Biographies on This Day in History: March 12
Born On
James Taylor
American musician
March 12, 1948 -
James Taylor American singer, songwriter, and guitarist who defined the singer-songwriter movement of the 1970s. Bob Dylan brought confessional poetry to folk rock, but Taylor became the epitome of the...
Born On
Liza Minnelli
American actress and singer
March 12, 1946 -
Liza Minnelli American actress and singer perhaps best known for her role as Sally Bowles in Bob Fosse’s classic musical film Cabaret (1972). Minnelli was the daughter of film director Vincente Minnelli...
Born On
Mitt Romney
United States senator
March 12, 1947 -
Mitt Romney American politician who served as governor of Massachusetts (2003–07) and who later represented Utah in the U.S. Senate (2019– ). He was the Republican Party’s presidential nominee in 2012....
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Terry Pratchett
English author
April 28, 1948 - March 12, 2015
Terry Pratchett English author, predominantly of humorous fantasy and science fiction, best known for his Discworld series. Pratchett was raised in Buckinghamshire, the son of an engineer and a secretary....
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Jack Kerouac
American writer
March 12, 1922 - October 21, 1969
Jack Kerouac American novelist, poet, and leader of the Beat movement whose most famous book, On the Road (1957), had broad cultural influence before it was recognized for its literary merits. On the Road...
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Sun Yat-sen
Chinese leader
November 12, 1866 - March 12, 1925
Sun Yat-sen leader of the Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang [Pinyin: Guomindang]), known as the father of modern China. Influential in overthrowing the Qing (Manchu) dynasty (1911/12), he served as...
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Charlie Parker
American musician
August 29, 1920 - March 12, 1955
Charlie Parker American alto saxophonist, composer, and bandleader, a lyric artist generally considered the greatest jazz saxophonist. Parker was the principal stimulus of the modern jazz idiom known as...
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Yehudi Menuhin, Lord Menuhin of Stoke d’Abernon
American violinist and conductor
April 22, 1916 - March 12, 1999
Yehudi Menuhin, Lord Menuhin of Stoke d’Abernon one of the leading violin virtuosos of the 20th century. Menuhin grew up in San Francisco, where he studied violin from age four and where his performance...
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St. Gregory the Great
pope
c.540 - March 12, 604
St. Gregory the Great ; Western feast day, September 3 [formerly March 12, still observed in the East]) was the pope from 590 to 604, a reformer and excellent administrator, “founder” of the medieval papacy,...
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Ratko Mladić
Bosnian Serb military leader
March 12, 1942 -
Ratko Mladić Bosnian Serb military leader who commanded the Bosnian Serb army during the Bosnian conflict (1992–95) and who was widely believed to have masterminded the Srebrenica massacre, the worst episode...
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Robert Ludlum
American writer
May 25, 1927 - March 12, 2001
Robert Ludlum U.S. author of spy thrillers. He worked in the theatre as an actor and a successful producer and acted for television before turning to writing. Among his best-sellers were The Scarlatti...
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George Berkeley
Irish philosopher
March 12, 1685 - January 14, 1753
George Berkeley Anglo-Irish Anglican bishop, philosopher, and scientist best known for his empiricist and idealist philosophy, which holds that reality consists only of minds and their ideas; everything...
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Betty Hutton
American actress and singer
February 26, 1921 - March 12, 2007
Betty Hutton American actress and singer who electrified audiences with her explosive personality and high-spirited performances in musicals and comedies on the stage and screen. At the age of three Hutton...
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Dave Eggers
American author
March 12, 1970 -
Dave Eggers is an American author, publisher, and literacy advocate whose breakout memoir, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (2000), was followed by other fiction and nonfiction successes. He also...
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Dick Fosbury
American athlete
March 6, 1947 - March 12, 2023
Dick Fosbury was an American high jumper who revolutionized the sport by replacing the traditional approach to jumping with an innovative backward style that became known as the “Fosbury flop.” Fosbury...
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Anish Kapoor
British sculptor
March 12, 1954 -
Anish Kapoor Indian-born British sculptor known for his use of abstract biomorphic forms and his penchant for rich colours and polished surfaces. He was also the first living artist to be given a solo...
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George Westinghouse
American inventor and industrialist
October 6, 1846 - March 12, 1914
George Westinghouse American inventor and industrialist who was chiefly responsible for the adoption of alternating current for electric power transmission in the United States. After serving in both the...
