http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history
Mar 12, 1930: Gandhi leads civil disobedience
On March 12, 1930, Indian independence leader Mohandas Gandhi begins a defiant march to the sea in protest of the British monopoly on salt, his boldest act of civil disobedience yet against British rule in India.
Britain's Salt Acts prohibited Indians from collecting or selling salt, a staple in the Indian diet. Citizens were forced to buy the vital mineral from the British, who, in addition to exercising a monopoly over the manufacture and sale of salt, also exerted a heavy salt tax. Although India's poor suffered most under the tax, Indians required salt. Defying the Salt Acts, Gandhi reasoned, would be an ingeniously simple way for many Indians to break a British law nonviolently. He declared resistance to British salt policies to be the unifying theme for his new campaign of satyagraha, or mass civil disobedience.
On March 12, Gandhi set out from Sabarmati with 78 followers on a 241-mile march to the coastal town of Dandi on the Arabian Sea. There, Gandhi and his supporters were to defy British policy by making salt from seawater. All along the way, Gandhi addressed large crowds, and with each passing day an increasing number of people joined the salt satyagraha. By the time they reached Dandi on April 5, Gandhi was at the head of a crowd of tens of thousands. Gandhi spoke and led prayers and early the next morning walked down to the sea to make salt.
He had planned to work the salt flats on the beach, encrusted with crystallized sea salt at every high tide, but the police had forestalled him by crushing the salt deposits into the mud. Nevertheless, Gandhi reached down and picked up a small lump of natural salt out of the mud--and British law had been defied. At Dandi, thousands more followed his lead, and in the coastal cities of Bombay and Karachi, Indian nationalists led crowds of citizens in making salt. Civil disobedience broke out all across India, soon involving millions of Indians, and British authorities arrested more than 60,000 people. Gandhi himself was arrested on May 5, but the satyagraha continued without him.
On May 21, the poet Sarojini Naidu led 2,500 marchers on the Dharasana Salt Works, some 150 miles north of Bombay. Several hundred British-led Indian policemen met them and viciously beat the peaceful demonstrators. The incident, recorded by American journalist Webb Miller, prompted an international outcry against British policy in India.
In January 1931, Gandhi was released from prison. He later met with Lord Irwin, the viceroy of India, and agreed to call off the satyagraha in exchange for an equal negotiating role at a London conference on India's future. In August, Gandhi traveled to the conference as the sole representative of the nationalist Indian National Congress. The meeting was a disappointment, but British leaders had acknowledged him as a force they could not suppress or ignore.
India's independence was finally granted in August 1947. Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu extremist less than six months later.
Mar 12, 1938: Hitler announces an Anschluss with Austria
On this day, Adolf Hitler announces an "Anschluss" (union) between Germany and Austria, in fact annexing the smaller nation into a greater Germany.
Union with Germany had been a dream of Austrian Social Democrats since 1919. The rise of Adolf Hitler and his authoritarian rule made such a proposition less attractive, though, which was an ironic twist, since a union between the two nations was also a dream of Hitler's, a native Austrian. Despite the fact that Hitler did not have the full approval of Austrian Social Democrats, the rise of a pro-Nazi right-wing party within Austria in the mid-1930s paved the way for Hitler to make his move. In 1938, Austrian Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg, bullied by Hitler during a meeting at Hitler's retreat home in Berchtesgaden, agreed to a greater Nazi presence within Austria. He appointed a Nazi minister of police and announced an amnesty for all Nazi prisoners. Schuschnigg hoped that agreeing to Hitler's demands would prevent a German invasion. But Hitler insisted on greater German influence on the internal affairs of Austria-even placing German army troops within Austria--and Schuschnigg repudiated the agreement signed at Berchtesgaden, demanding a plebiscite on the question. Through the machinations of Hitler and his devotees within Austria, the plebiscite was canceled, and Schuschnigg resigned.
