Today in US Political History March 12th

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Today in US Political History

On March 12th 1664 - England’s King Charles II granted land in the New World, known as New Netherland (later New Jersey), to his brother James, the Duke of York.  1836 - Mexican forces under General Jose de Urrea defeated Texan forces at the Battle of Refugio. 1860 - US Congress accepted the Pre-emption Bill. It provided free land in the West for colonists. 1863 - President Jefferson Davis delivered his State of the Confederacy address. 1864 - Ulysses S. Grant became commander in chief of the Union armies in the American Civil War. 1884 - Mississippi established the first U.S. state college for women. 1890 - Louisiana legalized prize fighting. 1912 - Juliette Gordon Low organized the Girl Guides, which later became the Girl Scouts of America, at the 1848 Andrew Low House in Savannah, Ga. The US Congress chartered the Girl Scouts in 1950. 1928 - In Santa Paula, Ventura County, Ca., the 3-year-old St. Francis dam collapsed just before midnight. By the next day some 450 people were killed. 1933 - President Roosevelt delivered the first of his radio "fireside chats," telling Americans what was being done to deal with the nation's economic crisis.  1945 - NY became the 1st state to prohibit discrimination by race and creed in employment. 1947 - President Truman outlined the Truman Doctrine of economic and military aid to nations threatened by Communism. The doctrine was intended to speed recovery of Mediterranean countries He specifically requested aid for Greece and Turkey to resist Communism. 1959 - The US House joined the Senate in approving the statehood of Hawaii.  1963 - US House granted former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill honorary U.S. citizenship. 1968 - President Lyndon Johnson won the New Hampshire Democratic primary, but a strong second-place showing by anti-war Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota played a role in Johnson's decision not to seek re-election. Johnson won over Eugene McCarthy 49.6 to 41.9%. Republican Richard Nixon won the New Hampshire primary over Nelson Rockefeller 77.6 to 10.8%.  1975 - Maurice Stans, former Nixon Cabinet member, pleaded guilty to three counts of violating the reporting sections of the Federal Election Campaign Act and two counts of accepting illegal campaign contributions. He was fined $5,000. 1977 - The Commission on Judicial Appointments confirmed Rose Elizabeth Bird (40) as California’s 25th chief justice and the 1st woman to sit on the state’s Supreme Court. She was sworn in on March 26. 1985 - The US and the USSR began arms control talks in Geneva. 1990 - Vice President Quayle met in Santiago, Chile, with Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, who promised to peacefully relinquish power to Violeta Chamorro, the U.S.-backed candidate who had won Nicaragua's presidential election.  1992 - The U.N. Security Council stood firm in its demand that Iraq comply totally with Gulf War cease-fire resolutions, rebuffing an appeal for leniency from Saddam Hussein's special envoy, deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz. 1993 - Janet Reno was sworn in as the first US female attorney general. 1996 - President Clinton signed the Helms-Burton Act. It shut off visas to executives and shareholders of firms doing business in Cuba on property confiscated from Americans. This stripped the3 White House of the power to end the Cuban embargo. 1996 - Rioting forced the closure of a US copper mine (82% owned by Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold) in Trimika, Indonesia. At least three people were killed and dozens injured as the army restored order. 1998 - The Senate passed the ISTEA legislation, a $214 billion, 6-year bill called the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act. 2001 - The DJIA fell 436 to 10,208. The Nasdaq fell 129 to 1923. The 61% Nasdaq drop since Mar 10, 2000, was the largest in its 30 year history. 2002 - The Bush administration announced a 5-color code system to alert Americans on the danger level posed by terrorists. Homeland security chief Tom Ridge announced that America was at yellow alert as he unveiled a color-coded system for terror warnings. 2004 - An FBI proposal was made public to require all broadband Internet providers to support easy wiretapping. 2006 - Capital One said it was buying North Fork, a NY bank, for $14.6 billion in cash and shares. Capital One was spun off from Virginia’s Signet Bank in 1994 as a pure credit-card company. 2006 - Iran said it had ruled out a proposal to move its uranium enrichment program to Russia, further complicating the international dispute over the country's nuclear program. 2007 - US lawmakers responded angrily over a weekend announcement by Texas-based Halliburton, a US oil services giant, that it is shifting its corporate headquarters to Dubai. 2007 - New Century Financial Corp. , the largest independent U.S. subprime mortgage lender, said its lenders plan to halt financing, pushing the company closer to bankruptcy amid dwindling cash and $8.4 billion in obligations that could come due immediately. 2008 - The US Treasury said the government turned in a $175.56 billion budget deficit for February, a record for any month. The federal deficit swelled to $263.3 billion in the first five months of this budget year. 2008 - NY Gov. Eliot Spitzer announced his resignation effective March 17, completing a stunning fall from power after he was nationally disgraced by links to a high-priced prostitution ring. This put Lt. Gov. David Peterson in place as the nation’s first legally blind governor. 2009 - Texas Gov. Rick Perry announced that he turned down $555 million of federal stimulus funding that would expand the state's unemployment benefits, saying the money would have required the state to keep paying for the expanded benefits after the stimulus money ran out. 2009 - Mexico extradited two former US Border Patrol agents accused of taking bribes from migrant smugglers. The US Embassy said Raul Villarreal and Fidel Villarreal allegedly fled to Mexico after they learned US authorities were investigating them in 2006. Two suspected migrant smugglers were also extradited. 2010 - The US government’s “vaccine court” ruled in 3 separate cases that the mercury-containing preservative thimerosol does not cause autism. 2011 - In Wisconsin tens of thousands of pro-labor protesters cheered its Democratic lawmakers and vowed to focus on future elections.


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