DAILY ALMANAC
Today is Sunday, March 12, the 71st day of 2023. There are 294 days left in the year. On this date in:
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, Georgia, 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 musician 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.)
2003: Elizabeth Smart, the 15-yearold 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. (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. (An abbreviated 60-game season would begin in July.)
Actor Barbara Feldon (“Get Smart”) is 90. Actor-singer Liza Minnelli is 77. Singer-songwriter James Taylor is 75. Singer Bill Payne of Little Feat is 74. Actor Jon Provost (TV: “Lassie”) is 73. Bassist Steve Harris of Iron Maiden is 67. Actor Lesley Manville (“Phantom Thread”) is 67. Singer Marlon Jackson of The Jackson Five is 66. Actor Courtney B. Vance is 63. Actor Titus Welliver (“Deadwood”) is 61. Actor Julia Campbell (“Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion”) is 60. Actor Jake Weber (TV’S “Medium,” film’s “Dawn of the Dead”) is 60. Actor Aaron Eckhart (“The Dark Knight”) is 55. Guitarist Graham Coxon of Blur is 54. Drummer Tommy Bales of Flynnville Train is 50.