The Austrian president, Wilhelm Miklas, refused to appoint a pro-Nazi chancellor in Schuschnigg's stead. German foreign minister Hermann Goering then faked a crisis by engineering a "plea" for German assistance from inside the Austrian government (really from a German agent). On March 12, 1938, German troops marched into Austria. Hitler announced his Anschluss, and a plebiscite was finally held on April 10. Whether the plebiscite was rigged or the resulting vote simply a testament to Austrian terror at Hitler's determination, the Fuhrer garnered a whopping 99.7 percent approval for the union of Germany and Austria.
Austria was now a nameless entity absorbed by Germany. It was not long before the Nazis soon began their typical ruthless policy of persecuting political dissidents and, of course, all Jewish citizens.
Mar 12, 1938: Germany annexes Austria
On March 12, 1938, German troops march into Austria to annex the German-speaking nation for the Third Reich.
In early 1938, Austrian Nazis conspired for the second time in four years to seize the Austrian government by force and unite their nation with Nazi Germany. Austrian Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg, learning of the conspiracy, met with Nazi leader Adolf Hitler in the hopes of reasserting his country's independence but was instead bullied into naming several top Austrian Nazis to his cabinet. On March 9, Schuschnigg called a national vote to resolve the question of Anschluss, or "annexation," once and for all. Before the plebiscite could take place, however, Schuschnigg gave in to pressure from Hitler and resigned on March 11. In his resignation address, under coercion from the Nazis, he pleaded with Austrian forces not to resist a German "advance" into the country.
The next day, March 12, Hitler accompanied German troops into Austria, where enthusiastic crowds met them. Hitler appointed a new Nazi government, and on March 13 the Anschluss was proclaimed. Austria existed as a federal state of Germany until the end of World War II, when the Allied powers declared the Anschluss void and reestablished an independent Austria. Schuschnigg, who had been imprisoned soon after resigning, was released in 1945.
Mar 12, 1947: Truman Doctrine is announced
In a dramatic speech to a joint session of Congress, President Harry S. Truman asks for U.S. assistance for Greece and Turkey to forestall communist domination of the two nations. Historians have often cited Truman's address, which came to be known as the Truman Doctrine, as the official declaration of the Cold War.
In February 1947, the British government informed the United States that it could no longer furnish the economic and military assistance it had been providing to Greece and Turkey since the end of World War II. The Truman administration believed that both nations were threatened by communism and it jumped at the chance to take a tough stance against the Soviet Union. In Greece, leftist forces had been battling the Greek royal government since the end of World War II. In Turkey, the Soviets were demanding some manner of control over the Dardanelles, territory from which Turkey was able to dominate the strategic waterway from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean.
On March 12, 1947, Truman appeared before a joint session of Congress to make his case. The world, he declared, faced a choice in the years to come. Nations could adopt a way of life "based upon the will of the majority" and governments that provided "guarantees of individual liberty" or they could face a way of life "based upon the will of a minority forcibly imposed upon the majority." This latter regime, he indicated, relied upon "terror and oppression." "The foreign policy and the national security of this country," he claimed, were involved in the situations confronting Greece and Turkey. Greece, he argued, was "threatened by the terrorist activities of several thousand armed men, led by communists." It was incumbent upon the United States to support Greece so that it could "become a self-supporting and self-respecting democracy." The "freedom-loving" people of Turkey also needed U.S. aid, which was "necessary for the maintenance of its national integrity." The president declared that "it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures." Truman requested $400 million in assistance for the two nations. Congress approved his request two months later.
The Truman Doctrine was a de facto declaration of the Cold War. Truman's address outlined the broad parameters of U.S. Cold War foreign policy: the Soviet Union was the center of all communist activity and movements throughout the world; communism could attack through outside invasion or internal subversion; and the United States needed to provide military and economic assistance to protect nations from communist aggression.
Not everyone embraced Truman's logic. Some realized that the insurgency in Greece was supported not by the Soviet Union, but by Yugoslavia's Tito, who broke with the Soviet communists within a year. Additionally, the Soviets were not demanding control of the Dardanelles, but only assurances that this strategic waterway would not be used by Russia's enemies-as the Nazis had used it during World War II. And whether U.S. assistance would result in democracy in Greece or Turkey was unclear. Indeed, both nations established repressive right-wing regimes in the years following the Truman Doctrine. Yet, the Truman Doctrine successfully convinced many that the United States was locked in a life-or-death struggle with the Soviet Union, and it set the guidelines for over 40 years of U.S.-Soviet relations.
