March 12: Fun Facts about Today in History

(March 12, 1947)
When US President Harry S. Truman requested Congress to allocate aid for Greece and Turkey, both of which were facing communist threats, on this day in 1947, he outlined what became known as the Truman Doctrine.

(March 12, 1999)
Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) just before the organization's 50th anniversary.

(March 12, 2003)
The World Health Organization (WHO) issued a global health alert, one of the first in a decade, in response to an ailment later dubbed severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) that had infected hundreds of people in China, Hong Kong, and Vietnam.

(March 12, 2009)
Bernie Madoff, an American hedge-fund investment manager, pleaded guilty to several offences linked to his management of the world's largest Ponzi scam and was sentenced to 150 years in jail.

Find out interesting facts about Bernie Madoff

(March 12, 2015)
Michael Graves, an American architect and designer who was a key role in the postmodernist movement, died at the age of 80.

(Died on March 12, 2016)
Lloyd Shapley, American mathematician and economist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1923).