Today is Friday, March 12, the 71st day of 2010. There are 294 days left in the year.

On this date

In 1664, England's King Charles II granted an area of land in present-day North America known as New Netherland to his brother James, the Duke of York.

In 1864, Ulysses S. Grant was promoted to the rank of general-in-chief of the Union armies in the Civil War by President Abraham Lincoln.

In 1913, Canberra became the capital of Australia.

In 1925, Chinese revolutionary leader Sun Yat-sen died. Known as the father of modern China, he became its first provisional president from 1911-1912.

In 1930, Indian political and spiritual leader Mohandas K. Gandhi began a 200-mile march to protest a British tax on salt.

In 1938, the Anschluss merging Austria with Nazi Germany took place as German forces crossed the border between the two countries.

In 1939, Pope Pius XII was formally crowned in ceremonies at the Vatican.

In 1945, Anne Frank, the Dutch Jewish teenager who kept a diary of her wartime experiences, died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany, aged 15.

In 1947, President Harry S. Truman established what became known as the "Truman Doctrine" to help Greece and Turkey resist Communism.

In 1979, Grenada's prime minister, Sir Eric Gairy, and his government were overthrown and replaced by Maurice Bishop of the New Jewel Movement.

In 1980, a Chicago jury found John Wayne Gacy Jr. guilty of the murders of 33 men and boys. (The next day, Gacy was sentenced to death; he was executed in May 1994.

In 1999, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic became the first former members of the Soviet bloc to join Nato.

Thought for Today

"If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader." — John Quincy Adams, American president (1767-1848).