Mar 12, 1972: Australians withdraw from South Vietnam
The last remnants of the First Australian Task Force withdraw from Vietnam. The Australian government had first sent troops to Vietnam in 1964 with a small aviation detachment and an engineer civic action team. In May 1965, the Australians increased their commitment with the deployment of the 1st Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (RAR). The formation of the First Australian Task Force in 1966 established an Australian base of operations near Ba Ria in Phuoc Tuy province. The task force included an additional infantry battalion, a medium tank squadron, and a helicopter squadron, as well as signal, engineer, and other support forces. By 1969, Australian forces in Vietnam totaled an estimated 6,600 personnel.
The Australian contingent was part of the Free World Military Forces, an effort by President Lyndon B. Johnson to enlist allies for the United States and South Vietnam. By securing support from other nations, Johnson hoped to build an international consensus behind his policies in Vietnam. The effort was also known as the "many flags" program.
Australia began to withdraw its troops in 1970, following the lead of the United States as it drastically reduced its troop commitment to South Vietnam.
Here's a more detailed look at events that transpired on this date throughout history:
538 - Witiges, king of the Ostrogoths ends his siege of Rome
and retreats to Ravenna, leaving the city in the hands of the victorious Roman
general, Belisarius.
1054 - Pope Leo IX escapes captivity & returns to Rome
1088 - Odo of Lagery elected as Pope Urban II, replacing
Victor III
1144 - Gherardo Caccianemici elected Pope Lucius II,
succeeding Callistus II
1350 - Orvieto city says it will behead & burn
Jewish-Christian couples
1365 - University of Vienna founded
1455 - first record of Johann Gutenberg's Bible, letter
dated this day by Enea Silvio Piccolomini refers to the bible printed a year
before
1496 - Jews are expelled from Syria
1572 - Luis Vaz de Camoes publishes "Os Lusíados"
in Portugal
1594 - Company of Distant established for business on
East-Indies
1597 - England routes troops to Amiens
1609 - Bermuda becomes an English colony
1619 - Dutch settlement on Java changes name to Batavia
1622 - Ignatius of Loyola declared a saint
1642 - Abel Tasman is 1st European in New Zealand
1664 - 1st naturalization act in American colonies
1664 - New Jersey becomes a British colony
1689 - Former English King James II lands in Ireland
1737 - Galileo's body moved to Church of Santa Croce in
Florence, Italy
Astronomer & Physicist Galileo GalileiAstronomer &
Physicist Galileo Galilei 1755 - 1st steam engine in America installed, to pump
water from a mine
1773 - Jeanne Baptiste Pointe de Sable found settlement now
known as Chicago
1794 - Theatre Royal in London's Dury Lane opens after being
rebuilt
1799 - Austria declares war on France
1832 - The ballet La Sylphide first premieres at the Opéra
de Paris.
1848 - 2nd republic established in France
1849 - 1st gold seekers arrive in Nicaragua en route to
Calif
1850 - 1st US $20 gold piece issued
1857 - Giuseppe Verdi's opera "Simon Boccanegra,"
premieres in Venice
1860 - Congress accepts Pre-emption Bill: free land in West
for colonists
1865 - Affair near Lone Jack, Missouri
1867 - Last French troops leave Mexico
1868 - Great Britain annexes Basutoland in Africa (later
renamed the Kingdom of Lesotho)
1868 - Congress abolishes manufacturer's tax
1868 - Henry O'Farrell attempts to assassinate Prince
Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh.
Composer Giuseppe VerdiComposer Giuseppe Verdi 1877 - Great
Britain annexes Walvis Bay at Cape colony, Southern Africa.
1881 - Andrew Watson makes his Scotland debut as the world's
first black international football player and captain.
