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.
1925 Chinese revolutionary leader Sun Yat-sen died in Beijing.
1947 President Harry S. Truman announced what became known as the “Truman Doctrine” to help Greece and Turkey resist Communism.
1955 Legendary jazz saxophonist Charlie “Bird” Parker died in New York at age 34.
1971 Hafez Assad was confirmed as president of Syria in a referendum.
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.)
1987 The musical play “Les Miserables” opened on Broadway.
1994 The Church of England ordained its first women priests.
2003 Elizabeth Smart, the 15-year-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.)
2009 Disgraced financier Bernard Madoff pleaded guilty in New York to pulling off perhaps the biggest swindle in Wall Street history; he would be sentenced to 150 years behind bars. (Madoff died in prison in April 2021.)
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.
2018 Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee said they’d completed a draft report concluding that there was no collusion or coordination between Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and Russia.
2020 As the coronavirus crisis deepened in the U.S., the stock market had its biggest drop since the Black Monday crash of 1987, the NCAA canceled its basketball tournaments after earlier planning to play in empty arenas and the NHL joined the NBA in suspending play.
2021 The city of Minneapolis agreed to pay $27 million to settle a civil lawsuit from George Floyd’s family over the Black man’s death in police custody.
2023 “Everything, Everywhere All at Once” won seven Oscars, including best picture and three of the four acting awards.
Today’s birthdays: Politician, diplomat and civil rights activist Andrew Young, 92. Bethel Park native and actor Barbara Feldon, 91. Actor-singer Liza Minnelli, 78. Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah,, 77. Singer-songwriter James Taylor, 76. Rock singer-musician Bill Payne (Little Feat), 75. Actor Jon Provost (TV: “Lassie”), 74. Author Carl Hiaasen, 71. Rock musician Steve Harris (Iron Maiden), 68. Actor Lesley Manville, 68. Singer Marlon Jackson (The Jackson Five), 67. Actor Courtney B. Vance, 64. Former MLB All-Star Darryl Strawberry, 62. Actor Julia Campbell, 61. Actor Jake Weber, 61. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., 56. Actor Aaron Eckhart, 56. CNN reporter Jake Tapper, 55. Rock musician Graham Coxon, 55. Country singer Holly Williams, 43. Actor Samm Levine, 41. Actor Jaimie Alexander, 40.