Historical Events on March 12

Events 1 - 200 of 210

• 538 Witiges, King of the Ostrogoths, ends his siege of Rome, retreats to Ravenna, leaving the city in the hands of victorious Byzantine General Belisarius
• 1054 Pope Leo IX escapes captivity & returns to Rome
• 1088 Odo of Lagery elected as Pope Urban II, succeeding Victor III

• 1144 Gherardo Caccianemici elected Pope Lucius II, succeeding Callistus II
• 1350 Orvieto city says it will behead & burn Jewish-Christian couples
• 1365 University of Vienna founded

• 1496 Jews are expelled from Syria
• 1572 Poet Luís Vaz de Camões publishes the epic poem "Os Lusíadas" in Portugal
• 1594 Company of Distant established for business on East-Indies
• 1597 England sends troops to Amiens
• 1612 Bermuda officially becomes part of the Englisg Colony of Virginia
• 1619 Dutch settlement on Java changes name to Batavia
• 1622 Ignatius of Loyola declared a saint
• 1664 1st naturalization act in American colonies
• 1664 New Jersey becomes an English colony

• 1755 1st steam engine in America installed, to pump water from a mine
• 1773 Jeanne Baptiste Pointe de Sable found settlement now known as Chicago
• 1790 French Revolution: The National Assembly issues a decree allowing for the sale of church land by French municipalities
• 1794 Theatre Royal in London's Dury Lane opens after being rebuilt
• 1799 Austria declares war on France
• 1832 The ballet La Sylphide first premieres at the Opéra de Paris.

• 1848 2nd Republic established in France
• 1849 1st gold seekers arrive in Nicaragua en route to California
• 1850 1st US $20 gold piece issued
• 1857 Desjardins Canal Train Disaster: Canadian Great Western passenger train crashes through rotting timber bridge over Desjardins Canal, near Hamilton, Ontario, killing 59 people [1]

• 1867 Last French troops leave Mexico
• 1868 Great Britain annexes Basutoland in Africa (later renamed the Kingdom of Lesotho)
• 1868 Henry O'Farrell attempts to assassinate Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, in Sydney, Australia, Duke is shot but survives
• 1868 US Congress abolishes manufacturer's tax
• 1877 Great Britain annexes Walvis Bay at Cape colony, Southern Africa.
• 1881 Andrew Watson makes his Scotland debut as the world's first black international football player and captain
• 1884 Mississippi establishes 1st US state college for women
• 1888 2nd day of the Great blizzard of '88 in north east US (400 die)
• 1889 Battle at Metema (Gallabad): Ethiopian Emperor Yohannes IV, defeated
• 1889 Start of South Africa's 1st Test, v England, Port Elizabeth

• 1894 Pittsburgh issues free season tickets for ladies on Tuesday & Friday
• 1896 1st movie in Netherlands (Kalverstr 220)

• 1900 President Steyn of Orange Free state flees from Bloemfontein
• 1901 Ground is broken for Boston's 1st AL ballpark (Huntington Ave Grounds)
• 1903 New York Highlanders (Yankees) baseball franchise is approved as a member of the American League
• 1904 1st main line electric train in UK (Liverpool to Southport)

• 1906 Heavy storm ravages Dutch west coast
• 1908 Stanley Cup, Montreal Arena, Westmount, Quebec: Montreal Wanderers beat Winnipeg Maple Leafs, 9-3 for 2-0 sweep of challenge series
• 1908 The Pan-Macedonian group is formed in Athens to support the Greek Struggle for Macedonia
• 1909 Alarmed over increasing German naval strength, Parliament passes a new naval appropriations bill
• 1910 Stanley Cup, Montreal Arena, Westmount, Quebec: Montreal Wanderers beat Berlin Dutchmen (ON), 7-3
• 1912 Establishment of the first football club in Bulgaria - Botev Plovdiv

• 1913 Foundation stone of the Australian capital in Canberra laid
• 1916 French airship mistakenly attacks and sinks British submarine D3 with loss of all hands

