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Events, deaths, births, of MAR 12

[For Mar 12 Julian go to Gregorian date:
1583~1699: Mar 221700s: Mar 231800s: Mar 241900~2099: Mar 25]
ALTERNATE SITES    ALL FOR 030312      ANY DAY  OF THE YEAR IN HISTORY     ART “4” MAR 12
• Anschluß !… • Clement Studebaker is born… • Declaration of (cold) war... • First movie with sound on film... • Jack Kerouac is born... • Racist treaty forced on China... • Long–distance phone inventor dies... • AOL–Microsoft deal... • Australia quits Vietnam War... • Carnegie donates for libraries… • Petrograd troops join the revolution... • Anne Frank is exterminated... • Marche du sel pour l'indépendance de l'Inde... • FDR's first fireside chat... • The blizzard of 1888... • The storm of the century... • Soviet aggressors break through in Kollaa, Finland...
On a March 12:
2002 For the first time, the UN Security Council (14-to-0) votes a Resolution (drafted by the US) envisioning Israel and Palestine: Resolution 1397 (2002)
      Adopted by the Security Council at its 4489th meeting, on 12 March 2002
      The Security Council,
      Recalling
all its previous relevant resolutions, in particular resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973),
      Affirming a vision of a region where two States, Israel and Palestine, live side by side within secure and recognized borders,
      Expressing its grave concern at the continuation of the tragic and violent events that have taken place since September 2000, especially the recent attacks and the increased number of casualties,
      Stressing the need for all concerned to ensure the safety of civilians,
      Stressing also the need to respect the universally accepted norms of international humanitarian law,
      Welcoming and encouraging the diplomatic efforts of special envoys from the United States of America, the Russian Federation, the European Union and the United Nations Special Coordinator and others, to bring about a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East,
      Welcoming the contribution of Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah,
      1. Demands immediate cessation of all acts of violence, including all acts of terror, provocation, incitement and destruction;
      2. Calls upon the Israeli and Palestinian sides and their leaders to cooperate in the implementation of the Tenet work plan and Mitchell Report recommendations with the aim of resuming negotiations on a political settlement;
      3. Expresses support for the efforts of the Secretary-General and others to assist the parties to halt the violence and to resume the peace process;
      4. Decides to remain seized of the matter.
Cisco stock price graph2001 Stocks drop on Wall Street: the NASDAQ Composite Index closes down 128.63 to 1924.15 (its high was on 10 March 2000: 5048.62). The Dow Jones Industrial Index closes down 436.37 to 10'208.25 (its high was 11'722.98, on 14 January 2000). The Standard & Poor's 500 Index closes down 53.12 at 1180.30 (its high was 1527.46, on 24 March 2000). The stock of networking company Cisco, which had announced that it will reduce its work force. fell $1.81 to $18.81. It had traded as low as $5.16 on 25 March 1996 and as high as 80.07 on 27 March 2000. [5-year price chart >]
2001 Presidential election in Uganda, after a violent campaign.
2001 El juez Juan Guzmán decreta la libertad provisional bajo fianza del general chileno Augusto Pinochet, días después de que la Corte de Apelaciones de Santiago rebajara, de autor a encubridor, el grado de procesamiento del criminal ex dictador.
2000 Unprecedentedly Pope John Paul II asked God's forgiveness for the sins of Roman Catholics through the ages, including wrongs inflicted on Jews, women and minorities. — El papa Juan Pablo II pide perdón públicamente por los pecados cometidos por la Iglesia en sus 2000 años de existencia.
2000 La izquierda de la antigua guerrilla representada por el Frente Farabundo Martí de Liberación Nacional (FMLN) triunfa en las elecciones legislativas y municipales celebradas en El Salvador.
2000 Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar scored a major victory in general elections. — El Partido Popular (PP), liderado por José María Aznar, logra la mayoría absoluta en las elecciones generales españolas, en las que obtiene 183 diputados.
1999 Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic join NATO. — Polonia, la República Checa y Hungría se convierten en miembros de pleno derecho de la OTAN, con lo que la Alianza Atlántica pasa a estar integrada por 19 países.
1999 Slobodan Milosevic, presidente de Yugoslavia, descarta de forma tajante la presencia de tropas internacionales de la OTAN en Kosovo y rechaza las condiciones de paz propuestas en las conversaciones de Rambouillet (Francia).
1998 Astronomers repudiate a warning that 2-km-wide asteroid might collide with Earth on 26 October 2028, saying that the calculations were off by one million kilometers.
1996 China begins new war games in the Taiwan Strait in a show of force, using jets and warships to drive home its warning to Taiwan not to seek independence.
1996 AOL and Microsoft make deal.       ^top^
      Directly contradicting an agreement signed with Netscape the previous day, AOL agrees to use and promote Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser exclusively. In exchange, Microsoft agrees to bundle AOL software with its Windows 95 operating system. The abrupt about-face would became an important issue in the Department of Justice's 1998 antitrust suit against Microsoft. A senior vice president at AOL testified that his company had initially avoided selecting the Microsoft browser because Microsoft seemed to be in direct competition with AOL.
1994 The Church of England ordains its first women priests, in Bristol Cathedral.
1994 the South African government and the ANC agreed to depose Bophuthatswana homeland President Lucas Mangope.
1993 Janet Reno was sworn in as the US's first female Attorney General. She would prove as ready to abuse the power of the office as any other Attorney General (Waco, Ruby Ridge, Elián González, Wen Ho Lee, ...)..
1992 Mauritius becomes a republic dropping its links with the British crown 24 years to the day after independence.
1992 La Comunidad Europea reconoce como república independiente a Bosnia-Herzegovina.
1990 Mongolia's ruling Politburo resigns and Communist leader Zhambyn Batmunkh proposes amending a constitutional clause guaranteeing the party's "leading role."
1989 2 cyanide-contaminated Chilean grapes found (Philadelphia)
1987 Federal judge dismisses lawsuits sought by Oliver North.
1987 The Dow Jones Industrial Average includes Coca-Cola and the Boeing Company in replacement of Inco Ltd. and Owens-Illinois Glass.
1986 210.25 million shares traded in NY Stock Exchange
1986 Triunfa el sí en el referendum sobre la permanencia de España en la OTAN.
1986 Ingvar Gösta Carlsson, socialdemócrata de 52 años, confirmado por el Parlamento sueco como primer ministro, en sustitución del asesinado Olof Palme.
1985 Former US President Richard Nixon announces that he planned to forgo his Secret Service bodyguards in favor of private protection, saving the US some $3 million a year.
1981 Walter R T Witschey installs world's largest sundial, Richmond, VA
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 1994.)
1979 Luis Herrera Campins is sworn in as president of Venezuela.
1979 in Grenada, Prime Minister Sir Erik Gairy and his government are overthrown and replaced by Maurice Bishop of the New Jewel Movement.
1978 In the first round of French parliamentary elections, the Left claimed an absolute majority for the first time in French history.
1977 Sadat pledges to regain Arab terrority from Israel.
1973 in Syria, a new and permanent constitution is endorsed by over 97 per cent of voters in a national referendum.
Agadir 19601972 Australia quits Vietnam War.       ^top^
      The last remnants of the First Australian Task Force withdraw from Vietnam. The Australian government had first sent troops to Vietnam in 1964 with a small aviation detachment and an engineer civic action team. In May 1965, the Australians increased their commitment with the deployment of the 1st Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (RAR). The formation of the First Australian Task Force in 1966 established an Australian base of operations near Ba Ria in Phuoc Tuy province. The task force included an additional infantry battalion, a medium tank squadron, and a helicopter squadron, as well as signal, engineer, and other support forces.
      By 1969, Australian forces in Vietnam totaled an estimated 6,600 personnel. The Australian contingent was part of the Free World Military Forces, an effort by President Lyndon B. Johnson to enlist allies for the United States and South Vietnam. By securing support from other nations, Johnson hoped to build an international consensus behind his policies in Vietnam. The effort was also known as the "many flags" program. Australia began to withdraw its troops in 1970, following the lead of the United States as it drastically reduced its troop commitment to South Vietnam.