1884 - Mississippi establishes 1st US state college for
women
1888 - 2nd day of the Great blizzard of '88 in NE US (400
die)
1889 - Battle at Metema (Gallabad): Ethiopian Emperor
Yohannes IV, defeated
1889 - Start of South Africa's 1st Test, v England, Port
Elizabeth
1894 - Pittsburgh issues free season tickets for ladies on
Tuesday & Friday
1894 - In Vicksburg, Mississippi, USA, Coca-Cola is sold in
bottles for the first time.
1896 - 1st movie in Netherlands (Kalverstr 220)
1897 - Vincent d'Indy's opera "Fervaal," premieres
in Brussel
1900 - President Steyn of Orange Free state flees from
Bloemfontein
1901 - Ground is broken for Boston's 1st AL ballpark
(Huntington Ave Grounds)
1903 - NY Highlanders (Yankees) approved as members of AL
1904 - 1st main line electric train in UK (Liverpool to
Southport)
1904 - Andrew Carnegie establishes Carnegie Hero Fund
1906 - Heavy storm ravages Dutch west coast
1908 - Stanley Cup: Mont Wanderers sweep Win Maple Leafs in
2 games
1908 - The Pan-Macedonian group is formed in Athens to
support the Greek Struggle for Macedonia.
1910 - Stanley Cup: Montreal Wanderers beat Berlin
(Kitchener), 7-3
1912 - Girl Guides (Girl Scouts) forms in Savannah, by
Juliette Gordon Low
1912 - Helen Hayes Theater opens at 238 W 44th St NYC
1912 - Establishment of the first football club in Bulgaria
- Botev Plovdiv
1913 - Foundation stone of the Australian capital in
Canberra laid
1916 - French airship sinks British submarine D3
1917 - Russian Dumas sets up Provisional Committee; workers
set up Soviets
1917 - Stalin, Kamenev & Muranov arrives in St
Petersburg
1919 - Austrian National Meeting affirms Anschluss
(incorporate into Germany)
Playwright George Bernard ShawPlaywright George Bernard Shaw
1919 - George Bernard Shaw's "Augustus Does His Bit," premieres in
NYC
1925 - British government of Baldwin refuses to ratify
Geneva agreement
1926 - Denmark begins unilateral disarmament
1926 - Pope Pius XI names J E van Roey archbishop of Malines
Belgium
1928 - In California, the St. Francis Dam fails, killing
over 600 people.
1930 - Mohandas Gandhi begins 200m (300km) march protesting
British salt tax
1930 - Stella Walsh sets record for the 220-yard dash
(0:26.1)
1933 - FDR conducts his 1st "fireside chat"
1934 - Acting Pres Constantine Päts commits coup in Tallinn
Estonia
1934 - Josip Broz (Tito) freed from jail
1934 - Paul Hindemith's "Mathis der Maler,"
premieres in Berlin
1935 - England establishes 30 MPH speed limit for towns
& villages
1938 - Nazi Germany invades Austria (Anschluss)
1939 - Pope Pius XII crowned in Vatican ceremonies
1940 - Finland surrenders to Russia during WW II, gives
Karelische Isthmus
32nd US President Franklin D. Roosevelt32nd US President
Franklin D. Roosevelt 1941 - German occupiers confiscate AVRO studios in
Netherlands
1942 - British troops vacate the Andamanen in Gulf of Bengal
1943 - Soviet troops liberate Wjasma
1945 - 30 Amsterdammers executed by nazi occupiers
1945 - Italy's Communist Party (CPI) calls for armed
uprising in Italy
1945 - NY is 1st to prohibit discrimination by race &
creed in employment
1945 - USSR returns Transylvania to Romania
1946 - Part of Petsamo province ceded by Soviet Union to
Finland
1947 - "Chocolate Soldier" opens at Century
Theater NYC for 69 performances
1947 - Belgian government of Huysmans resigns
1947 - Pres Harry Truman introduces Truman-doctrine to fight
communism
1948 - -5°F lowest temperature ever recorded in Cleveland in
March
1950 - Belgium votes (58%) for return of King Leopold III
1950 - Pope Pius XII encyclical "On combating atheistic
propaganda"
1951 - Baseball Commish Happy Chandler loses fight (9-7) to
stay in office
33rd US President Harry Truman33rd US President Harry Truman
1951 - Communist troops driven out of Seoul
1954 - 1st performance of Arnold Schoenberg's "Moses
und Aaron"
1954 - Anish Kapoor, Mumbai India, Indian born British
sculptor