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Raúl Alfonsín
president of Argentina
March 12, 1927 - March 31, 2009
Raúl Alfonsín was the civilian president of Argentina (1983–89), elected after eight years of military rule, and leader of the moderate Radical Civic Union (Spanish: Unión Cívica Radical, or UCR). Alfonsín...
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Andrew Young
American politician
March 12, 1932 -
Andrew Young American politician, civil rights leader, and clergyman who served in the U.S. House of Representatives (1973–77) and later was mayor of Atlanta (1982–90). Young was reared in a middle-class...
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Gabriele D’Annunzio
Italian writer and political leader
March 12, 1863 - March 1, 1938
Gabriele D’Annunzio was an Italian poet, novelist, dramatist, short-story writer, journalist, military hero, and protofascist political leader. He was the leading writer of Italy in the late 19th and early...
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Vaslav Nijinsky
Russian dancer
March 12, 1890 or February 28, 1890 - April 8, 1950
Vaslav Nijinsky Russian-born ballet dancer of almost legendary fame, celebrated for his spectacular leaps and sensitive interpretations. After a brilliant school career, Nijinsky became a soloist at the...
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Edward Albee
American author
March 12, 1928 - September 16, 2016
Edward Albee was an American dramatist and theatrical producer best known for his play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962), which displays slashing insight and witty dialogue in its gruesome portrayal...
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Woody Hayes
American football coach
February 14, 1913 - March 12, 1987
Woody Hayes was an American collegiate gridiron football coach whose career coaching record was 238 games won, 72 lost, and 10 tied. He developed 58 All-American players, and his Ohio State University...
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André Le Nôtre
French landscape architect
March 12, 1613 - September 15, 1700
André Le Nôtre one of the greatest French landscape architects, his masterpiece being the gardens of Versailles. Le Nôtre grew up in an atmosphere of technical expertise. His father, Jean Le Nôtre, was...
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Giovanni Agnelli
Italian industrialist [1921-2003]
March 12, 1921 - January 24, 2003
Giovanni Agnelli was the chairman of the automobile manufacturing company Fiat SpA, Italy’s largest private business enterprise, from 1966 to 2003. Grandson of Fiat’s founder (also named Giovanni Agnelli),...
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Wilhelm Frick
German politician
March 12, 1877 - October 16, 1946
Wilhelm Frick was a longtime parliamentary leader of the German National Socialist Party and Adolf Hitler’s minister of the interior, who played a major role in drafting and carrying out the Nazis’ anti-Semitic...
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Wally Schirra
American astronaut
March 12, 1923 - May 3, 2007
Wally Schirra U.S. astronaut who flew the Mercury Sigma 7 (1962) and was command pilot of Gemini 6 (1965), which made the first rendezvous in space. He was the only astronaut to fly in all three of the...
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Gustav Kirchhoff
German physicist
March 12, 1824 - October 17, 1887
Gustav Kirchhoff German physicist who, with the chemist Robert Bunsen, firmly established the theory of spectrum analysis (a technique for chemical analysis by analyzing the light emitted by a heated material),...
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Michael Graves
American architect and designer
July 9, 1934 - March 12, 2015
Michael Graves was an American architect and designer, one of the principal figures in the postmodernist movement. Graves earned a bachelor’s degree in 1958 from the College of Design at the University...
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Maurice Evans
British-American actor
June 3, 1901 - March 12, 1989
Maurice Evans was a British-born stage actor who became one of the best-known Shakespearean actors in the United States in the 1930s and ’40s. Evans acted as an amateur from childhood and obtained his...
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Leo Esaki
Japanese physicist
March 12, 1925 -
Leo Esaki is a Japanese solid-state physicist and researcher in superconductivity who shared the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1973 with Ivar Giaever and Brian Josephson. Esaki was a 1947 graduate in physics...
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Leonard Chess
American record producer
March 12, 1917 - October 16, 1969
Leonard Chess Polish-born U.S. record producer. He immigrated to the U.S in 1928 with his mother, sister, and brother—and future partner—Fiszel (later Philip); they joined his father, who had preceded...
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Asa Griggs Candler
American manufacturer
December 30, 1851 - March 12, 1929
Asa Griggs Candler was a U.S. soft-drink manufacturer who developed Coca-Cola. Born on a farm, Candler studied medicine, became a pharmacist, and developed a prosperous wholesale drug business. In 1887...