• 1917 In the wake of the February Revolution, Communist Party members Joseph Stalin, Lev Kamenev and Matvei Muranov arrive in Petrograd (St Petersburg) and seize control of the Pravda newspaper
• 1917 [OS Feb 27] Russian Duma sets up the Provisional Committee; Soviets form Executive Committee

• 1919 Austrian National Meeting affirms Anschluss (incorporate into Germany)

• 1926 Denmark begins unilateral disarmament
• 1926 Pope Pius XI names J E van Roey archbishop of Malines Belgium
• 1928 In California, the St. Francis Dam fails, killing over 600 people

• 1930 Stanislawa Walasiewicz [Stella Walsh] sets world record for the 220-yard dash (0:26.1)

• 1934 Acting President Constantine Päts commits coup in Tallinn, Estonia

• 1935 Britain establishes 30 MPH speed limit for towns & villages
• 1938 Nazi Germany invades Austria (Anschluss)

• 1940 Finland signs the Moscow Peace Treaty in Moscow, surrendering to Russia and ceding 11% of their pre-WWII territory, ending the "Winter War"
• 1941 German occupiers confiscate AVRO studios in Netherlands
• 1942 British troops vacate the Andaman Islands in Gulf of Bengal
• 1943 Soviet troops liberate Wjasma
• 1945 30 Amsterdammers executed by nazi occupiers
• 1945 Italy's Communist Party (CPI) calls for armed uprising in Italy
• 1945 NY is 1st to prohibit discrimination by race and creed in employment
• 1945 USSR returns Transylvania to Romania
• 1947 Belgian government of Huysmans resigns

• 1948 -5°F lowest temperature ever recorded in Cleveland, Ohio in month of March (record tied in 1984)
• 1950 Belgium votes (58%) for return of King Leopold III
• 1950 Pope Pius XII encyclical "On combating atheistic propaganda"
• 1951 Baseball Commish Happy Chandler loses fight (9-7) to stay in office
• 1951 Comic strip "Dennis the Menace," 1st appears in the British comic magazine The Beano'
• 1951 Communist troops driven out of Seoul

• 1956 Dow Jones closes above 500 for 1st time (500.24)
• 1957 German DR accepts 22 Russian divisions

• 1958 British Empire Day is renamed "Commonwealth Day"
• 1959 Dutch Liberal Party wins 2nd parliamentary elections
• 1959 US House joins Senate approving Hawaii statehood
• 1962 Dutch Premier De Quay announces secret talks with Indonesia

• 1964 S. N. Behrman's play "But for Whom Charlie" premieres in NYC
• 1964 Union leader Jimmy Hoffa sentenced to 8 years
• 1964 WKAB TV channel 32 in Montgomery, AL (ABC) begins broadcasting
• 1965 "Wooly Bully" single released by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs

• 1966 Love's 1st album released "Love"
• 1966 Pioneer Plaza dedicated
• 1966 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
• 1967 Austria's Reinhold Bachler ski jumps 505 feet

• 1968 Indian Ocean island nation Mauritius gains independence from Britain (National Day)
• 1968 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site

• 1969 120 cannabis joints found at George & Patti Harrison's home
• 1970 US lowers voting age from 21 to 18

• 1971 The Allman Brothers Band record their live album "Live at Fillmore East" on this date and the following day
• 1971 Thousands of Belfast shipyard workers march demanding the introduction of Internment for members of the Irish Republican Army
• 1971 Turkish Government of Demirel forced to resign by Army
• 1973 Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In last airs on NBC-TV

• 1975 Vietcong conquer Ban me Thuot, South Vietnam
• 1976 South African troops leave Angola

• 1980 NY Islanders 3rd scoreless tie, vs Pittsburgh Penguin
• 1981 Soyuz T-4 carries 2 cosmonauts to Salyut 6 space station

• 1981 Walter R T Witschey installs world's largest sundial in Richmond, Virginia
• 1982 PLO chief Yassar Arafat appears on "Nightline"
• 1983 Don Ritchie runs world record 50 mile (4:51:49)
• 1984 British National Union of Mine Workers headed by Arthur Scargill supports regional strikes, calls for national action; strikes fail to achieve goals

• 1986 Susan Butcher wins 1,158 mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race