1971 Syrian Premier Hafez al-Assad is elected president in a national referendum.
1970 US lowers voting age from 21 to 18
1968 Mauritius becomes an independent member of the British Commonwealth, having been a British colony since 1810.
1966 the Indonesian Congress strips Dr. Sukarno of all powers including the title of president. General Suharto becomes acting president until general elections in 1968.
1968 Mauritius gains independence from Britain (National Day)
1964 Malcolm X resigns from Nation of Islam
1960 Paris-Match #570 comes out with this cover [photo >] on the Agadir earthquake of 600229
1959 The US House of Representatives joins the Senate in approving Hawaii statehood — La Cámara de Representantes de EE.UU. aprueba el ingreso de las islas Hawaii como Estado número 50 de la Unión.
1958 Concluyen los ataques de bandas armadas marroquíes del partido Istiqlal contra las guarniciones españolas de Ifni.
1956 La Cámara de los Comunes aprueba la abolición de la pena de muerte para el asesinato en el Reino Unido.
1950 Los belgas aprueban en referéndum el retorno del rey Leopoldo.
1950 Pope Pius XII encyclical "On combating atheistic propaganda"
1947 Truman Doctrine: (cold) war on international Communism.       ^top^
      In a speech to a joint session of the US Congress, President Harry S. Truman asks for US assistance for Greece and Turkey to forestall communist domination of the two nations. Historians have often cited Truman's address, which came to be known as the Truman Doctrine, as the official declaration of the Cold War. In February 1947, the British government informed the United States that it could no longer furnish the economic and military assistance it had been providing to Greece and Turkey since the end of World War II. The Truman administration believed that both nations were threatened by communism and it jumped at the chance to take a tough stance against the Soviet Union. In Greece, leftist forces had been battling the Greek royal government since the end of World War II. In Turkey, the Soviets were demanding some manner of control over the Dardanelles, territory from which Turkey was able to dominate the strategic waterway from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean.
      On 12 March 1947, Truman appears before a joint session of Congress to make his case. The world, he declares, faced a choice in the years to come. Nations could adopt a way of life "based upon the will of the majority" and governments that provided "guarantees of individual liberty" or they could face a way of life "based upon the will of a minority forcibly imposed upon the majority." This latter regime, he indicated, relied upon "terror and oppression." "The foreign policy and the national security of this country," he claimed, were involved in the situations confronting Greece and Turkey. Greece, he argued, was "threatened by the terrorist activities of several thousand armed men, led by communists." It was incumbent upon the United States to support Greece so that it could "become a self-supporting and self-respecting democracy." The "freedom-loving" people of Turkey also needed US aid, which was "necessary for the maintenance of its national integrity."
      The president declared that "it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures." Truman requested $400 million in assistance for the two nations. Congress approved his request two months later. The Truman Doctrine was a de facto declaration of the Cold War. Truman's address outlined the broad parameters of US Cold War foreign policy: the Soviet Union was the center of all communist activity and movements throughout the world; communism could attack through outside invasion or internal subversion; and the United States needed to provide military and economic assistance to protect nations from communist aggression.
      Not everyone embraced Truman's logic. Some realized that the insurgency in Greece was supported not by the Soviet Union, but by Yugoslavia's Tito, who broke with the Soviet communists within a year. Additionally, the Soviets were not demanding control of the Dardanelles, but only assurances that this strategic waterway would not be used by Russia's enemies-as the Nazis had used it during World War II. And whether US assistance would result in democracy in Greece or Turkey was unclear. Indeed, both nations established repressive right-wing regimes in the years following the Truman Doctrine. Yet, the Truman Doctrine successfully convinced many that the United States was locked in a life-or-death struggle with the Soviet Union, and it set the guidelines for over 40 years of US-Soviet relations.
Pius 121946 Part of Petsamo province ceded by Soviet Union to Finland
1945 The British Empire celebrates it's first British Empire Day
1945 NY is first to prohibit discrimination by race and creed in employment
1941 II Guerra Mundial. El Congreso de EE.UU. aprueba la ley de préstamo y arriendo que permite enviar refuerzos militares a los aliados.
1940 Finland signs a peace treaty with the Soviet Union (effective next day at 11:00 local time), ending the 14-week winter war which the Russians won by sheer weight of numbers. Finland surrenders some territory.
1939 Pope Pius XII [< photo] (Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli). 63, crowned in Vatican ceremonies.
1938 Nazi Germany takes over Austria.       ^top^
      Adolf Hitler announces an "Anschluß" (annexation) of Austria by Germany. Union with Germany had been a dream of Austrian Social Democrats since 1919. The rise of Adolf Hitler and his authoritarian rule made such a proposition less attractive, though, which was an ironic twist, since a union between the two nations was also a dream of Hitler's, a native Austrian. Despite the fact that Hitler did not have the full approval of Austrian Social Democrats, the rise of a pro-Nazi right-wing party within Austria in the mid-1930s paved the way for Hitler to make his move. In 1938, Austrian Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg, bullied by Hitler during a meeting at Hitler's retreat home in Berchtesgaden, agreed to a greater Nazi presence within Austria. He appointed a Nazi minister of police and announced an amnesty for all Nazi prisoners. Schuschnigg hoped that agreeing to Hitler's demands would prevent a German invasion.
      But Hitler insisted on greater German influence on the internal affairs of Austria-even placing German army troops within Austria--and Schuschnigg repudiated the agreement signed at Berchtesgaden, demanding a plebiscite on the question. Through the machinations of Hitler and his devotees within Austria, the plebiscite was canceled, and Schuschnigg resigned. The Austrian president, Wilhelm Miklas, refused to appoint a pro-Nazi chancellor in Schuschnigg's stead. German foreign minister.
      Hermann Goering then faked a crisis by engineering a "plea" for German assistance from inside the Austrian government (really from a German agent). On March 12, 1938, German troops marched into Austria. Hitler announced his Anschluss, and a plebiscite was finally held on April 10. Whether the plebiscite was rigged or the resulting vote simply a testament to Austrian terror at Hitler's determination, the Fuhrer garnered a whopping 99.7 percent approval for the union of Germany and Austria. Austria was now a nameless entity absorbed by Germany. It was not long before the Nazis soon began their typical ruthless policy of persecuting political dissidents and, of course, all Jewish citizens.
1935 England establishes 30 MPH speed limit for towns and villages
1933 FDR's first fireside chat    ^top^
      Eight days after his inauguration, President Franklin D. Roosevelt gives his first "fireside chat," a Sunday night radio address to the entire nation. Journalist Robert Trout later coins the name "fireside chat" for these frequent presidential broadcasts, invoking an image of President Roosevelt sitting by a fire in a living room, speaking earnestly to the American people.
      The subject of Roosevelt’s fist fireside chat was the reopening of the banks, closed by presidential order the week before to prevent a recent surge in mass withdrawal of US savings. Roosevelt’s down-to-earth radio broadcasts serve as a great reassurance to the many Americans who felt isolated from the US government during the hard times of the Great Depression. They also contribute to President Roosevelt’s tremendous popularity among ordinary Americans, leading to a record three reelections as president despite often fervent opposition to the president’s policies from the business community and other quarters.
