Celebrations Today – March 12

Holidays and observances

• Christian feast day:
  • Fina
  • Luigi Orione
  • Maximilian the martyr
  • Pope Gregory I (Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Catholic Church, and Anglican Communion)
  • Theophanes the Confessor
  • Zhang Dapeng (one of Martyr Saints of China)
  • March 12 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
• Arbor Day (China)
• Arbor Day (Taiwan)
• Tree Day (Republic of Macedonia)
• Aztec New Year
• Girl Scout Birthday (United States)
• National Day (Mauritius)
• World Day Against Cyber Censorship (requested by Reporters Without Borders and Amnesty International in 2009)
• Youth Day (Zambia)

Celebrations Today – USA: March 12

National Girl Scout Day
National Plant a Flower Day
Daylight Saving Time – Second Sunday in March
National Debunking Day
National Dream Day
National Promposal Day
World Day of Muslim Culture, Peace, Dialogue and Film
World Plumbing Day

Today in US History: March 12

Library Benefactor Andrew Carnegie

The man who enters a library is in the best society this world affords; the good and the great welcome him, surround him, and humbly ask to be allowed to become his servants…Andrew Carnegie, 1895

Carnegie Library, Montgomery, Alabama, copyright 1906.
Touring Turn-of-the-Century America: Photographs from the Detroit Publishing Company, 1880-1920

On March 12, 1901, Andrew Carnegie, one of the world’s foremost industrialists, offered the city of New York $5.2 million for the construction of sixty-five branch libraries. The Scottish immigrant’s fortune eventually would establish many more libraries and charitable foundations.

Born in 1835, Carnegie immigrated to the United States in 1848 with his parents. Working in American industry and making shrewd investments, he amassed a fortune before the age of thirty. In the 1870s, he noted the potential of the steel industry and founded J. Edgar Thomson Steel Works near Pittsburgh, which eventually evolved into the Carnegie Steel Company. The company boomed, and in 1901, Carnegie sold it to financier J. P. Morgan for $480 million, received $250 million as his personal share, and retired.

Carnegie devoted the rest of his life to writing and philanthropic activities. Believing that any accumulated wealth should be distributed in the form of public endowments, Carnegie founded 2,509 libraries in the English-speaking world, including ones in Michigan, New York, Ohio, Vermont, and Washington, D.C. He also established several trusts and helped found Carnegie Mellon University. At the time of his death in 1919, Carnegie had given away over $350 million.

Ohio Works of the Carnegie Steel Co., Youngstown, Ohio, circa 1910.
Taking the Long View: Panoramic Photographs, 1851-1991

• To find more images related to this American giant, search across American Memory on Carnegie. Search results will include photographs of a 1908 Carnegie Steel Company corporate picnic.
• For a virtual tour of steel mills from Pennsylvania to Utah, search on steel in America from the Great Depression to World War II: Photographs from the FSA-OWI, 1935-1945.
• To learn about the experiences of other American immigrants, read Immigration…The Changing Face of America, a Feature Presentation of the Teachers Page.

Today in History – March 12-External Links

Today’s Weather in History
Today in Earthquake History
This Day in Naval History
Today’s Document from the National Archives
Today’s Events, Births & Deaths –Wikipedia
Today in History by AP
On this Day -1950 to 2005 – Today’s Story–BBC
On This Day: The New York Times
This Day in History –History.com
Today in Canadian History – Canada Channel
History of Britain that took place On This Day
Russia in History –Russiapedia