TODAY HISTORY LESSON: MARCH 12
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
1455 First record of Johannes Gutenberg’s Bible, letter dated this day by Enea Silvio Piccolomini refers to the bible printed a year before
1496 The Jews are expelled from Syria.
1609 The Bermuda Islands become an English colony.
1642 Abel Tasman is the 1st European to sight New Zealand, viewing the north-west coast of the South Island
1773 Jeanne Baptiste Pointe de Sable found settlement now known as Chicago
1789 The United States Post Office is established.
1809 Great Britain signs a treaty with Persia forcing the French out of the country.
1860 Congress accepts Pre-emption Bill; free land in West for colonists
1879 The British Zulu War begins.
1894 Coca-Cola is sold in bottles for the first time.
1903 The Czar of Russia issued a decree providing for nominal freedom of religion throughout his territory.
1911 Dr. Fletcher of the Rockefeller Institute discovers the cause of infantile paralysis.
1912 Juliet Low founds the Girl Scouts in Savannah, Georgia.
1917 Russian troops mutiny as the “February Revolution” begins.
1930 Gandhi begins his march to the sea to symbolizes his defiance of British rule in India.
1933 President Paul von Hindenburg drops the flag of the German Republic and orders that the swastika and empire banner be flown side by side.
1933 President Roosevelt makes the first of his Sunday evening fireside chats.
1947 President Truman established the “Truman Doctrine” to aid in the containment of Communism.
1980 Jury finds John Wayne Gacy guilty of murdering 33 in Chicago
1984 National Union of Mine Workers in England begin a 51 week strike
1985 Former U.S. President Richard M. Nixon announced that he planned to drop Secret Service protection and hire his own bodyguards in an effort to lower the deficit by $3 million.
1987 Federal judge dismisses lawsuits sought by Oliver North
1989 2 cyanide-contaminated Chilean grapes found (Philadelphia)
1989 About 2,500 veterans and supporters marched at the Art Institute of Chicago to demand that officials remove an American flag placed on the floor as part of an exhibit.
1994 The Church of England ordains women priests.
1998 Astronomers cancelled a warning that a mile-wide asteroid might collide with Earth saying that calculations had been off by 600,000 miles.
2002 The color-coded terror alert system was unveiled by Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge.
2003 In Utah, Elizabeth Smart was reunited with her family nine months after she was abducted from her home. She had been taken on June 5, 2002, by a drifter that had previously worked at the Smart home.
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