Mohandas Gandhi begins 300 km march protesting British salt monopoly       ^top^
1930 Marche du sel, pour l'indépendance de l'Inde.
      Gandhi entame une «marche du sel» en vue d'arracher l'indépendance de l'Inde aux Britanniques. Dans les années précédentes, le Mahatma (ainsi nommé par le poète Tagore, d'après un mot hindi qui veut dire «Grande âme») a multiplié les manifestations non-violentes et les grèves de la faim en vue d'obtenir pour l'Inde une autonomie analogue à celle dont bénéficient les colonies à population européenne comme le Canada ou l'Australie. Faute de résultat, certains membres de son parti, le parti du Congrès, s'impatientent et menacent de déclencher une guerre d'indépendance. Pour éviter d'être débordé par ses troupes, Gandhi prévient le vice-roi des Indes que sa prochaine campagne de désobéissance civile aura pour objectif l'indépendance. C'est ainsi qu'il quitte son ashram des environs d'Ahmedabad, au nord-ouest du pays, accompagné de quelques dizaines de disciples... et d'une meute de journalistes. Après un parcours à pied de 300 km, il arrive le 6 avril au bord de l'océan Indien. Il s'avance dans l'eau et recueille dans ses mains un peu de... sel. Par ce geste dérisoire et hautement symbolique, Gandhi viole le monopole d'Etat qui pèse sur le sel et oblige tous les Indiens, y compris les plus pauvres, à payer un impôt sur cette denrée. Sur la plage, la foule, grossie de plusieurs milliers de sympathisants, imite le Mahatma et recueille de l'eau salée dans des récipients. A Karachi comme à Bombay, les Indiens font évaporer l'eau et collectent le sel au vu des Anglais. Ces derniers jettent plus de 60.000 contrevenants en prison. Les Indiens, fidèles aux recommandations de Gandhi, se gardent de résister. Au bout de quelques mois, le vice-roi doit reconnaître sa défaite. Cédant aux injonctions du Mahatma, il libère tous les prisonniers et accorde aux Indiens le droit de collecter eux-mêmes le sel. Le Mahatma est reçu en triomphe à Londres par les libéraux britanniques qui se résignent à une prochaine indépendance de l'Inde. Celle-ci sera retardée par la deuxième guerre mondiale et les dissensions entre hindous et musulmans. Le 15 août 1947, l'Empire des Indes deviendra enfin indépendant mais au prix d'une sauvage guerre religieuse et d'une scission entre Inde et Pakistan. Gandhi y perdra la vie.
Gandhi's MARCH TO THE SEA.
     Indian independence leader Mohandas Gandhi begins a defiant march to the sea in protest of the British monopoly on salt, his boldest act of civil disobedience yet against British rule in India. Britain's Salt Acts prohibited Indians from collecting or selling salt, a staple in the Indian diet. Citizens were forced to buy the vital mineral from the British, who, in addition to exercising a monopoly over the manufacture and sale of salt, also exerted a heavy salt tax. Although India's poor suffered most under the tax, Indians required salt. Defying the Salt Acts, Gandhi reasoned, would be an ingeniously simple way for many Indians to break a British law nonviolently. He declared resistance to British salt policies to be the unifying theme for his new campaign of satyagraha, or mass civil disobedience.
      On 12 March, Gandhi sets out from Sabarmati with 78 followers on a 388-mile march to the coastal town of Dandi on the Arabian Sea. There, Gandhi and his supporters were to defy British policy by making salt from seawater. All along the way, Gandhi addressed large crowds, and with each passing day an increasing number of people joined the salt satyagraha.
      By the time they reached Dandi on 05 April, Gandhi was at the head of a crowd of tens of thousands. Gandhi spoke and led prayers and early the next morning walked down to the sea to make salt. He had planned to work the salt flats on the beach, encrusted with crystallized sea salt at every high tide, but the police had forestalled him by crushing the salt deposits into the mud. Nevertheless, Gandhi reached down and picked up a small lump of natural salt out of the mud--and British law had been defied. At Dandi, thousands more followed his lead, and in the coastal cities of Bombay and Karachi, Indian nationalists led crowds of citizens in making salt. Civil disobedience broke out all across India, soon involving millions of Indians, and British authorities arrested more than 60'000 persons. Gandhi himself was arrested on 05 May, but the satyagraha continued without him.
      On 21 May the poet Sarojini Naidu led 2500 marchers on the Dharasana Salt Works, some 150 miles north of Bombay. Several hundred British-led Indian policemen met them and viciously beat the peaceful demonstrators. The incident, recorded by American journalist Webb Miller, prompted an international outcry against British policy in India. In January 1931, Gandhi was released from prison. He later met with Lord Irwin, the viceroy of India, and agreed to call off the satyagraha in exchange for an equal negotiating role at a London conference on India's future. In August, Gandhi traveled to the conference as the sole representative of the nationalist Indian National Congress. The meeting was a disappointment, but British leaders had acknowledged him as a force they could not suppress or ignore. India's independence was finally granted in August 1947. Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu extremist less than six months later.
1925 Chiang Kai Shek asume el mando del Kuomintang.
1924 El máximo órgano del poder turco abole el califato y el sultanato.
1919 Estalla en Egipto un movimiento nacionalista contra los ingleses, que alcanzaría grandes proporciones.
1917 Petrograd troops join the February Revolution (on 27 February Julian = 12 March Gregorian)    ^top^
     On 08 March (23 February Julian) thousands of women textile workers in Petrograd shut down their factories, partly in commemoration of International Women's Day but mainly to protest bread shortages, thus adding to the already large number of men and women on strike. Strikers marched through the streets shouting "Give us bread" (Daite khleb and Khleba, khleba). Crowds headed toward the city center. Demonstrators -- who were in a nasty mood -- broke store windows, halted street-cars, and forced other workers to join them. During the next two days, encouraged by hundreds of experienced rank-and-file socialist activists, workers in factories and shops throughout the capital went on strike.
     By 10 March, virtually every industrial enterprise in Petrograd is shut down, as are many commercial and service enterprises. The demands -- visible on banners and audible in the shouts of demonstrators and in speeches at rallies -- escalate, again with the encouragement of activists, from demands for bread to appeals to end the war and abolish the autocracy.
      Demonstrators march and protest all the more boldly when police and cossacks, under orders to show restraint, hesitate to stop them. Students, white-collar workers, and teachers join workers in the streets and at public meetings. Although the protests and meetings are generally peaceful, the potential for mass violence is barely contained: some workers carry sticks, nuts, bolts, screws, pieces of metal, and, occasionally, pistols; crowds smash shop windows, especially the windows of food and bread stores; looters become more common; demonstrators attack and beat police officers -- fatally on a couple of occasions. Although socialist activists condemn the violence and vandalism, the outbreaks become more frequent. Meanwhile, liberal and socialist deputies in the Duma shrilly denounce the current government and again demand a responsible cabinet of ministers.
      Nicholas receives ambiguous information about the seriousness of events. Reports are also partially overshadowed by news that his children have been stricken with measles just after he left Tsarskoe Selo. On 09 and 10 March, word of the disturbances reached him at Headquarters -- in Alexandra's letters and in telegrams from War Minister Mikhail Beliaev, Minister of Internal Affairs Protopopov, and the military commander of Petrograd, General Sergei Khabalov. Alexandra discounts the disturbances: "Its a hooligan movement, young boys and girls running about and screaming that they have no bread, only to excite -- and then the workmen preventing others from work -- if it were very cold they would. probably stay indoors. But this will all pass and quiet down -- if the Duma would only behave itself".
      Although the official reports are more thorough in describing the scale of the disturbances -- the spreading strikes, the demands for bread, the mass demonstrations on Nevsky Prospect (Petrograd's main throughfare and the symbol of its urbanity), and the attacks on police officers -- they also assure Nicholas that the police and the army are having no difficulty in controlling the disorders. This is far from accurate.
      About 21:00 on 10 March, General Khabalov receives a telegram from Nicholas that would transform the unrest into revolution: "I command you tomorrow to stop the disorders in the capital, which are unacceptable in the difficult time of war with Germany and Austria." Meeting with his unit commanders an hour later, Khabalov ordered them to use all necessary force to disperse crowds, including firing at demonstrators, and he issued a proclamation to the population, posted the next morning, banning demonstrations and warning that this order would be enforced with arms. He also publicly warned strikers that they would be conscripted and sent to the front if they did not return to work by the March 13. In the evening of March 10, the Council of Ministers is informed of the tsar's command to use military force to restore order. A majority of the ministers dismiss Protopopov's sanguine assurances that all would be well and suggest forming a new cabinet in consultation with the Duma as the only way to end the disorders. They delegate two members to begin negotiations with the Duma.
