-19, the NCAA canceled the men's basketball tournament for the first time since it began in 1939; the women's tournament was also called off.
