Saturday, March 12

.c The Associated Press

Today is Saturday, March 12, the 72nd day of 2005. There are 293 days
left in the year.

Highlights in history on this date:

641 A.D. – Chinese Princess Wen Cheng goes to Tibet to marry the
Tibetan ruler. The marriage is the basis for China’s claim to
sovereignty over the region.

1470 – In the War of the Roses, English King Edward IV defeats rebels
at Empingham.

1664 – New Jersey becomes the British colony as King Charles II grants
land in the New World to his brother James, the Duke of York.

1799 – Austria declares war on France.

1832 – Captain Charles Boycott, the Irish estate manager who caused
boycotts, was born. He earned a reputation for unfairness that drove
peasant tenant-farmers in his charge to organize against him in an
1879 act of civil disobedience. Hence the derivation of the word,
‘boycott.’

1848 – Revolution breaks out in Vienna with university demonstrations.

1854 – Britain and France conclude alliance with Turks against Russia.

1854 – In Sydney, James O’Farrell attempts to shoot visiting Duke of
Edinburgh, Prince Alfred, in the back. O’Farrell is later hanged.

1867 – Napoleon III withdraws French support from Maximillian of
Mexico.

1868 – Britain annexes Basutoland, South Africa.

1912 – Juliette Gordon Low starts the Girl Guides, which later becomes
the Girl Scouts of America.

1930 – Indian political and spiritual leader Mohandas K. Gandhi begins
a 322- kilometer (200- mile) march to protest a British tax on salt.

1933 – U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt delivers the first of his
radio “fireside chats,” telling Americans what was being done to
deal with the nation’s economic crisis.

1938 – The “Anschluss” takes place as German troops enter Austria,
completing Adolf Hitler’s mission to restore his homeland to the Third
Reich.

1939 – Pope Pius XII is formally crowned in ceremonies at the Vatican.

1940 – Finland and the Soviet Union conclude an armistice during World
War II. Fighting between the two countries flares again the following
year.

1947 – U.S. President Harry Truman establishes what became known as
the Truman Doctrine to help Greece and Turkey resist Communism.

1966 – General Suharto is sworn in as acting President of Indonesia
after President Sukarno is stripped of authority.

1968 – Indian Ocean island of Mauritius, a British colony, proclaims
its independence.

1972 – Britain and China agree to exchange ambassadors, 22 years after
London first recognized the Peking government.

1980 – A Chicago jury finds John Wayne Gacy Jr. guilty of murdering
33 men and boys. He is executed in 1994.

1984 – The British ice dancing team, Torvill and Dean, become the
first skaters to receive nine perfect 6.0 scores in the world
championships.

1986 – Susan Butcher becomes the first woman to win the 1863-kilometer
(1158-mile) Iditarod Sled Dog race in the Alaskan wilderness.

1987 – The musical “Les Miserables” opens on Broadway in New York.

1988 – South African government bans church-led opposition group
headed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu as “threat to public safety.”

1989 – Students and workers demanding overthrow of President Roh
Tae-woo battle riot police in Seoul, South Korea.

1990 – Mongolian Communist Party leadership approves opposition
demands for sweeping political reforms.

1991 – Anti-government sources say Iraqi troops have retaken two
southern cities as rebel forces slow their advance out of concern for
5,000 civilian hostages.

1992 – A cease-fire is shattered when the city of Agdam comes under
heavy shelling that kills 25 people in the battle over the Armenian
enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.

1993 – A series of bombs explode in Bombay, and at least 200 people
are killed and 1,100 injured; Janet Reno is sworn in as the United
States’ first female attorney general.

1994 – The Church of England ordains its first women priests.

1995 – A Canadian court releases on bail the captain of a Spanish
fishing trawler caught in a spiraling trans-Atlantic dispute over
North Atlantic fishing rights.

1996 – Chinese combat planes and warships open eight days of war games
off Taiwan meant to dampen pro-independence sentiment.

1997 – Burundi authorities arrest five people, including two soldiers,
after they attempted to kill Burundian leader Maj. Pierre Buyoya.

1998 – Astronomers debunk a warning that a mile-wide asteroid might
collide with Earth on Oct. 26, 2028, saying the calculations were off
by 600,000 miles.

1999 – The Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland join NATO in a ceremony
at Independence, Missouri.

2000 – Attackers wound leading Iranian reformist Saeed Hajjarian, a
close confidant of President Mohammed Khatami, shooting him once in
the face. He was the focus of hard-liners’ anger after the reformist
sweep of parliamentary elections.

2001 – Thousands of Iraqis begin military training when President
Saddam Hussein orders the formation of 21 military units. As many as 7
million volunteer to fight with the Palestinians against Israel.

2002 – A Texas jury finds Andrea Yates, a mother with a history of
psychosis and postpartum depression, guilty of capital murder in the
drowning deaths of three of her five young children.

2003 – Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic dies after being struck
by two bullets as he walked from his car to a government building in
Belgrade.

2004 – Iran abruptly freezes further U.N. inspections of its nuclear
program for six weeks, throwing into turmoil international attempts to
verify Tehran’s claims that it is developing atomic power and not
weapons.

Today’s Birthdays:

Thomas Arne, English composer (1710-1778); Jack Kerouac, American
writer (1922-1969); Elaine De Kooning, U.S. painter (1929-1989);
Edward Albee, U.S. playwright (1928–); Barbara Feldon, U.S. actress
(1941–); Liza Minnelli, U.S. singer-actress (1946–); James Taylor,
U.S. singer (1948–)

Thought For Today:

If power corrupts, being out of power corrupts absolutely – Douglass
Cater, American author and educator.

03/04/05 19:01 EST