     On 11 March, as demonstrators again pour into the streets of Petrograd, police and soldiers, as commanded, fire systematically into the crowds, wounding and killing many. The show of force convinces many socialist leaders that the regime is determined and able to restore order. It also convinced the Council of Ministers to abandon efforts to achieve a political compromise with the Duma -- that no longer seemed necessary. Instead, the council recommends to Nicholas that he again prorogue the Duma, which he does. After the confident and effective use of force, the telegram from the chairman of the Duma to Nicholas on the night of 11 March, insisting that "state authority is totally paralyzed and utterly unable to reimpose order" seems to conflict with the facts, and thus the pleas for a cabinet responsible to the Duma hardly seems worth answering. Indeed, Nicholas dismisses the warning: "That fat Rodzianko has written all sorts of nonsense to me, to which I will not even reply." That night Rodzianko is handed the order proroguing the Duma. But the tsar's confidence is premature. Leaders of the rebellion and of the government both underestimate the psychological and moral effect on the soldiers themselves of the order that they shoot at demonstrating civilians. Most obeyed the order on 11 March. But as they returned to their barracks, they thought and talked about whether to follow orders or their consciences the following day. The next day the answer would soon emerge in regiment after regiment: mutiny
     On the morning of 12 March, workers in the streets, many now armed and ready for combat with troops, are joined by insurgent soldiers, often with red ribbons tied to their bayonets. With the disintegration of military authority in the capital, effective civil authority collapses. The streets become a theater of revolution: workers and soldiers break into weapon factories and arsenals and arm themselves; from prisons they liberate revolutionaries and also a great number of ordinary criminals; they invade police stations, including central police headquarters, and set them ablaze; they assault policemen. "Requisitioned" trucks and cars crammed full of rebels speed around the streets. Everywhere soldiers, workers, and students are walking and driving about, sometimes draped in cartridge belts, carrying weapons, often more than one, and firing into the air. Numerous accidental injuries and deaths occur along with deliberate ones. Looting and pillaging are also common: wine stores are broken into, store windows are smashed, goods are stolen from various businesses, and the homes of the rich are burglarized.
      Increasingly aware of the gravity of the situation, Khabalov appeals to the tsar and the military command to "quickly send reliable units from the front." Although the war minister, Beliaev, is still cabling Staff Headquarters his assurances that "calm will soon arrive", by evening he, too, is urgently informing Headquarters that "the situation in Petrograd has become extremely serious" and appealing for troops from the front. Nicholas is not ill informed about the seriousness of events. As he writes to Alexandra on 12 March, "I saw many faces here with frightened expressions". In response, he announces his own departure for the capital and orders the transfer of reliable troops there, under the command of general Nikolai Ivanov, to restore order by force.  [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/chap1/fall.htm]
      Too little and too late: three days later, the Petrograd insurgents have taken over the capital and Tsar Nicholas II is forced to abdicate.
      A provisional government composed mainly of moderates is established, and the Soviet--a coalition of workers’ and soldiers’ committees--calls for an end to violent revolutionary activity. Meanwhile, Vladimir Lenin, leader of the Bolshevik revolutionary party, leaves his exile in Switzerland and crosses German enemy lines to arrive at Petrograd on April 16, 1917. The Bolshevik Party, founded in 1903, was a militant group of professional revolutionaries who sought to overthrow the czarist government of Russia and set up a Marxist government in its place.
      On 06 November 1917, the Bolsheviks seize control of the Russian state in the October Revolution, and Lenin becomes virtual dictator of the country. However, civil war and foreign intervention delay complete Bolshevik control of Russian until 1920. Lenin’s Soviet government nationalizes industry and distributes land, and on 30 December 1922, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) is established.
      In the USSR, the Communist Party controls all levels of government, and the Party’s politburo, with its increasingly powerful general secretary, effectively rules the country. Soviet industry is owned and managed by the state, and agricultural land is divided into state-run collective farms. In the decades after its establishment, the Russian-dominated Soviet Union grows into one of the world’s most powerful and influential states, and eventually encompasses fifteen republics--Russia, the Ukraine, Georgia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia.
1913 Canberra becomes the capital of Australia when the foundation stone of the Federal Parliament building is laid..
1904 Raphael Hawaweeny was ordained Eastern Orthodox bishop of Brooklyn, NY, at St. Nicholas Church. As a vicar under the Holy Synod of the Church of Russia, Hawaweeny thus became the first Russian Orthodox bishop ordained in America.
1901 Carnegie gives $5 million for NYC libraries.       ^top^
      Industrialist turned philanthropist Andrew Carnegie gives $5.2 million for the construction of sixty-five branch libraries in New York City. The donation was part of the Scottish-born steel and rail magnate's drive to dot "the English-speaking world" with libraries--between 1900 and his death in 1919, Carnegie used his vast his riches to establish over 2500 libraries. However, Carnegie's conversion to philanthropy belied the hard-charging tactics he used to amass what was the single-greatest fortune of the Gilded Age. Indeed, Carnegie often rode roughshod over the workers at his steel plants, demanding long hours in wretched conditions in the name of maximum production and mighty profits. Later, perhaps to amend for his earlier sins, Carnegie adopted the more humane notion that wealth should be distributed, rather than accumulated. He put this philosophy into play shortly after selling his steel works to J.P. Morgan for $500 million. Although he was already fabulously wealthy, the deal made Carnegie the world's richest man, prompting his retirement and subsequent shift into the world of charitable donations.
1888 Racist US forces anti-immigration treaty on China.       ^top^
      Agreeing to cooperate with a policy unilaterally adopted by the US Congress six years earlier, China approves a treaty forbidding Chinese laborers to enter the United States for 20 years. In the 1850s, large numbers of Chinese immigrated to the US West. Most came from the Pearl River Delta region of South China, where famine and political instability made if difficult for them to support the large extended families thought to be essential to happiness and success. When exaggerated reports of the California Gold Rush reached China, thousands of Chinese men booked passage for California. In contrast to many of the other immigrants to the US West, few of the Chinese immigrants intended to settle permanently in the US They planned instead to work in the gold fields only until they had saved enough money to return to China and support their families. Few Chinese, however, found wealth in the US In order to pay for their passage across the Pacific, many Chinese immigrants became indentured servants. Arriving in the US with a heavy load of debt, they were forced to work until they had paid back their debt. Chinese and Anglo employers alike took advantage of their plight, paying the immigrants just enough to keep their hopes alive but not enough to free them from debt.
      By 1880, just over 100'000 Chinese lived in the United States, the majority of them in California. Most came in hopes of striking it rich in the gold fields, but they quickly learned to make money in whatever way they could. Despite the prevalence of local and state laws prohibiting them from owning certain mining properties or entering into specified businesses, many Chinese succeeded in finding niches. Groups of Chinese immigrants would occasionally band together and transform old mining claims, abandoned by Anglos, into paying operations. Others prospered in businesses like laundries or restaurants, which most Anglo men considered menial "women's work."
      Inevitably, the success and distinct culture of the Chinese immigrants made them an easy target for xenophobic Anglos. Wherever they went, however, the Chinese were treated with growing resentment. By the 1880s, many working-class Anglos began to accuse the Chinese of depriving them of jobs and undermining early efforts to unionize the western mining industry. Blatant racism fed Anglo hatred. One San Franciscan argued that God intended the Chinese to remain only in China, for "they are not a favored people, they are not to be permitted to steal from us what we have."
      The US government responded to these fears by limiting Chinese immigration with the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the first time that the US excluded immigrants based on race and nationality. Significantly, the Exclusion Act only excluded Chinese laborers. The US continued to welcome merchants, who promised to help Americans maintain lucrative trading ties with the vast Chinese population, and professionals who offered valuable skills. Immigrants from no other nation received such discriminatory treatment. Six years later, the Chinese government agreed to the fundamental principles of the Exclusion Act. Under pressure from the US, the Chinese signed a treaty on this day in 1888 agreeing not to allow any laborers to immigrate to America. Only in 1943, when China became a valuable ally in the war against Japan, did the US finally abandon this blatantly racist policy.
