March 12

516 BC King Solomon's first temple in Jerusalem was totally destroyed by the Babylonians led by King Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BC. Seventy years later, the Persian King Cyrus allowed the Jews to return to Jerusalem and to rebuild the temple. The second temple was built by the remnant of exiles who had returned from Babylon to Israel and completed on March 12, 515 BC.

Rebuilding of the Temple (by Gustave Doré from the 1866 La Sainte Bible)

604 Pope Gregory I (The Great) died on March 12, 604 worn out by a lifestyle of praying on the mountains and ministering in the cities. He had called himself "The servant of the servants of God" and when given higher titles he said "God resisteth the poor but giveth grace to the humble."
Gregory was declared a saint immediately after his death by popular acclamation.

1622 Ignatius of Loyola (the co-founder of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) order, was canonized and received the title of Saint on March 12, 1622 along with another prominent figure of the Counter-Reformation, Saint Francis Xavier. The two were among the first members of the Society of Jesus, a religious order founded by Ignatius in 1540 that focused on education, missionary work, and service to the Pope. 

1757 In 1756 British political theorist and statesman Edmund Burke stayed at Circus House in Bath, the house of his Catholic physician, Dr Christopher Nugent. There, he first met the doctor's daughter, Jane Mary Nugent (1734 -1812). They married on March 12, 1757.  They had two sons, Richard, who became a barrister and Christopher, who died in infancy. Burke also helped raise a ward, Edmund Nagle (later Admiral Sir Edmund Nagle), the son of a cousin orphaned in 1763.

1784 English theologian, geologist and palaeontologist William Buckland was born on March 12, 1784. Buckland claimed to have eaten his way through the animal kingdom. He opined that mole meat tastes vile and was the most distasteful he consumed along with bluebottle.

Painting by Richard Ansdell

1832 Charles Boycott was born on March 12, 1832. He was a former soldier who worked as a land agent for Lord Erne (John Crichton, 3rd Earl Erne), a landowner in the Lough Mask area of County May, Ireland. The Norfolk-born soldier’s surname gave the world the word ‘boycott’ when he refused to cut tenants’ rents and they stopped serving him in their shops and pubs.

1838 William Henry Perkin was an English chemist and inventor, who developed the first synthetic dye. He was born in the East End of London on March 12, 1838, the youngest of the seven children of George Perkin, a successful builder and Sarah Perkin. Despite his father's opposition Perkin entered the Royal College of Science to study chemistry at the precocious age of 15. It is now part of Imperial College London.

1881 When Andrew Watson made his debut with the Scotland national football team on March 12, 1881; he became the world's first black international football player. He captained the side and Scotland won 6 – 1. Watson also played for Queen's Park F.C. – then Britain's largest football team – and became their secretary in November 1881. He led the team to several Scottish Cup wins, thus becoming the first black player to win a major competition.

Andrew Watson (top centre) with the Scottish team that played England at Hampden Park 

1881 The founding father of the Republic of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, was born (under the name Ali Rıza oğlu Mustafa which means "Mustafa son of Ali Rıza") on March 12, 1881. When Turkey became a republic in 1923, Atatürk was the first president. He set out to westernize the republic he had established. European dress was imposed, polygamy was abolished, women were enfranchised and the Latin script replaced the Arabic. Atatürk served as Turkey's president until his death in 1938.

1889 Vaslav Nijinsky, a Russian ballet dancer and choreographer of Polish descent, was born on March 12, 1889. Nijinsky was regarded as the greatest male dancer of the 20th century.  He could dance en pointe, a rare skill among male dancers at the time and was admired for his seemingly gravity-defying leaps. Nijinsky's last public performance was in 1917 and he spent the final three decades of his life in and out of psychiatric hospitals before dying in London.

1894 Coca-Cola was sold only as a fountain drink until 1894 when Vicksburg, Mississippi confectioner Joseph Biedenharn thought of bottling the beverage in the same manner he had been bottling soda water and offering it for sale to those who could not always make it to town to visit one of his three soda fountains. Bottled Coca-Cola was sold by him for the first time on March 12, 1894.

1912 Robert Baden-Powell, the founder of Scouting, was faced with an increasing number of girls wishing to take part in his movement. With his sister Agnes, he founded the Girl Guides in the UK in 1910. In 1911 Juliette Gordon Low met Robert Baden-Powell while she was living in the United Kingdom. Inspired by the Girl Guides movement, she established the Girl Scouts of America. On March 12, 1912 she organized the first Girl Scouts troop meeting of 18 girls in Savannah, Georgia.

1913 The site of Canberra was selected for the location of Australia's capital in 1908 as a compromise between rivals Sydney and Melbourne, Australia's two largest cities. It was named Canberra at a ceremony on March 12, 1913 by Lady Denman, wife of the then Governor-General Lord Denman. King O'Malley, the politician who arranged the competition for a design for Canberra, drove the first survey peg to mark commencement of work on the construction of the city the same year.