1956 - Dow Jones closes above 500 for 1st time (500.24)
1957 - German DR accepts 22 Russian divisions
1958 - British Empire Day is renamed "Commonwealth
Day"
1959 - Dutch Liberal Party wins 2nd parliamentary elections
1959 - US House joins Senate approving Hawaii statehood
1961 - Mickey Wright wins LPGA Miami Golf Open
1962 - Dutch Premier De Quay announces secret talks with
Indonesia
1963 - Beatles perform as a trio, John Lennon is ill with a
cold
1964 - 6th Grammy Awards: Days of Wine & Roses,
Striesand wins 2
1964 - Jimmy Hoffa sentenced to 8 years
1964 - Malcolm X resigns from Nation of Islam
1964 - SN Behrmann's "But for Whom Charlie,"
premieres in NYC
African American Activist Malcolm XAfrican American Activist
Malcolm X 1964 - WKAB TV channel 32 in Montgomery, AL (ABC) begins broadcasting
1966 - Bobby Hull's 51st goal of season, sets record
1966 - Jockey Johnny Longden retires after 40 years (6,032
wins)
1966 - Love's 1st album released "Love"
1966 - Pioneer Plaza dedicated
1966 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1967 - Austria's Reinhold Bachler ski jumps 505 feet
1967 - Indonesian congress deprives president Sukarno of
authority
1968 - Mauritius gains independence from Britain (National
Day)
1968 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1969 - 11th Grammy Awards: Mrs Robinson, By the Time I Get
to Phoenix wins
1969 - 120 joints found at George & Patti Harrison's
home
1970 - US lowers voting age from 21 to 18
1971 - Syrian premier Hafez Assad elected president
1971 - Turkish Government of Demirel forced to resign by
Army
1972 - Judy Rankin wins LPGA Lady Eve Golf Open
1972 - NHL great Gordie Howe retires after 26 seasons
1974 - Bundy victim Donna Manson disappears, Evergreen SC,
Olympia, Wash
1975 - Vietcong conquer Ban me Thuot South Vietnam
1976 - South African troops leave Angola
1977 - Chile president Pinochet bans Christian-Democratic
Party
1977 - Egypt's Anwar Sadat pledges to regain Arab territory
from Israel
1977 - Sadat pledges to regain Arab territory from Israel
1978 - Eric Heiden skates world record 1000m (1:14.99)
1978 - Nancy Lopez wins LPGA Sunstar Golf Classic
1980 - Jury finds John Wayne Gacy guilty of murdering 33 in
Chicago
1980 - NY Islanders 3rd scoreless tie, vs Pittsburgh Penguin
1981 - Soyuz T-4 carries 2 cosmonauts to Salyut 6 space
station
1981 - Stephen Sondheim's musical "Marry Me a
Little," premieres in NYC
1981 - Walter R T Witschey installs world's largest sundial,
Richmond, VA
1982 - 1st-class debut of Courtney Walsh, Jamaica v Leeward
Islands
1982 - PLO chief Yassar Arafat appears on
"Nightline"
1983 - Don Ritchie runs world record 50 mile (4:51:49)
1984 - Coal Miners' strike ended
1984 - National Union of Mine Workers in England begin a 51
week strike
1984 - British ice dancing team, Torvill & Dean, become
1st skaters to receive 9 perfect 6.0s in world championships
NBA Legend Larry BirdNBA Legend Larry Bird 1985 - Larry Bird
scores Boston Celtic record 60 points
1986 - 210.25 million shares traded in NY Stock Exchange
1986 - Susan Butcher wins 1,158 mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog
Race
1987 - "Les Miserables" opens at Broadway/Imperial
NYC for 4000+ perfs
1987 - David Robinson scores 50 points in a NCAA basketball
game
1987 - Federal judge dismisses lawsuits sought by Oliver
North
1987 - Ice Pairs Championship at Cincinnati won by E
Gordeeva & Grinkov (URS)
1987 - Men's Fig Skating Championship in Cincinnati won by
Brian Orser (CAN)
1987 - USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern
Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
1989 - 15th People's Choice Awards
1989 - 2 cyanide-contaminated Chilean grapes found
(Philadelphia)
1989 - Madagascar AREMA party wins parliamentary election
1990 - LA Raiders announce they were returning to Oakland
1991 - 5th Soul Train Music Awards
1992 - Mauritius becomes a republic while remaining a member
of the Commonwealth of Nations.