1877 British annex Walvis Bay in southern Africa
1868 Britain annexes Basutoland (Lesotho).
1864 Red River Expedition begins in Louisiana
1862 Siege of New Madrid, Missouri continues
1854 Britain and France conclude an alliance with the Ottoman Empire against Russia in the Crimean War.
1850 First US $20 gold piece issued
1849 The Sikhs surrender to the British at Rawalpindi.
1848 2nd republic established in France
1833 Guerras carlistas: combate de Larremiar (Navarra), en el que por primera vez se enfrentan Espoz y Mina y Zumalacárregui.
1815 Fernando VII crea en España el primer Ministerio de Policía y Seguridad Pública.
1814 British troops under Wellington capture Bordeaux.
1812 Entra en vigencia la primera Constitución española, la Constitución de 1812.
1799 in the War of the Second Coalition, Austria declares war on France.
1789 US Post Office established
1755 First steam engine in America installed, to pump water from a mine
1689 Se concluye la alianza de Viena, entre el emperador Leopoldo I de Alemania y las Provincias Unidas, a las que se adhieren Dinamarca, Inglaterra y España.
1664 First naturalization act in American colonies,
1664 New Jersey becomes a British colony as King Charles II grants land in the New World to his brother James, the Duke of York.
1622 Gregory XV canonizes Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits; Philip Neri, Italian founder of the Congregation of the Oratory; Teresa of Avila, a Spanish Carmelite nun; and Francis Xavier, the Jesuit "Apostle of Eastern Asia."
1609 Bermudas becomes an English colony
1496 Jews are expelled from Syria
1470 In the Wars of the Roses, Edward IV defeats the rebels at the battle of Empingham.
TO THE TOP
Deaths which occurred on a March 12:
2002 (Tuesday) Father Lawrence M. Penzes, and Mrs. Eileen Tosner, 73, shot during 09:00. Catholic Mass at Our Lady of Peace Church in Lynbrook, on Long Island NY (diocese of Rockville Centre).The priest (born in January 1952, ordained in 1978) is shot in the back as he turns to sit just after finishing the homily.next to the altar. The assailant, mentally-deranged Peter J. Troy, 34, fires at lest six shots from a.22-caliber rifle.
2002 Eyal Lieberman, 42, Israeli from Moshav Tzuran in the Sharon region, shot from a passing car near the West Bank enclave settlement of Kiryat Sefer, east of Modi'in. Another Israeli man is injured.
2002 Yehudit Cohen, 33, of Shlomi; Ofer Kanarick, 44, of Moshav Betzet; Alexei Kotman, 29, of Kibbutz Beit Hashita; Lynne Livne, 49, and her daughter Atara Livne, 15, of Kibbutz Hanita; and Lt. German Rozhkov, 25, of Kiryat Shmona; and two Palestinians in Israeli uniforms, hiding in the undergrowth at the side of the road, who attack, with AK-47s and handgrenades, a bus heading into Kibbutz Metzuba coming from Shlomi, near the Lebanese border. A policeman and two women are among the dead Israelis. . Seven others were injured; one critically. The attackers are killed by Israeli troops after a 30-minute gun battle.
2002 Louis-Marie Billé, French, born on 18 February 1938; ordained a Catholic priest on 25 March 1962; appointed Bishop of Laval on 10 March 1984 and consecrated a bishop on 19 May 1984; appointed Archbishop of Aix, Arles, and Embrun on 05 May 1995; President of Conference of Bishops of France (05 Nov 1996 – 06 Nov 2001); appointed Archbishop of Lyon on 10 July 1998; made a cardinal on 21 February 2001.
2002 Spyros Kyprianou, of pelvic cancer, in Nicosia. Born on 28 October 1932, Kyprianou succeeded the first president of Cyprus (independent since 1960) Orthodox Archbishop Makarios when he died on 03 August 1977. Kyprianou refused plans for a federation with the Republic of Northern Cyprus of Turks in the northern part of Cyprus. He lost reelection in 1988.
2001 Five US and one NZ soldier, Maj. John McNutt, 27, by bomb from a carrier-based US plane dropped on observer's post during practice bombing on the Udairi bombing range in Kuwait. Some 10 are injured.
2001 Josep Martinell, pintor y biógrafo español.
2001 Michael J. Cowdery, policeman, murdered.
     Police officer Cowdery was fatally shot and another policeman is wounded in East Baltimore, in the evening, when a man shoots at them with a powerful handgun, apparently without provocation. Officers Michael J. Cowdery and Tiffany Walker, working a plainclothes detail, stopped two men at about 22:10 in the 2300 block of Harford Road for questioning. While they were talking to them, another came around a corner and began firing a .357-caliber Magnum, hitting Cowdery in the head and upper torso. As Cowdery fell, Walker fired her service weapon at the gunman.
      A third officer, Ronald A. Beverly, 29, who witnessed the shooting from across the street, also fired at the gunman and followed him about 100 meters east to the 1400 block of Cliftview Ave., where they again traded shots, Averella said. Beverly suffered a graze wound to his leg, and the gunman was shot at least once in the side. The two wounded officers were taken to Johns Hopkins Hospital, where Cowdery, 31, who had served on the force for 4 1/2 years, was pronounced dead at 22:43.
      Beverly was in good condition early the next day.
      The alleged gunman, Howard T. Whitworth of the 4900 block of Crenshaw Ave., was taken to the Maryland Shock Trauma Center. Whitworth was in critical condition early the next day. The gunman's weapon was recovered.
      The three officers were part of a special 120-officer initiative that has been working to contain violence in East Baltimore since August 2000. Department commanders gave the officers orders to target drug activity and quell violence. Cowdery — the 104th Baltimore police officer to die in the line of duty since 1870 — was the first to be killed by gunfire since Lt. Owen E. Sweeney in May 1997. Sweeney was shot and killed while assisting officers on a routine call.
1998 Manuel Piñeiro Losada, de 63 años de edad, colaborador de Ernesto Che Guevara, fallece en un accidente de tráfico.
1993 The first dozens of 243 victims of “The Storm of the Century”.    ^top^
     In early March, 1993, weather satellite photos showed a large mass of cold air moving across North America, down from the North Pole. This cold mass of air eventually collided with a warmer mass in the region above the Gulf of Mexico.
     A line of powerful thunderstorms formed along the front, drawing energy from the temperature differentials. The size of the thunderstorms alarmed many of the meteorologists watching the developing storm, and they began issuing storm alerts as they watched the thunderclouds combine into an enormous spinning winter storm.
     The winter storm moved onto land during the early hours on Friday morning, March 12, killing dozens of people, and devastating parts of the Florida coast. As the storm approached land, high winds and low pressures carried the sea along with it. High winds and low pressures can raise the water level in the ocean. This effect is known as storm surge, and if it gets trapped against a cove or bay, it can raise the water 3 to 6 meters more than normal. Large waves, some up to 12 meters high, can ride on top of the surge, and come crashing over the shores and deep inland.
     The storm then began to climb along the East Coast. As the storm moved across the eastern seaboard, torrential rains turned into heavy snows falling from Alabama to New York, virtually paralyzing the eastern third of the country. The storm eventually spread and covered more than 3000 km. Strong winds, created by rapidly dropping pressures, blew up and down the East Coast. Local authorities were totally unprepared for the intensity of the assault. The interstate highways became impassable and millions of people lost electrical power. New York City was brought to a standstill. A foot of snow fell from Alabama to Maine, and freezing temperatures set new records across the eastern seaboard.
     The final accounting included 243 deaths, and about two billion dollars in damage. The storm had forced the closure of all the airports in the eastern United States, and created great chaos. Nearly 100 million people in 26 states had their lives affected in ways both great and small by the Storm of the Century.
1972 Louis Mordell, mathematician.
1966 Victor Brauner, Romanian artist born on 15 June 1903.
1947 Max Karl Planck, físico alemán.
Anne Frank 1945 Anne Frank, 15, at Bergen-Belsen    ^top^
      Although the Nazis kept few records of the millions of people who perished in their death camps, it is believed that sixteen-year-old Anne Frank, a Jewish diarist, died of typhus at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp on this day. Born in Germany in 1929, Frank fled to Amsterdam with her family in 1933 to escape Nazi persecution. In the summer of 1942, with the German occupation of Holland underway, twelve-year-old Anne began a diary relating her everyday experiences, her relationship with her family and friends, and observations about the increasingly dangerous world around her.
