Today in History: March 12, Grant takes over Union armies
Today in History
Today is Sunday, March 12, the 71st day of 2023. There are 294 days left in the year.
Today’s highlight in history:
On March 12, 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.)
On this date:
In 1864, Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant assumed command as General-in-Chief of the Union armies in the Civil War.
In 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.
In 1925, Chinese revolutionary leader Sun Yat-sen died in Beijing.
In 1947, President Harry S. Truman announced what became known as the “Truman Doctrine” to help Greece and Turkey resist Communism.
In 1955, legendary jazz musician Charlie “Bird” Parker died in New York at age 34.
In 1971, Hafez Assad was confirmed as president of Syria in a referendum.
In 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.)
In 1987, the musical play “Les Miserables” opened on Broadway.
In 1994, the Church of England ordained its first women priests.
In 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.)
In 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...