TODAY IN HISTORY - MARCH 12TH

1795 – William Lyon Mackenzie, Scottish-Canadian journalist and politician, 1st Mayor of Toronto (d. 1861) is born.

1806 – Jane Pierce, American wife of Franklin Pierce, 15th First Lady of the United States (d. 1863) is born.

1831 – Clement Studebaker, American businessman, co-founded Studebaker (d. 1901) is born.

1881 – Andrew Watson makes his Scotland debut as the world's first black international football player and captain.

1894 – Coca-Cola is bottled and sold for the first time in Vicksburg, Mississippi, by local soda fountain operator Joseph Biedenharn.

1914 – Julia Lennon, English mother of John Lennon (d. 1958) is born.

1925 – Sun Yat-sen, Chinese physician and politician, 1st President of the Republic of China (b. 1866) dies.

1928 – In California, the St. Francis Dam fails; the resulting floods kill over 600 people.

1930 – Mahatma Gandhi leads a 200-mile march, known as the Salt March, to the sea in defiance of British opposition, to protest the British monopoly on salt

1931 – Herb Kelleher, American businessman, co-founded Southwest Airlines is born.

1933 – Great Depression: Franklin D. Roosevelt addresses the nation for the first time as President of the United States. This is also the first of his "fireside chats".

1946 – Liza Minnelli, American actress, singer, and dancer is born.

1947 – The Truman Doctrine is proclaimed to help stem the spread of Communism.

1947 – Mitt Romney, American businessman and politician, 70th Governor of Massachusetts is born.

1953 – Ron Jeremy, American porn actor and director is born.

1993 – The Blizzard of 1993: Snow begins to fall across the eastern portion of the US with tornadoes, thunder snow storms, high winds and record low temperatures. The storm lasts for 30 hours.

1993 – Janet Reno is sworn in as the United States' first female attorney general.

1994 – The Church of England ordains its first female priests.

2004 – The President of South Korea, Roh Moo-hyun, is impeached by its National Assembly: The first such impeachment in the nation's history.

2009 – Financier Bernard Madoff pleads guilty in New York to scamming $18 billion, the largest in Wall Street history.

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.

2014 – A gas explosion in the New York City neighborhood of East Harlem kills eight and injures 70 others.