      Just a few months later, under threat of deportation to Nazi concentration camps, the Frank family was forced into hiding in a secret sealed-off area of an Amsterdam warehouse. Over the next two years, under the threat of murder by the Nazi officers patrolling just outside the warehouse, Anne kept a diary that is marked by poignancy, humor, and insight.
      In August of 1944, just two months after the successful Allied landing at Normandy, the Nazi Gestapo discovered the Frank’s "Secret Annex." Along with another Jewish family with whom they had shared the hiding place, and two of the Christians who had helped shelter them, the Franks were sent to the Nazi death camps. Anne and most of the others had ended up at the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland, although her diary was left behind, undiscovered by the Nazis.
      In early 1945, with the Soviet liberation of Poland underway, Anne was moved with her sister, Margot, to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany. Suffering under the deplorable conditions of the camp, the two sisters caught typhus and died in early March.
      After the war, Anne’s diary was discovered undisturbed in the Amsterdam hiding place, and in 1947, was translated into English and published. An instant bestseller which was eventually translated into over thirty languages, The Diary of Anne Frank has served as a literary testament to the six million Jews, including Anne herself, who were silenced in the Holocaust.
1940 Day 104 of Winter War: USSR aggression against Finland.     ^top^
More deaths due to Stalin's desire to grab Finnish territory.

Enemy achieves breakthrough in Kollaa sector after months of fighting. Retreat in Vuosalmi

       At 9 o'clock in the morning President Kyösti Kallio puts his signature to a paper giving full powers of negotiation to the Finnish delegation at the Moscow peace talks. Kallio says on signing: "This is the most awful document I have ever had to sign. May the hand wither which is forced to sign such a paper."
      The delegations to the Moscow peace talks meet twice in the Kremlin, but there are no changes in the Soviet Union's terms. The meeting, which begins at 10 p.m., continues on beyond midnight.
      Sweden announces its readiness to begin talks with Finland on a possible defensive alliance between the two countries. Finnish Foreign Minister Väinö Tanner wanted the expression "urgently consider" to be included in the news report of the talks, but Sweden demanded removal of the word "urgently".
      There is fierce fighting on the Isthmus to the northeast and south of Viipuri. The troops defending Viipuri withdraw by midnight to new positions in Patterinmäki.
      The Red Army breaks through at Kollaa to a depth of approximately one kilometre. Combat Detachment Haini's daily losses total around 100 men.
      On the days of fiercest fighting, the enemy is losing over 2000 men a day.
      The Finns decide to abandon the defensive line along the River Kollaanjoki.
      Around 50 Soviet tanks drive across the Vuoksi to the mainland, suffering losses under the Finnish artillery fire.
      Colonel Hersalo's 21st Division launches a counterattack in Vuosalmi. The commander of III Army Corps, Major-General Talvela decides to pull back his troops in Vuosalmi on account of the ceasefire negotiations. However, in the evening his troops occupy the support line in the rear.
      There has been a serious rail accident south of Hämeenlinna between Turenki and Harviala when a military train carrying a transport company is involved in a collision with an express train. All the company's 4 officers and around 30 men are killed, and another 40 are injured in the collision.
Karjalan kannaksella käydään kovia taisteluja Talvisodan 104. päivä, 12.maaliskuuta.1940    ^top^
       Aamulla klo 9 tasavallan presidentti Kyösti Kallio allekirjoittaa avoimen neuvotteluvaltuuden Moskovan rauhanvaltuuskunnalle. Kallio lausuu valtakirjaa allekirjoittaessaan: "Tämä on kamalin asiakirja, jonka olen koskaan allekirjoittanut. Kuivukoon käteni, joka on pakotettu tällaisen paperin allekirjoittamaan."
      Rauhanneuvotteluvaltuuskunnat kokoontuvat kahdesti Moskovan Kremlissä, mutta Neuvostoliiton ehtoihin ei tule muutoksia. Kello 22 alkanut kokous jatkuu yli puolen yön.
      Ruotsi ilmoittaa suostuvansa aloittamaan neuvottelut puolustusliitosta Suomen kanssa. Tanner halusi, että tässä uutisessa puolustusliitosta, todettaisiin asian tulevan "nopeasti harkittavaksi". Ruotsi poistaa uutisesta sanan "nopeasti".
      Karjalan kannaksella käydään kovia taisteluja Viipurin koillis- ja eteläpuolella. Viipuria puolustavat joukot vetäytyvät puoleenyöhön mennessä Patterinmäen asemiin.
      Neuvostojoukot saavat noin kilometrin syvyisen murron Kollaalla, jossa Taisteluosasto Hainin päivittäiset tappiot ovat noin sata miestä.
      Vihollisen päivätappiot ovat kiivaimpina päivinä yli 2000 miestä.
      Kollaanjoki-linjasta päätetään luopua.
      Noin 50 neuvostopanssaria ajaa Vuoksen yli mantereelle ja kärsii tappioita tykistötulessa.
      Vuosalmella eversti Hersalon johtama 21. Divisioona ryhtyy vastahyökkäykseen Vuosalmella. III Armeijakunnan komentaja, kenraalimajuri Talvela tekee päätöksen joukkojen vetämiseksi taaksepäin Vuosalmella aseleponeuvottelujen vuoksi. Takana oleva tukilinja miehitetään kuitenkin illalla.
      Turengin ja Harvialan välisellä rataosuudella tapahtuu tuhoisa onnettomuus. Kuormasto- komppaniaa kuljettanut sotilasjuna törmää pikajunaan. Kaikki komppanian 4 upseeria ja noin 30 sotilasta kuolee ja 40 loukkaantuu.
Hårda strider pågår på Karelska näset Vinterkrigets 104 dag, den 12 mars 1940    ^top^
      På morgonen kl. 9 undertecknar president Kyösti Kallio en öppen förhandlingsfullmakt åt fredsdelegationen i Moskva. Kallio säger följande när han undertecknar fullmakten: "Det här är det hemskaste dokument som jag någonsin har undertecknat. Låt den hand, som tvingas skriva under detta papper, torka ut."
      Fredsförhandlingsdelegationerna sammanträder två gånger i Kreml, Moskva, men det blir inga ändringar i Sovjetunionens villkor. Mötet som började kl. 22 fortsätter över midnatt.
      Sverige meddelar att landet nu är redo att inleda förhandlingar om en försvarsallians med Finland. Tanner ville att man i nyheten om en eventuell försvarsallians skulle tala om en "snabb behandling" av ärendet. Sverige stryker ordet "snabb" ur nyheten.
      På Karelska näset pågår hårda strider nordost och söder om Viborg. Trupperna som försvarar Viborg retirerar vid midnatt till ställningen i Batteribacken.
      De ryska trupperna gör en ungefär en kilometer djup inbrytning i Kollaa, där Stridsavdelning Hain dagligen förlorar ungefär hundra man.
      Fiendens dagsförluster uppgår under de hetsigaste dagarna till 2000 man.
      Finland fattar beslut om att överge Kollaanjokilinjen.
      Ungefär 50 ryska pansrar kör över Vuoksen till fastlandet och lider förluster i artillerielden.
      I Vuosalmi går den 21. Divisionen under ledning av överste Hersalo till motattack. Kommendören för den III Armékåren, generalmajor Talvela fattar beslut om att dra trupperna bakåt i Vuosalmi på grund av förhandlingarna om vapenvila. Men stödlinjen bakom bemannas ändå på kvällen.
      På bansträckan mellan Turenki och Harviala sker en förödande olycka. Ett militärtåg som transporterar ett trängkompani kolliderar med ett snälltåg. Kompaniets alla 4 officerare och ungefär 30 soldater omkommer, 40 skadas.
