March 12
Today, our Aztec Dwellers celebrate the
New Year.
Today is the
Girl Scouts' Birthday, marking the founding of the first Girl Scout troop in the USA.
Events
1550 – Several hundred Spanish and indigenous troops under the command of
Pedro de Valdivia defeat an army of 60,000
Mapuche at the
Battle of Penco during the
Arauco War in present-day Chile.
1864 – American Civil War: The
Red River Campaign begins as a US Navy fleet of 13 Ironclads and 7 Gunboats and other support ships enter the Red River.
1894 –
Coca-Cola is bottled and sold for the first time in Vicksburg, Mississippi, by local soda fountain operator
Joseph A. Biedenharn.
1912 – The
Girl Guides (later renamed the
Girl Scouts of the USA) are founded in the United States.
1913 –
Canberra Day: The future capital of Australia is officially named Canberra. (Melbourne remains temporary capital until 1927 while the new capital is still under construction.)
1918 –
Moscow becomes the capital of Russia again after
Saint Petersburg held this status for 215 years.
1928 – In California, the
St. Francis Dam fails; the resulting floods kill over 600 people.
1930 – Mahatma Gandhi begins the
Salt March, a 200-mile march to the sea to protest the British monopoly on salt in India.
1933 – Great Depression: Franklin D. Roosevelt addresses the nation for the first time as President of the United States. This is also the first of his
"fireside chats".
1947 – The
Truman Doctrine is proclaimed to help stem the spread of Communism.
1950 – The
Llandow air disaster occurs near Sigingstone, Wales, in which 80 people die when their aircraft crashed, making it the world's deadliest air disaster at the time.
1961 – First winter ascent of the
North Face of the Eiger.
1993 – The
1993 Storm of the Century: Snow begins to fall across the eastern portion of the US with tornadoes, thunder snow storms, high winds and record low temperatures. The storm lasts for 30 hours.
2003 – WHO officially released global warning on pandemic
SARS disease.
2009 – Financier
Bernard Madoff pleads guilty in New York to scamming $18 billion, the largest in Wall Street's history.
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.
2014 – A
gas explosion in the New York City neighborhood of East Harlem kills eight and injures 70 others.
Births
1806 – Jane Pierce (15th FLOTUS), 1831 – Clement Studebaker (yeah, that one), 1913 – Agathe von Trapp (of
The Sound of Music von Trapps), 1921 – Gordon MacRae, 1922 – Jack Kerouac, 1928 – Edward Albee, 1933 – Barbara Feldon, 1938 – Johnny Rutherford

, 1940 – Al Jarreau♪ ♫, 1942 – Ratko Mladić, 1945 – Sammy 'The Bull' Gravano (mobster), 1946 – Liza Minnelli♪ ♫, 1947 – Mitt Romney, 1948 – James Taylor


, 1949 – Mike Gibbins

(Badfinger), 1956 – Steve Harris


(Iron Maiden), 1960 – Courtney B. Vance, 1962 – Darryl Strawberry, 1969 – Jake Tapper, 1978 – Casey Mears

, 1979 – Pete Doherty♪ ♫
Deaths
1628 – John Bull, 1820 – Alexander Mackenzie, 1914 – George Westinghouse, 1929 – Asa Griggs Candler, 1942 – Robert Bosch, 1955 – Charlie 'Yardbird' Parker♪ ♫, 1978 – John Cazale, 1987 – Woody Hayes, 1999 – Yehudi Menuhin

, 2001 – Morton Downey, Jr.

, 2001 – Robert Ludlum, 2003 – Lynne Thigpen, 2005 – Bill Cameron, 2012 – Samuel Glazer (co-founded Mr. Coffee), 2012 – Michael Hossack

(The Doobie Bros), 2013 – Clive Burr

(Iron Maiden), 2015 – Terry Pratchett