March 12Birthdays & History

On this day: March 12 in history

Oldest first. Tap a year to see it on the World Chronicle timeline.

1. 538Vitiges, king of the Ostrogoths, ends his siege of Rome and retreats to Ravenna, leaving the city to the victorious Byzantine general, Belisarius.Europe
2. 1088Election of Urban II as the 159th Pope of the Catholic Church. He is best known for initiating the Crusades.Europe
3. 1158German city Munich (München) is first mentioned as forum apud Munichen in the Augsburg arbitration by Holy Roman Emperor Friedrich I.Europe
4. 1391Konrad von Wallenrode is elected the 24th Grand Master of the Teutonic Order (date is O.S.).Europe
5. 1579Start of the Siege of Maastricht, part of the Eighty Years' War.Europe
6. 1622Ignatius of Loyola and Francis Xavier, founders of the Society of Jesus, are canonized by the Roman Catholic Church.Europe
7. 1689James II of England lands at Kinsale, starting the Williamite War in Ireland.Europe
8. 1811Peninsular War: A day after a successful rearguard action, French Marshal Michel Ney once again successfully delays the pursuing Anglo-Portuguese force at the Battle of Redinha.Europe
9. 1862Paddle steamer Brother Jonathan docks in Fort Victoria (now Victoria, British Columbia), carrying smallpox-infected passengers from San Francisco. The ensuing epidemic killed an estimated two-thirds of First Nations in the province of British Columbia.EuropeNorth America
10. 1912The Girl Guides (later renamed the Girl Scouts of the USA) are founded in the United States.North America
11. 1913The future capital of Australia is officially named Canberra.Oceania
12. 1918Moscow becomes the capital of Russia again after Saint Petersburg held this status for most of the period since 1713.Europe
13. 1920The Kapp Putsch begins when the Marinebrigade Ehrhardt is ordered to march on Berlin.Europe
14. 1928In California, the St. Francis Dam fails; the resulting floods kill 431 people.North America
15. 1930Mahatma Gandhi begins the Salt March, a 200-mile (320 km) march to the sea to protest the British monopoly on salt in India.EuropeAsia
16. 1933Great 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".North America
17. 1938Anschluss: German troops occupy and annex Austria.Europe
18. 1940Winter War: Finland signs the Moscow Peace Treaty with the Soviet Union, ceding almost all of Finnish Karelia.Europe
19. 1940The most destructive train accident in Finnish history kills 39 and injures 69 people in Turenki, Janakkala.Europe
20. 1942The Battle of Java ends with the surrender of the American-British-Dutch-Australian Command to the Empire of Japan in Bandung, West Java, Dutch East Indies.AsiaNorth AmericaEurope
21. 1947Cold War: The Truman Doctrine is proclaimed to help stem the spread of Communism.North AmericaEurope
22. 1950The Llandow air disaster kills 80 people when the aircraft they are travelling in crashes near Sigingstone, Wales. At the time this was the world's deadliest air disaster.Europe
23. 1967Suharto takes power from Sukarno when the Provisional People's Consultative Assembly inaugurate him as Acting President of Indonesia.Asia
24. 1968Mauritius gains independence from the United Kingdom.AfricaEurope
25. 1971The 1971 Turkish military memorandum is sent to the Süleyman Demirel government of Turkey and the government resigns.Middle East
26. 1989Tim Berners-Lee submits his proposal to CERN for an information management system, which subsequently develops into the World Wide Web.Europe
27. 1992Mauritius becomes a republic while remaining a member of the Commonwealth of Nations.Africa
28. 1993North Korea announces that it will withdraw from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and refuses to allow inspectors access to its nuclear sites.Asia
29. 1993Several bombs explode in Mumbai, India, killing about 300 people and injuring hundreds more.Asia
30. 1999Former Warsaw Pact members the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland join NATO.Europe
31. 2003The World Health Organization officially release a global warning of outbreaks of Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).World
32. 2003Zoran Đinđić, Prime Minister of Serbia, is assassinated in Belgrade.Europe
33. 2004President of South Korea, Roh Moo-hyun, is impeached by its National Assembly, the first such impeachment in the nation's history.Asia
34. 2006In Mahmoudiyah, Iraq, 14-year-old Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi is raped and murdered by five American soldiers of the 502nd Infantry Regiment, who also murder both of her parents and her sister.Middle EastNorth America
35. 2009Financier Bernie Madoff pleads guilty to one of the largest frauds in Wall Street's history.North America
36. 2011A reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant explodes and releases radioactivity into the atmosphere a day after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami.Asia
37. 2014A gas explosion in the New York City neighborhood of East Harlem kills eight and injures 70 others.North America
38. 2018US-Bangla Airlines Flight 211 crashes at Tribhuvan International Airport in Katmandu, killing 51 and injuring 20.North America
39. 2019In the House of Commons, the revised EU Withdrawal Bill was rejected by a margin of 149 votes.Europe
40. 2020The United States suspends travel from Europe due to the COVID-19 pandemic.North AmericaEurope

Source: Wikipedia "March 12" / CC BY-SA 4.0