1935 Michael Pupin, inventor of long-distance telephony.       ^top^
      Michael Pupin devised a method to transmit telephone signals over long distances by using coils that amplified the phone signal at intervals along the wire. A penniless immigrant raised by illiterate parents, Pupin rose from humble beginnings to teach electromechanics at Columbia University. The Bell Telephone Company bought his long-distance telephone patent in 1901, and Pupin's autobiography, From Immigrant to Inventor, won the 1924 Pulitzer Prize.
1928 Más de 7000 personas, por la rotura de la presa de San Francisco (EE.UU.), a 72 Kms. de Los Angeles.
1925 Sun Yat-Sen, Chinese revolutionary leader. — promotor de la revolución china desde 1893.
1914 George Westinghouse inventor.
1912 Robert Falcon Scott, explorador británico que llegó al Polo Sur.
1906 Manuel Quintana, presidente de la República Argentina.
1905 Rudolf von Alt, Austrian artist born on 28 August 1812.
1904 James Fairman, US artist born on 1826. [Now, wouldn't a fair man expect to see a Fairman or two on the internet?]
1898 Balmer, mathematician.
1888 Hundreds of victims of "The Blizzard of 1888"    ^top^
     This is the second day of one of the most devastating blizzards to ever hit the northeastern US, dumping 40-50 inches of snow and leaving drifts over 30 feet tall. Over 400 people die in the storm.
     The most severe winter storm to ever hit the New York City region reaches blizzard proportions, causing hundreds of deaths and millions of dollars in property damage. Although the storm also strikes New England, New York is the hardest hit, with the thirty-six-hour blizzard dumping some forty inches of snow over the city. For several weeks, the city is virtually isolated from the rest of the country by the massive snowdrifts. Messages north to Boston have to be relayed via England.
      Even "Leather Man," a fixture of New York and Connecticut history who had walked a circuit of 365 miles every thirty-four days for three decades, is reportedly delayed four days by the Blizzard of 1888. Leather Man, who walked during the day and slept in caves at night, was known as such because his clothes were made out of large patches of thick leather.
1877 Cristóbal Oudrid, compositor español.
1834 Feuerbach, mathematician.
1749 Alessandro Magnasco “Lissandrino”, Italian artist born in 1667. MORE ON LISSANDRINO  AT ART “4” MARCH LINKSSoldiers FeastingBacchanalian SceneHalt of the BrigandsChrist Adored by Two NunsPraying MonksThe SeashoreBandits' Stopping PlaceSacreligious RobberyThe Observant Friars in the Refectory
1722 Christian Beretsz, German artist born in 1658
1681 Frans van Mieris the Elder, Dutch painter born on 16 April 1635. MORE ON VAN MIERIS  AT ART “4” MARCH LINKSBrothel SceneDuetThe Lacemaker
1653 Gillis Peeters I, Flemish artist born on 12 January 1612.
1648 Fray Gabriel Téllez, "Tirso de Molina", dramaturgo español, muere en Soria.
1507 Cesare Borgia, Italian politician, cardinal and adventurer, killed in battle with rebels of Navarre near Viana, Italy.
0631 Sisenando, rey de la España visigoda.
0604 Pope Saint Gregory I
0417 Pope Saint Innocent I
Births which occurred on a March 12:
1987 Les Miserables, the play, opens on Broadway.
1951 "Dennis the Menace", created by cartoonist Hank Ketcham, made its syndicated debut in 16 newspapers.
1945 Patodi, mathematician.
1932 Andrew Young (Mayor-D-Atlanta)
1928 Edward Franklin Albee, playwright. —Albee was born in a Virginia suburb of Washington DC and adopted by a wealthy family from Larchmont, New York, very concerned in projecting the perfect image of itself into social situations. This affluent suburb of New York City was home to a rich, competitive social scene, of which his mother, in particular, was very much a part. Through his youth, Albee resisted interacting with this culture, finding it hollow and unsatisfactory. At age twenty, after years of expensive schooling at prestigious institutions,
      Albee moved to New York City's Greenwich Village to join the avant-garde art scene. His first play, The Zoo Story (1959) met with fine success, and launched his career. After that, Albee earned much praise for most of his work, the most famous of which are Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?*, A Delicate Balance, and Three Tall Women. [*the play is not about Virginia Woolf 25 Jan 1882 – 28 Mar 1941, but about a dysfunctional marriage.] — This Albee is not to be confused with vaudeville manager Edward Franklin Albee (08 Oct 1857 – 11 Mar 1930).
1927 Mstislav Rostropovich Baku Russia, cellist/conductor.
1927 Raúl Ricardo Alfonsín Folukes, presidente argentino.
1923 First movie with sound recorded on film.       ^top^
      Inventor Lee de Forest demonstrates Phonofilm, the first film capable of taping sound. Music was recorded on a narrow strip at the edge of the film. The demonstration showed a man and woman dancing, four musicians playing instruments, and an Egyptian dancer, all accompanied by music but no dialogue. Feature films with sound would not debut for several years, as movie studios sought to avoid a standards war. Until the 1920s, any sound associated with motion pictures either came from live actors and musicians or from phonographs synchronized to the action onscreen. In 1889, an assistant of Thomas Edison demonstrated the Kinetophonograph, a phonograph synched to Edison's early movie projector, the Kinetoscope. De Forest's development of film that could carry sound was acquired by Fox and evolved into the Movietone sound process, introduced in 1927. By 1927, several different types of movie sound systems had been developed, which proved a problem for silent movie theaters. Fitting a movie theater for a sound system was extremely costly-to wire a movie house for Warner Bros.' Vitaphone sound system, for example, cost about $20,000. Several studios, including MGM, Paramount, and Universal, agreed to wait to make talkies until they agreed on a single audio standard, but Warner Bros., not part of the agreement, released the earliest sound films. For Warner Bros., then in difficult financial straights, sound was a matter of survival: The struggling company had staked everything on acquiring the Vitaphone system and publicizing its early sound movies. The first, Don Juan (1926), starring John Barrymore, featured sound but no dialogue. The following year, the studio released The Jazz Singer, which included music as well as about 350 words of dialogue. Only about 200 theaters nationwide were equipped for Warner Bros.' Vitaphone, so a silent version of the movie was also distributed. The company was lucky to have made the gamble--sound caught on and revived Warner Bros.' fortunes.
1922 Jean-Louis “Jack” Kerouac, Beat writer, in Lowell, Massachusetts.       ^top^
      Kerouac was the son of French-Canadian parents and learned English as a second language. In high school, Kerouac was a star football player and won a scholarship to Columbia University. In World War II, he served in the Navy but was expelled for severe personality problems that may have been symptoms of mental illness. He became a merchant seaman. In the late 1940s, he wandered the US and Mexico and wrote his first novel, The Town and the City.
      It was not until 1957, when he published On the Road, an autobiographical tale of his wanderings, written in three weeks, that he became famous as a seminal figure of the Beat Generation. His tale of a subculture of poets, folk singers, and eccentrics who smoked marijuana and rejected conformist society was written in just three weeks. The book is filled with other Beat figures, including Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs. Kerouac wrote five more books before his death on 21 October 1969 in St. Petersburg, Florida. However, none gained the mythic status of On the Road. They too are autobiographical and include other Beat writers as characters: The Dharma Bums (1958), The Subterraneans (1958), Doctor Sax (1959), Lonesome Traveler (1960), Desolation Angels (1965).
1921 Giovanni Agnelli CEO (Fiat Automakers) — italiano, fundador y presidente de la Fiat.
1920 Elaine de Kooning, US painter, teacher and art critic who died on 01 February 1989.
1919 Miguel Gila Cuesta, humorista español.
1915 Alberto Burri, Italian Abstract Expressionist painter who died in 1995. — LINKS
1912 Girl Guides (later renamed Girl Scouts) founded in Savannah, by Juliette Gordon Low
1911 Gustavo Diaz Ordaz president of Mexico.
1900 Gustavo Rojas Pinilla, militar y político colombiano.
1890 Vaslav Nijinsky Soviet ballet master (NS)
1889 Carlo Socrate, Italian artist who died in 1967.
1888 Jean Dufy, French artist who died in May 1964. — Not to be confused with Fauvist painter Raoul Dufy [1877-1953].
1886 El Socialista comienza a publicarse en Madrid, órgano semanal del PSOE, dirigido por Pablo Iglesias Posse y que más tarde se convirtió en diario hasta el final de la guerra civil. En 1978 reapareció como semanario.
