AP Highlight in History: On March 12, 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered the first of his radio "fireside chats," telling Americans what was being done to deal with the nation's economic crisis.
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On this date in:
1912
The Girl Guides, which later became the Girl Scouts of America, was founded.
1925
Chinese revolutionary leader Sun Yat-sen died at age 58.
1930
Indian political and spiritual leader Mohandas K. Gandhi began a 200-mile march to protest a British tax on salt.
1938
The "Anschluss" took place as German troops entered Austria. Adolf Hitler annexed his homeland the following day.
AP Photo
1939
Pope Pius XII was crowned at the Vatican.
1969
Rock musician Paul McCartney of the Beatles married Linda Eastman in London.
1980
A Chicago jury found John Wayne Gacy Jr. guilty of the murders of 33 men and boys.
Illinois state's attorney Bernard Carey
1987
The musical "Les Miserables" opened on Broadway.
1993
Janet Reno was sworn in as the nation's first female attorney general.
1994
The Church of England ordained its first female priests.
1999
The Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland joined NATO.
2002
Homeland security chief Tom Ridge unveiled a color-coded system for terror warnings.
2002
The U.N. Security Council approved a U.S.-sponsored resolution endorsing a Palestinian state for the first time.
2003
Elizabeth Smart, the 15-year-old girl who'd vanished from her bedroom nine months earlier, was found alive in a Salt Lake City suburb with two drifters.
2008
New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer resigned two days after reports had surfaced that he was a client of a prostitution ring.
AP Photo/Mary Altaffer
2009
Disgraced financier Bernard Madoff pleaded guilty in New York to pulling off perhaps the biggest swindle in Wall Street history.
