Elizabeth Smart found alive – Chicago Tribune

Today is Tuesday, March 12, the 72nd day of 2024. There are 294 days left in the year.

Highlights of this day in history:

On March 12, 2003, 15-year-old Elizabeth Smart, who had disappeared from her bedroom nine months earlier, was found alive in a Salt Lake City suburb along with two drifters named Brian David Mitchell and Wanda Barzee. (Mitchell is serving a life sentence; Barzee was released from prison in September 2018.)

On this date:

In 1864, Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant assumed command as General-in-Chief of the Union armies in the Civil War.

In 1912, the Girl Scouts of the USA began when Juliette Gordon Low of Savannah, Georgia, founded the first American troop of Girl Guides.

In 1925, Chinese revolutionary leader Sun Yat-sen died in Beijing.

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

Legendary jazz saxophonist Charlie “Bird” Parker died in New York in 1955 at the age of 34.

In a referendum held in 1971, Hafez Assad was confirmed as the president of Syria.

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

In 1987, the musical play “Les Miserables” opened on Broadway.

In 1994 the Church of England appointed its first female priests.

In 2009, disgraced financier Bernard Madoff pleaded guilty in New York to perpetrating perhaps the largest fraud in Wall Street history; He would be sentenced to 150 years behind bars. (Madoff died in prison in April 2021.)

In 2011, fifteen passengers were killed when a tour bus returning from a casino in Connecticut scraped a railing on the outskirts of New York City, tipped its side, and crashed into a pole that cut it nearly end-to-end.

In 2012, Greece carried out the largest debt reduction in history by replacing most of its private bonds with new ones worth less than half their original value.

In 2017, a bus crashed into people attending a street festival in Haiti in the early hours of the morning, killing at least 34 people.

In 2013, black smoke coming from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel covered the cardinals, Louis XVI. It signaled that they had failed in the first vote held at the papal conclave to elect the new leader of the Catholic Church to replace Benedict.

In 2018, Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee said they had drafted a report that concluded there was no collusion or coordination between Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and Russia.

In 2021, the city of Minneapolis agreed to pay $27 million to settle a civil lawsuit filed by George Floyd’s family over the black man’s death in police custody.

As the coronavirus crisis deepened in the United States in 2020, the stock market suffered its biggest drop since the Black Monday crash of 1987, the NCAA canceled basketball tournaments after previously planning to play in empty arenas, and the NHL joined the NBA in suspending play. .

Russian forces, which hit the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol in 2022, bombed a mosque where more than 80 people, including children, were sheltered.

In 2023, “Everything, Everywhere, All at the Same Time” won seven Oscars, including best picture and three of four acting awards.

Today’s Birthdays: Politician, diplomat and civil rights activist Andrew Young is 92 years old. Actor Barbara Feldon is 91 years old. Actor-singer Liza Minnelli is 78 years old. Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, is 77 years old. Singer-songwriter James Taylor is 76 years old. Former Senator Kent Conrad, DD, 76 years old. Rock singer-musician Bill Payne (Little Feat) is 75 years old. Actor Jon Provost (TV: “Lassie”) is 74 years old. Author Carl Hiaasen is 71 years old. Rock musician Steve Harris (Iron Maiden) 68, Actor Lesley Manville 68, Actor Jerry Levine 67, Singer Marlon Jackson (The Jackson Five) 67, Actor Jason Beghe 64, Actor Courtney B. Vance 64, Actor Titus Welliver 62. Former MLB All -Star Darryl Strawberry 62. Actor Julia Campbell 61. Actor Jake Weber 61. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill. 56. Actor Aaron Eckhart is 56. CNN correspondent Jake Tapper is 55. Rock musician Graham Coxon is 55, Actor Rhys Coiro is 45, Country singer Holly Williams is 43, Actor Samm (cq) Levine is 41, Actor Jaimie Alexander is 40, Actor Tyler Patrick Jones is 30.