1993 - 317 killed by bomb attacks in Bombay
1993 - Cleveland radio station WMMS-FM/101.7 is bought by
Disney
1993 - Entertainment Tonight's 3,000th show
1993 - Inkhata leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi begins 2½ week
speech
1994 - Church of England ordains 1st 33 women priests
1995 - Congress party loses India national election
1995 - Dottie Mochrie wins LPGA PING/Welch's Golf
Championship
1995 - Ice Dance Championship at Birmingham UK won by
Gritshuk & Platov (RUS)
1995 - Ice Pairs Champ at Birmingham won by Radka Kovarikova
& Rene Novotny
1995 - Lara scores 139 in ODI v Australia at Port-of-Spain
1995 - Letitia Vriesde runs South American indoor record
800m (2:00.35)
1995 - Men's Figure Skating Champions in Birmingham won by
Elvis Stojko (CAN)
1995 - Worlds Ladies Figure Skating Champ in Birmingham won
by Chen Lu (CHN)
1996 - Leeward Islands beat Trinidad by 73 runs to win Red
Stripe Trophy
1998 - "Sound of Music," opens at Martin Beck
Theater NYC
1999 - Former Warsaw Pact members the Czech Republic,
Hungary and Poland join NATO.
2003 - Zoran Đinđić, Prime Minister of Serbia, is
assassinated in Belgrade.
2003 - Elizabeth Smart, was found after having been missing
for 9 months.
2004 - Roh Moo-hyun, President of South Korea is impeached
by its national assembly for the first time in the nation's history.
2005 - Tung Chee Hwa, the first Chief Executive of Hong
Kong, steps down from his post after his resignation is approved by the Chinese
central government.
2011 - A reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power
Plant melts and explodes and releases radioactivity into the atmosphere a day
after Japan's earthquake.
2012 - 100 people are killed in ethnic clashes and cattle
raids in South Sudan
2012 - 45 people, including children, are massacred by the
Syrian Army in Homs
2012 - China records its highest trade deficit in over a
decade
2013 - JOGMEC becomes the first to successfully extract
methane hydrate from seabed deposits
2013 - The 2013 Papal conclave begins with no elected new
Pope on the first day
1912 Juliette Gordon Low founded the Girl Scouts. 1930 Mohandas Gandhi began his 200-mile march to protest the British salt tax. 1933 President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave the first of his nation-wide "fireside chats" on radio. 1938 "Anschluss" took place when Hitler incorporated his homeland of Austria into the Third Reich. 1947 President Truman established the "Truman Doctrine" to aid in the containment of Communism. 1993 Janet Reno was sworn in as the first female attorney general of the United States. 1994 The Church of England ordained women priests for the first time in 460 years. 2002 The color-coded terror alert system was unveiled by Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge. 2003 The prime minister of the Serbian state (of Serbia and Montenegro), Zoran Djindjic, was assassinated.
The following links are to web sites that were used to complete this blog entry:
http://www.historyorb.com/today/events.php
http://on-this-day.com/onthisday/thedays/alldays/mar12.htm
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history
http://www.infoplease.com/dayinhistory
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