On This Day in History

March 12

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​Historical Events​

​538 Witiges, King of the Ostrogoths, ends his siege of Rome and retreats to Ravenna, leaving the city in the hands of the victorious Byzantine general Belisarius

​1455 First record of Johannes Gutenberg's Bible, a letter dated this day by Enea Silvio Piccolomini refers to the Bible printed a year earlier

​1918 Fearing foreign invasion, Vladimir Lenin shifts revolutionary Russia's capital from Petrograd (St. Petersburg) to Moscow

Mahatma Gandhi during the Salt March to abolish the British salt laws

​1930 Mahatma Gandhi begins his famous 200-mile (320 km) protest march against the widely hated British salt tax​

​1994 The Church of England ordains its first 32 female priests at the Bristol Cathedral in Bristol, England

More Historical Events

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​Famous Birthdays​

​Richard Steele​ ​1672 - 1729

​Jack Kerouac​ ​1922 - 1969

​Liza Minnelli​ ​79th Birthday

​Mitt Romney​ ​78th Birthday

Also Tammy Duckworth (57) and Darryl Strawberry (63)

More Famous Birthdays

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​Famous Deaths​

​Sun Yat-sen​ ​1866 - 1925

​David Beatty​ ​1871 - 1936

More Famous Deaths

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​Wave of Doubt over Britannia​

The composer who put "Rule, Britannia!" to music was born on this day, but the original words are not quite what they bellow out at the Last Night of the Proms.

Rule, Britannia!