On this day, April 12

1867 The Monongahela Incline Plane Railroad, up the face of Mount Washington, was chartered.

1935 The Monongahela House, the hotel where policy-making party caucuses were held prior to and during the first Republican convention in 1856, and said to be, for that reason, the “birthplace of the Republican Party,” closed its doors.

1945 President Franklin D. Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage in Warm Springs, Georgia, at age 63; he was succeeded by Vice President Harry S. Truman.

1955 The Salk vaccine against polio was declared safe and effective.

1963 Civil rights leader the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested and jailed in Birmingham, Ala., charged with contempt of court and parading without a permit. (During his time behind bars, King wrote his “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”)

1988 The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued a patent to Harvard University for a genetically engineered mouse, the first time a patent was granted for an animal life form.

1990 Pittsburgh native August Wilson won his second Pulitzer Prize for his play “The Piano Lesson.”

Some items are from Stefan Lorant’s “Pittsburgh: The Story of an American City” (digital.library.pitt.edu/chronology).

— Compiled by Alyssa Brown

Today’s birthdays: Actor Jane Withers, 95. Playwright Alan Ayckbourn, 82. Jazz musician Herbie Hancock, 81. Actor Ed O’Neill, 75. Actor Dan Lauria, 74. Talk show host David Letterman, 74. Author Scott Turow, 72. Actor-playwright Tom Noonan, 70. Actor Andy Garcia, 65. Movie director Walter Salles, 65. Country singer Vince Gill, 64. Actor Suzzanne Douglas, 64. Model/TV personality J Alexander, 63. Actor Nicholas Brendon, 50. Actor Shannen Doherty, 50. Actor Marley Shelton, 47. Actor Sarah Jane Morris, 44. Actor Jordana Spiro, 44. Rock musician Guy Berryman (Coldplay), 43.

Thought for today: “Rules are not necessarily sacred, principles are.”

— President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945)