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Romare Bearden
American painter
September 2, 1911 - March 12, 1988
Romare Bearden was an American painter, whose collages of photographs and painted paper on canvas depict aspects of American black culture in a style derived from Cubism. He is considered one of the most...
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Charles-Marie Widor
French organist and composer
February 21, 1844 - March 12, 1937
Charles-Marie Widor French organist, composer, and teacher. The son and grandson of organ builders, Widor began his studies under his father and at the age of 11 became organist at the secondary school...
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Yashwantrao Balwantrao Chavan
Indian politician
March 12, 1913 - November 25, 1984
Yashwantrao Balwantrao Chavan Indian politician and government official who was prominent in the independence movement against British rule and became a senior leader of the Indian National Congress (Congress...
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Sir John Abbott
prime minister of Canada
March 12, 1821 - October 30, 1893
Sir John Abbott was a lawyer, statesman, and prime minister of Canada from 1891 to 1892. Educated at McGill University, Montreal, Abbott became a lawyer in 1847 and was made queen’s counsel in 1862. He...
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William Lyon Mackenzie
Canadian journalist and revolutionary
March 12, 1795 - August 28, 1861
William Lyon Mackenzie Scottish-born journalist and political agitator who led an unsuccessful revolt against the Canadian government in 1837. Mackenzie emigrated from Scotland to Canada in 1820 and became...
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Sir William Bragg
British physicist
July 2, 1862 - March 12, 1942
Sir William Bragg was a pioneer British scientist in solid-state physics who was a joint winner (with his son Sir Lawrence Bragg) of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1915 for his research on the determination...
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Simon Newcomb
American astronomer and mathematician
March 12, 1835 - July 11, 1909
Simon Newcomb Canadian-born American astronomer and mathematician who prepared ephemerides—tables of computed places of celestial bodies over a period of time—and tables of astronomical constants. Newcomb...
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Ferenc Szálasi
Hungarian politician
January 6, 1897 - March 12, 1946
Ferenc Szálasi soldier and politician who was the fascist leader of Hungary during the last days of World War II. Following family traditions, Szálasi entered the army and became a captain on the general...
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William Buckland
British geologist
March 12, 1784 - August 15, 1856
William Buckland was a pioneer geologist and minister, known for presenting the first scientific description of a dinosaur and for his effort to reconcile geological discoveries with the Bible and antievolutionary...
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Heinrich Mann
German writer
March 27, 1871 - March 12, 1950
Heinrich Mann German novelist and essayist, a socially committed writer whose best-known works are attacks on the authoritarian social structure of German society under Emperor William II. Mann, the elder...
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Eugene Ormandy
American conductor
November 18, 1899 - March 12, 1985
Eugene Ormandy Hungarian-born American conductor who was identified with the Late Romantic and early 20th-century repertoire. Ormandy graduated from the Budapest Royal Academy, where he studied violin...
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Saint Innocent I
pope
- March 12, 417
Saint Innocent I ; feast day July 28) pope from 401 to 417, who condemned Pelagianism, a heresy concerning the role of grace and free will. Probably a Roman deacon, Innocent was possibly the son of St....
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Mihajlo Pupin
Serbian American physicist
October 9, 1854? - March 12, 1935
Mihajlo Pupin Serbian American physicist who devised a means of greatly extending the range of long-distance telephone communication by placing loading coils (of wire) at predetermined intervals along...
Born On
Alberto Burri
Italian painter
March 12, 1915 - February 13, 1995
Alberto Burri was an Italian artist known for his adventurous use of new materials. Burri was trained as a physician and began to paint only in 1944, while in a prisoner-of-war camp in Texas. About 1946...
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Charles III
count of Valois
March 12, 1270 - December 16, 1325
Charles III was the count of Valois from 1285 and of Anjou and Maine from 1290. He was the son of a king, brother of a king, uncle of three kings, and a father of a king. Though he himself never gained...
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Adolph Simon Ochs
American newspaper publisher
March 12, 1858 - April 8, 1935
Adolph Simon Ochs American newspaper publisher under whose ownership (from 1896) The New York Times became one of the world’s outstanding newspapers. Despising “yellow [sensational] journalism,” he emphasized...
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Bolesław Bierut
Polish statesman
April 18, 1892 - March 12, 1956
Bolesław Bierut statesman and Communist Party official who came to be called the Stalin of Poland after playing a major role in his party’s takeover of the Polish government after World War II. Influenced...