On this day March 12
1864 Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant assumed command as General-in-Chief of the Union armies in the Civil War.
1912 the Girl Scouts of the USA had its beginnings as Juliette Gordon Low of Savannah, Ga., founded the first American troop of the Girl Guides. 1947 President Harry S. Truman announced what became known as the “Truman Doctrine” to help Greece and Turkey resist Communism.
1955 legendary jazz musician Charlie “Bird” Parker died in New York at age 34.
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 May 1994.) 1994 the Church of England ordained its first women priests.
2003 Elizabeth Smart, the 15year-old girl who vanished from her bedroom nine months earlier, was found alive in a Salt Lake City suburb with two drifters, Brian David Mitchell and Wanda Barzee. (Mitchell is serving a life sentence; Barzee was released from prison in September 2018.)
2011 fifteen passengers were killed when a tour bus returning from a Connecticut casino scraped along a guard rail on the outskirts of New York City, tipped on its side and slammed into a pole that sheared it nearly end to end. (Driver Ophadell Williams was later acquitted of manslaughter and negligent homicide.) 2020 the stock market had its biggest drop since the Black Monday crash of 1987 as fears of economic fallout from the coronavirus crisis deepened; the Dow industrials plunged more than 2,300 points, or 10%. The NCAA canceled its basketball tournaments because of the coronavirus, after earlier planning to play in empty arenas. The NHL joined the NBA in suspending play. Major League Baseball delayed the start of its season by at least two weeks.
2022 Russian forces pounding the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol shelled a mosque that was sheltering more than 80 people, including children, Ukrainian officials said. Saudi Arabia executed 81 people convicted of crimes ranging from killings to belonging to militant groups, the largest known mass execution carried out there in its modern history.
Today’s Birthdays: Politician, diplomat and civil rights activist Andrew Young is 91. Actor Barbara Feldon is 90. Actorsinger Liza Minnelli is 77. Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, is 76. Singer-songwriter James Taylor is 75. Former Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., is 75. Rock singermusician Bill Payne (Little Feat) is 74. Actor Jon Provost (TV: “Lassie”) is 73. Author Carl Hiaasen is 70. Rock musician Steve Harris (Iron Maiden) is 67. Actor Lesley Manville is 67. Actor Jerry Levine is 66. Singer Marlon Jackson (The Jackson Five) is 66. Actor Jason Beghe is 63. Actor Courtney B. Vance is 63. Actor Titus Welliver is 61. Former MLB AllStar Darryl Strawberry is 61. Actor Julia Campbell is 60. Actor Jake Weber is 60. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., is 55. Actor Aaron Eckhart is 55. CNN reporter Jake Tapper is 54. Rock musician Graham Coxon is 54. Country musician Tommy Bales (Flynnville Train) is 50. Actor Rhys Coiro is 44. Country singer Holly Williams is 42. Actor Samm Levine is 40. Actor Jaimie Alexander is 39. Actor Tyler Patrick Jones is 29.