1918 In 1480, Moscow became the capital of the Russian empire. The Moscow Kremlin served as the center of Russian government until 1712 when the newly built St Petersburg replaced Moscow as the Russian capital. Peter The Great ordered every Moscow family with fewer than 30 families of serfs to pack up their belongings and move to the newly created city. Following the Russian Revolution of 1917, Moscow became the capital of the Soviet Union on March 12, 1918.

1928 The St. Francis Dam was a curved concrete gravity dam, built to create a large regulating and storage reservoir for the city of Los Angeles. Its collapse at 11:57 p.m. on March 12, 1928,  is considered one of the worst engineering disasters in US history. Its chief engineer took sole responsibility, testifying, "If there was an error in human judgment, I was the human." Over 400 people were killed when the dam failed in the middle of the night.

1930 The Salt March, led by Gandhi, which began on March 12, 1930, was a non-violent protest against the British salt tax. This tax unfairly burdened Indians. As Gandhi marched towards the coast, gaining growing support, the act of defiance against the salt monopoly resonated deeply. This march challenged British authority, exposed economic hardship, and inspired the Indian independence movement. Gaining international attention, it became a turning point in India's fight for freedom.

1935 The 30 mph speed limit for motor vehicles in built-up areas in Britain came into force on March 12, 1935. When the first new 30 mph speed limit signs first appeared, many were removed by angry motorists — eight were thrown in ponds.

1938 German troops marched into Austria on March 12, 1938 to annex the German-speaking nation for the Third Reich. The annexation of Austria, also known as the Anschluss, was met with little resistance from the Austrian government or people, as many Austrians were sympathetic to Hitler's nationalist and anti-Semitic views. The international community largely condemned the Anschluss, but did little to stop it, marking a major turning point in the lead up to World War II.

1947 By 1947, The Soviet Union, then led by Joseph Stalin, had become an enemy of the US in the Cold War. President Harry S. Truman was encouraged by his advisers to increase tensions with the Soviet Union while running for his second term as President because it would help him win. On March 12, 1947, he proclaimed the Truman Doctrine to help stem the spread of communism.

1955 As a teenager, jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker developed a morphine addiction while hospitalized after an automobile accident, and subsequently became addicted to heroin. He continued using heroin throughout his life, and his addiction ultimately contributed to his death. He passed away on March 12, 1955 at the age of 34 from cirrhosis, internal bleeding and pneumonia caused by a heart attack, whilst watching The Dorsey Brothers' Stage Show on television.

1957 Dr Seuss created The Cat in the Hat in response to a debate during the mid-1950s in the United States about literacy in early childhood. The author was challenged by a publisher, William Spaulding, to write a book using the 250 words children use most, to promote literacy. He demanded that it be a story that "first-graders can't put down." Seuss used just 236 words in The Cat in the Hat and was published on March 12, 1957. It became Dr. Seuss's all-time biggest seller.

1969 Paul McCartney married photographer Linda Eastman at Marylebone Register Office on March 12, 1969. None of the other Beatles attended (George Harrison was actually helping police after a drug raid on his home in which he was arrested.) Linda Eastman had a daughter, Heather, whom he adopted. McCartney and Linda had three more children together, named Mary, Stella and James. Stella later became a popular fashion designer. Linda Eastman died in 1998 of breast cancer

1970 The Bridgwater by-election of March 12, 1970 was the first election in the United Kingdom to be held after the voting age had been reduced from 21 to 18. The first under-21 year old to cast a vote was Susan Wallace.

1986 History's fattest cat died at age 10 years and four months in Cairns, Australia on March 12, 1986. The neutered male house cat named Himmy was 38 inches long and weighed 46.8 pounds (21.3 kilograms) at his death. The owner Thomas Vyse had to transport Himmy in a wheelbarrow.

1987 The Broadway production of the Les Misérables musical opened on March 12, 1987 and closed in 2003 after 6,680 performances. It is the fifth longest-running Broadway show in history. The show was nominated for 12 Tony Awards and won eight, including Best Musical and Best Original Score.

1993 Janet Reno was the first woman to serve as the Attorney General of the United States. She was nominated by President Bill Clinton and confirmed by the Senate on March 11, 1993, and was officially sworn in the following day, March 12, 1993. Reno served as Attorney General for the duration of Clinton's presidency, from 1993 to 2001.

1994 Two years after the Church of England Synod voted in favor of women priests, the first 32 Anglican women priests were ordained on March 12, 1994 at Bristol Cathedral by Bishop Barry Rogerson. However in response, 700 Anglican clergymen threatened to leave the Anglican Church for the Roman Catholic Church. In 2010, for the first time in the history of the Church of England.

2006 The current flag of Venezuela was introduced on March 12, 2006. The basic design of a horizontal tricolor of yellow, blue, and red, dates back to the original flag, introduced in 1811 in the Venezuelan War of Independence. Further modifications have involved including a set of stars and inclusion of an optional coat of arms at the upper-left corner.

2020 On March 12, 2020 Global stock markets suffered from the greatest single-day fall since the 1987 stock market crash. Black Thursday was attributed principally to the coronavirus pandemic. That same day the United States suspended travel from Europe due to COVID-19.