1894: The world’s favorite soda, Coca-Cola, was sold in glass bottles in Vicksburg, Mississippi, USA. A candy store owner called Joseph A. Biedenharn was the first person to bottle the drink and sell it in his store. Before then, Coca-Cola was sold as a fountain drink.
1912: The Girl Scouts of the USA was founded. The founding of the group, known then as Girl Guides, began with a meeting of 18 girls in Savannah, Georgia.
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1918: Fearing foreign invasion Vladimir Lenin shifts revolutionary Russia’s capital from Petrograd (St. Petersburg) to Moscow.
1930: Mahatma Gandhi began his 300-mile march to the sea in protest against the British tax law securing a monopoly for salt. Joined by thousands of protesters, Gandhi, and his followers eventually reached the Arabian Sea, where they made their salt by evaporating seawater. The march, which resulted in the arrest of Gandhi and 60,000 others, earned new international respect and support for the leader and his movement.
1938: Hitler invades Austria. The occupation of Hitler’s homeland is known as Anschluss, which is the German word for annexation.
1941: Islanders on the Hebrides hid thousands of bottles of shipwrecked whisky from government officials. The episode was celebrated in the film “Whisky Galore.”
1944: Britain banned all travel to and from Ireland and Ulster to prevent German spies operating in neutral Eire from learning of the Allied invasion preparations taking place in Britain.
1947: The Truman Doctrine is proclaimed. In his speech before Congress, U.S. President Harry S. Truman defined his foreign relations priorities, which included military and economic support to Turkey and Greece to prevent the spread of communism there.
1967: Suharto rises to power in Indonesia. His presidency, which lasted 31 years, was overshadowed by crass human rights violations and the occupation of East Timor.
1994: The Church of England ordains its first ever 33 female priests.
1997: The Nigerian Government charged Chief Anthony Enahoro, Chief Olu Falae, Prof. Wole Soyinka, General Ipoola Alani Akinrinade, and others with treason.
2003: The World Health Organization (WHO) issued a worldwide health alert, one of the first in a decade, regarding an illness it later called severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) that struck hundreds of people in China, Hong Kong, and Vietnam.
2012: Hundreds of mourners, including figures from the legal, political, and sporting world attended the funeral of the top Scottish QC, 44-year-old Paul McBride. He became Scotland’s youngest QC at the age of 35.
2013: The Federal Government of Nigeria pardoned former Bayelsa State Governor, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, the former political benefactor of President Goodluck Jonathan. He was convicted of stealing millions of dollars while serving as Bayelsa state governor (1999-2005).
2014: Former President of Nigeria, Goodluck Jonathan ordered a forensic audit by international firms into some $20 billion allegedly missing from petroleum sales.
Births on This Day, March 12
Aaron Edward Eckhart, 56 years
Aaron Edward Eckhart is an American actor. Born in Cupertino, California, Eckhart moved to the United Kingdom at an early age, when his father relocated the family. Several years later, he began his acting career by performing in school plays, before moving to Australia for his high school senior year. He left high school without graduating but earned a diploma through a professional education course, and graduated from Brigham Young University (BYU) in 1994 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) degree in film.
Pete Doherty, 45 years
Peter Doherty is an English musician, songwriter, actor, poet, writer, and artist. He is best known for being co-founder of the Libertines, which he formed with Carl Barât in 1997. His other musical projects are the indie band Babyshambles and Peter Doherty and the Puta Madres.
Jane A. Delano (March 12, 1862 – April 15, 1919)
Jane Delano was an American nurse and educator who made possible the enlistment of more than 20,000 U.S. nurses for overseas duty during World War I. She insisted on the use of mosquito netting to prevent the spread of yellow fever at a time when the mosquito was not known to be a carrier of the disease. She died at the age of 57.
Ayodele Awojobi, (12 March 1937 – 23 September 1984)
Professor Ayodele Oluwatumininu Awojobi, also known by the nicknames “Dead Easy”, “The Akoka Giant”, and “Macbeth”, was a Nigerian academic, author, inventor, social crusader, and activist. He was considered a scholarly genius by his teachers and peers alike. He became the first African to be awarded the degree of Doctor of Science (DSc) in mechanical engineering at the then Imperial College of Science and Technology, London (now Imperial College London) – a degree only exceptionally and rarely awarded to a scholar under the age of 40. He died at the age of 47 years.
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