• 1987 Ice Pairs World Championship at Cincinnati won by Ekaterina Gordeeva & Sergei Grinkov (USSR)
• 1987 USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk (Soviet Union)
• 1989 2 cyanide-contaminated Chilean grapes found (Philadelphia)

• 1989 Madagascar AREMA party wins parliamentary election
• 1990 LA Raiders announce their return to Oakland
• 1991 OPEC announces oil production cut to 22.3 Mbbl/d (3,550,000 m3/d)
• 1992 Mauritius becomes a republic while remaining a member of the Commonwealth of Nations

• 1993 317 killed by bomb attacks in Bombay
• 1993 Cleveland radio station WMMS-FM/101.7 is bought by Disney
• 1993 Entertainment Tonight's 3,000th show
• 1993 Inkhata leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi begins 2½ week speech
• 1994 The Church of England ordains its first 32 female priests at the Bristol Cathedral in Bristol, England [1]
• 1995 Congress party loses India national election
• 1995 Ice Dance Championship at Birmingham UK won by Gritshuk & Platov (RUS)
• 1995 Ice Pairs Championship at Birmingham won by Radka Kovarikova & Rene Novotny
• 1995 Letitia Vriesde runs South American indoor record 800m (2:00.35)

• 1995 World Ladies' Figure Skating Champ in Birmingham won by Chen Lu (China)

• 1996 Leeward Islands beat Trinidad by 73 runs to win Red Stripe Trophy
• 1998 "The Sound of Music" opens at Martin Beck Theater NYC
• 1999 Former Warsaw Pact members the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland join NATO.

• 2002 US crime series "The Shield" starring Michael Chiklis premieres on FX
• 2003 Elizabeth Smart found after having been missing for 9 months.
• 2003 Zoran Đinđić, Prime Minister of Serbia, is assassinated in Belgrade.
• 2004 Music work "I La Galigo" by Richard Wilson debuts in Singapore, based on Bugis creation myth from South Sulawesi (world's most voluminous literary work)
• 2004 Roh Moo-hyun, President of South Korea, is impeached by its national assembly for the first time in the nation's history.
• 2005 Tung Chee Hwa, the first Chief Executive of Hong Kong, steps down from his post after his resignation is approved by the Chinese central government.

• 2008 Streaming service Hulu launches for public access in the United States
• 2011 A reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant melts and explodes and releases radioactivity into the atmosphere a day after Japan's earthquake.

• 2012 100 people are killed in ethnic clashes and cattle raids in South Sudan
• 2012 45 people, including children, are massacred by the Syrian Army in Homs
• 2012 China records its highest trade deficit in over a decade
• 2013 "The Flick", a play by Annie Baker opens off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons in New York (Pulitzer Prize for Drama 2014) [1]
• 2013 JOGMEC becomes the first to successfully extract methane hydrate from seabed deposits
• 2013 The 2013 Papal conclave begins with no new Pope elected on the first day
• 2014 8 people are killed, 70 injured, & 2 buildings are leveled by a gas explosion in East Harlem, New York
• 2017 Irene Sankoff and David Hein's musical drama "Come From Away" opens at Schoenfeld Theatre, NYC

• 2018 Civilian death toll in Eastern Ghouta passes 1,000 in three weeks as Syrian government forces capture the town of Mesraba
• 2018 Plane crash of Bangladeshi carrier at Kathmandu airport kills at least 49 after plane approaches runway from wrong end
• 2018 Research shows Chinese cites have decreased pollution by 32 percent on average in just four years
• 2018 Tens of thousands of farmers from Indian state Maharashtra end protests over loan waivers, prices and land rights after promises from state officials and walking 167km to Mumbai

• 2019 K-pop and Big Bang singer Seungri is arrested for procuring prostitutes, retires to fight the charges in South Korea
• 2019 More than 3,000 ISIS fighters have surrendered amid battle for last ISIS stronghold in Baghouz, Syria, according to Syrian Democratic Forces officials
• 2019 Theresa May's British government suffers a second defeat on a Brexit deal with the EU, 391 votes to 242
• 2020 NHL announces the pausing of the 2019-20 season due to the COVID-19 pandemic

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