1877 Wilhelm Frick, longtime Nazi parliamentary leader, Hitler's minister of the interior (1933-1943), “protector” of Bohemia and Moravia (1943-1945). He had a major role in the persecution of Jews. He was executed for his crimes against humanity, on 16 October 1946.
1867 Auguste Fred Pierre Sézille des Essarts, French artist.
1863 Carl Vilhelm Holsoe, Danish artist who died in 1935.
1863 Gabriele D'Annunzio, Italian novelist, dramatist, journalist and political leader (The Intruder)    ^top^
     Gabriele D'Annunzio, il Vate, figura di dandy e intellettuale unica nella tradizione italiana del Novecento, nacque a Pescara nel 1863. Di intelligenza brillantissima e assi precoce, compose il suo primo libro di versi Primo Vere a soli 16 anni. Non finì gli studi e si dedicò al giornalismo ed alla composizione di opere di varia natura e valore. Fu uno degli interpreti più abili delle correnti di pensiero e delle mode letterarie europee, tra le quali l'esasperato sensualismo, l'estetismo raffinato e paganeggiante (che testimonia soprattutto il romanzo Il Piacere, del 1889).
      Frequentatore di salotti, animatore di dibattiti, interessato alla realtà politica (a differenza di precursori dell'estetismo come Wilde, Gide, lo stesso Proust), divenne immediatamente artista di tendenza, personaggio pubblico genialmente scandaloso, acuto e irriverente polemista. Terminata la I Guerra Mondiale (durante la quale aveva preso parte ad imprese eclatanti quali la beffa di Buccari ed il volo su Vienna), organizzò l'occupazione di Fiume insieme con un gruppo di volontari.
      La sua attività politica, quella mondana (tra cui spicca la relazione con Eleonora Duse), come quella letteraria, fecero di D'Annunzio una sorta di maestro di costume, il cui estetismo venne a intrecciarsi in maniera complessa e contraddittoria con le sorti del regime fascista, di cui rimase nume tutelare e, al tempo stesso, convitato di pietra. Morì di emorragia celebrale il primo marzo 1938 nella sua villa di Gardone, sul lago di Garda, il celebre Vittoriale, che raccoglie la summa dei suoi saperi e delle sue ossessioni, tradotti in arredamenti e decorazioni dai motivi esoterici, frutto di una competenza e di uno studio appassionato delle filosofie perenni (anche e soprattutto quella alchemica di corrente italiana). Muore il 01 Feb 1938.
— D'ANNUNZIO ONLINE: SCRITTI SCELTI
1862 Jane Delano US, nurse/teacher, founded Red Cross
1859 Cesàro, mathematician.
1848 Karl Hagemeister, German artist who died in 1933.
1842 Francisco Domingo Marqués, Spanish painter who died in 1920 — Self-Portrait (1884) — Interior of Muñoz Degrain's Studio in Valencia
1831 Benjamin Williams Leader, British painter who died on 22 March 1923. — [Was there any Follower?] — LINKSLow Tide on the South CoastThe Sandpit, Burrow's CrossTintern Abbey
1835 Simon Newcomb, US, scientist/mathematician/astronomer
1831 Clement Studebaker, automobile pioneer, in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.       ^top^
      Clement and his brother, Henry Studebaker, founded H. & C. Studebaker, a blacksmith and wagon building business in South Bend, Indiana. The Studebaker brothers made their fortune manufacturing carriages for the Union army during the Civil War. By the end of the war, the Studebaker Brothers Manufacturing Company had become the world’s largest manufacturer of horse-drawn carriages. With the advent of the automobile, Studebaker converted its business to car manufacturing, becoming one of the larger independent automobile manufacturers. Clement Studebaker died on 27 November 1901.
      Another major war would effect the company’s fortune almost a century after its founders had benefited from the demand caused by the Civil War. During World War II, Studebaker manufactured aircraft for the war effort and emphasized their patriotic role by releasing cars called "The President," "The Champion," and "The Commander." Like many of the independents, Studebaker fared well during the war by producing affordable family cars. As their advertisement claimed, "Studebaker is building an unlimited quantity of airplane engines, military trucks and other materiel for national defense… and a limited number of passenger cars which are the finest Studebaker has ever produced." However, after the war, the Big Three, bolstered by their new government-subsidized production facilities, were too much for many of the independents and Studebaker was no exception. Post WWII competition drove Studebaker to its limits, and the company was absorbed by the Packard Corporation in 1954.
1824 Gustave Kirchoff, Prussia, mathematician, physicist (Gesammelte Ashandlongen) — autor de importantes descubrimientos físico-químicos.
1821 Sir John Abbott, Canadian lawyer, statesman and prime minister (1891-92). He died on 30 October.
1728 Anton Raphaël Mengs, German Neoclassical painter specialized in Portraits who died on 29 June 1779. MORE ON MENGS  AT ART “4” MARCH LINKSSelf-Portrait _ Self-Portrait (2 sites for the same, 1744) — Self-Portrait _ Self-Portrait _ Self-Portrait (3 sites for the same, 1779) — Ferdinand IV, King of NaplesMaria Luisa of ParmaCharles IIICharles IV as PrinceThe Adoration by the Shepherds
1695 Adrien Manglard, French artist who died on 31 July 1760.
1685 George Berkeley, Anglo-Irish Anglican bishop of Cloyne, philosopher, scientist, mathematician. He died on 14 January 1753.
1613 André Le Nôtre, French landscape architect who designed the Versailles gardens. He died on 15 September 1700.
1572 Os Lusiadas, gran poema épico del portugués Luis Vaz de Camões [1524 – 10 Jun 1580], se publica.
Holidays     British Commonwealth : Commonwealth Day (formerly British Empire Day) / Gabon : Renovation Day (National Day) / Lesotho : Moshoeshoe's Day     Libya : King's Birthday       Mauritius : Independence Day (1968) / Venezuala : Flag Day       World : Girl Scouts Day (1912)       World : World Culture Day (non Leap year)
Feasts of: Ss Peters Gorgonius and Dorothheus, St Alphege of Winchester, St Bernard of Capua, St Maximilian of Theveste, St Paul Aurelian of Leon, Seraphina/Fina and St Theophanes the Chronicler, St Gregory I the Great, pope (590-604) / Santos Inocencio, Bernardo, Maximiliano y Gregorio Magno. / Sainte Justine: cette vierge a été martyrisée à Padoue en 303, au temps de l'empereur Dioclétien. Elle est connue par une peinture de Véronèse: «le martyre de Sainte Justine».
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Things Children Have Learned
No matter how hard you try, you can't baptize cats.
When your Mom is mad at your dad, don't let her brush your hair.
If your sister hits you, don't hit her back. They always catch the second person.
Don't play with matches, play with a magnifying glass and the sunlight.
Never ask your 3-year old brother to hold a tomato.
You can't trust dogs to watch your food.
Reading what people write on desks can teach you a lot.
Don't sneeze when someone is cutting your hair.
Puppies still have bad breath even after eating a tic tac.
Never hold a dustbuster and a cat at the same time.
School lunches stick to the wall.
Non-violence does not work with the playground bully.
You can't hide a piece of broccoli in a glass of milk.
Don't wear polka-dot underwear under white shorts.
The best place to be when you are sad is in Grandma's lap.
You don't want your parents to know that you know what they don't want you to know.
Try to get the cat to share the bath with you and you'll get scratched.
There's more than one way to swing a cat, but no way not to get scratched.
Know with which grownups crying helps get you out of trouble, and with which it just makes things worse.
Your mom won't like it when your pet snails get loose around the house.
Grownups don't understand that you do your homework best with the TV on.
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