History of 12 March
- 1992 – Mauritius became a republic but remained a member of the British Commonwealth.
- 1993 – In the U.S., the Pentagon called for the closure of 31 major military bases.
- 1993 – Janet Reno was sworn in as the first female U.S. attorney general.
- 1994 – A photo by Marmaduke Wetherell of the Loch Ness monster was confirmed to be a hoax. The photo was taken of a toy submarine with a head and neck attached.
- 1994 – The Church of England ordained its first women priests.
- 1998 – Astronomers cancelled a warning that a mile-wide asteroid might collide with Earth saying that calculations had been off by 600,000 miles.
- 1999 – Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic became members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). All three countries were members of the former Warsaw Pact.
- 2002 – U.S. homeland security chief Tom Ridge unveiled a color-coded system for terror warnings.
- 2002 – Conoco and Phillips Petroleum stockholders approved a proposed merger worth $15.6 billion.
- 2003 – In Utah, Elizabeth Smart was reunited with her family nine months after she was abducted from her home. She had been taken on June 5, 2002, by a drifter that had previously worked at the Smart home.
- 2003 – The U.S. Air Force announced that it would resume reconnaissance flights off the coast of North Korea. The flights had stopped on March 2 after an encounter with four armed North Korean jets.
- 2009 – It was announced that the Sears Tower in Chicago, IL, would be renamed Willis Tower.
- 2010 – In the U.S., Apple began taking pre-orders for the iPad.
- 2011 – A reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant explodes and releases radioactivity into the atmosphere a day after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami.
- 2014 – A gas explosion in the New York City neighborhood of East Harlem kills eight and injures 70 others.
- 2019 – In the House of Commons, the revised EU Withdrawal Bill was rejected by a margin of 149 votes.
Celebrating birthday Today
- 1985 – Aleksandr Bukharov, Russian footballer
- 1985 – Ed Clancy, English track and road cyclist
- 1985 – Andriy Tovt, Ukrainian footballer
- 1986 – Martynas Andriuškevičius, Lithuanian basketball player
- 1986 – Oleh Dopilka, Ukrainian footballer
- 1986 – Danny Jones, English singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actor
- 1986 – Ben Offereins, Australian runner
- 1986 – František Rajtoral, Czech footballer (d. 2017)
- 1987 – Manuele Boaro, Italian cyclist
- 1987 – Jessica Hardy, American swimmer
- 1987 – Maxwell Holt, American volleyball player
- 1987 – Teimour Radjabov, Azerbaijani chess player
- 1987 – Chris Seitz, American soccer player
- 1987 – Vadim Shipachyov, Russian ice hockey player
- 1987 – Pablo Velázquez, Paraguayan footballer
- 1988 – Sebastian Brendel, German canoe racer
- 1988 – Kostas Mitroglou, Greek footballer
- 1988 – Cristian Chagas Tarouco, Brazilian footballer
- 1989 – Jordan Adéoti, French footballer
- 1989 – Vytautas Černiauskas, Lithuanian footballer
- 1989 – Tyler Clary, former American swimmer
- 1989 – Richard Eckersley, English footballer[
- 1989 – Chen Jianghua, Chinese basketball player
- 1989 – Siim Luts, Estonian footballer
- 1990 – Alexander Kröckel, German skeleton racer
- 1990 – Irakli Kvekveskiri, Georgian footballer
- 1990 – Dawid Kubacki, Polish ski jumper
- 1990 – Matias Myttynen, Finnish ice hockey player
- 1990 – Ilija Nestorovski, Macedonian footballer
- 1990 – Milena Raičević, Montenegrin handballer
- 1990 – Mikko Sumusalo, Finnish footballer
- 1991 – Felix Kroos, German footballer
- 1991 – Niclas Heimann, German footballer
- 1991 – Leandro Fernandez, Argentine footballer
- 1992 – Daniele Baselli, Italian footballer
- 1992 – Jordan Ferri, French footballer
- 1992 – Ciara Mageean, Irish middle-distance runner
- 1992 – Jiří Skalák, Czech footballer
- 1993 – Shehu Abdullahi, Nigerian footballer
- 1993 – Amjad Attwan, Iraqi footballer
- 1993 – Anton Shramchenko, Belarusian footballer
- 1994 – Katie Archibald, Scottish track cyclist[
- 1994 – Jerami Grant, American basketball player
- 1994 – Christina Grimmie, American singer-songwriter (d. 2016)
- 1996 – Sehrou Guirassy, French footballer
- 1996 – Karim Hafez, Egyptian footballer
- 1996 – Robert Murić, Croatian footballer
- 1997 – Dean Henderson, English footballer
- 1997 – Allan Saint-Maximin, French footballer
- 1997 – Felipe Vizeu, Brazilian footballer
- 1998 – Daniel Samohin, Israeli figure skater[
- 1998 – Elizaveta Ukolova, Czech figure skater