Today in History: March 12, Gandhi begins ‘Salt March’

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Today is Thursday, March 12, the 71st day of 2026. There are 294 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On March 12, 1930, Mohandas Gandhi began his 24-day, 240-mile “Salt March” to the Indian village of Dandi (then called Navsari) as an act of nonviolent civil disobedience to protest the salt tax levied by colonial Britain.

Also on this date:

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 1928, the St. Francis Dam north of Los Angeles, California failed, sending over 12 billion gallons of water into San Francisquito Canyon and killing over 400 people.

In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered the first of his “fireside chats,” a series of evening radio broadcasts to the American public.

In 1938, Nazi Germany annexed Austria, as German troops crossed the border into the country.

In 1947, President Harry S. Truman announced what became known as the “Truman Doctrine” to help Greece and Turkey resist communism during the Cold War.

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 2003, Elizabeth Smart, the 15-year-old girl who vanished from her Utah 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 for kidnapping Smart; Barzee was released from prison in 2018.)

In 2009, disgraced financier Bernard Madoff pleaded guilty in New York to the largest Ponzi scheme in history, having defrauded his clients of nearly $65 billion; he would later be sentenced to 150 years behind bars. (Madoff died in prison in April 2021.)

In 2021, the city of Minneapolis agreed to pay $27 million to settle a lawsuit filed by George Floyd’s family over the murder of the Black man by police.

Today’s Birthdays: Politician and civil rights activist Andrew Young is 94. Actor Barbara Feldon ("Get Smart") is 93. Actor-singer Liza Minnelli is 80. Politician Mitt Romney is 79. Singer-songwriter James Taylor is 78. Actor Lesley Manville is 70. Singer Marlon Jackson (The Jackson Five) is 69. Actor Courtney B. Vance is 66. Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois is 58. Actor Aaron Eckhart is 58. Actor Jaimie Alexander is 42. Actor Malina Weissman is 23.