March 12, 1894…the date when a very popular American soft drink was first bottled in Vicksburg, Mississippi by a 29 year old named Joseph A. Biedenharn.
The refreshment was invented nearly eight years prior.

Image:”Drink Coca-Cola 5¢” advertisement c. 1890s
Artist not credited, derivative work (restoration): Victorrocha public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Admiral John Lorimer Worden of the US Navy who commanded the USS Monitor against the Merrimack was born on March 12, 1818 in Mount Pleasant, New York.

He had an exquisite sword made by Tiffany & Co. that was given to him by the state of New York.
After his death the sword was stolen from Annapolis in 1931 but about 70 years later it was recovered by the FBI and returned to the US Naval Academy.

Image via Wikimedia Commons, public domain

On today’s date March 12, 1912, Juliette Gordon Low organized the first Girl Guide troop meeting in America which took place in Savannah, Georgia. The group later became known as The Girl Scouts of America.

Image: Two Girl Scouts building a fire in camp in 1912
via Wikimedia Commons, public domain

On March 12, 1993, Janet Reno became the first female U.S. Attorney General.

Image of Janet when she became Florida’s first State Attorney in 1978 via Wikimedia Commons, public domain

“Rubber band snapper Norris. Washington, D.C., March 12. The whang, whang, of a heavy rubber band in the hands of Senator George Norris, of Nebraska today interrupted the proceedings at the Senate Judiciary Supreme Court hearing, the noise reverberated in the marble caucus room. Finally Chairman Ashurst stood up and said: “However, I should like to ask the audience to quit shuffling around, to cease fiffling papers and stop snapping rubber bands.” Norris flushed, scowled and put his hands in his pockets, Norris is shown with his rubber band during the lull…”

March 12, 1937

via LOC, no known restrictions

On March 12, 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt made the first of his radio “fireside chats” from the White House. FDR had been president only eight days when he explained to an audience of over 60 million the steps that had recently been taken to stabilize a banking system shaken by the Depression.

Image from NARA via Wikimedia Commons, public domain in the US.

American inventor Joseph Francis who invented the life-car made of metal and the first to use iron in lifeboats was born on March 12, 1801 in Boston, Massachusetts.

Image via Wikimedia Commons, public domain

American one-man band musician, Jesse Fuller, was born in March 12, 1896 in
Jonesboro, Georgia.

In the 1920s he became friends with Douglas Fairbanks while operating a hot dog stand in Southern California. During WWII Jesse became a welder at a shipyard.

Photo shows Jesse, a singer of ”Happy Blues” numbers, who accompanies himself on a one-man band traption which he calls “Fotdella.”
Jesse Fuller arriving at London Jazz Club about a week before his 64th birthday in March 1960.

Image via Alamy

“Sgt. Walter S. of Memphis, Tenn., stands between hand-carved figures made by local German artisan in Mayen, Germany. At right is tall figure of Abraham Lincoln with small [illegible] at his feet, both carved out of a former fence-post. Sergeant S. is with U.S. Army Signal Corps.”

March 12, 1945

via Wikimedia Commons, public domain

MRS. PRESIDENT FRANKLIN PIERCE.

“Mrs. Jane Means Pierce…was the daughter of President Appleton, D. D., of Bowdoin College, Me., and born March 12, 1806. She married Mr. Pierce, 1834, and with him entered the White House in March, 1853. As one has well said: “It is no disparagement to others to claim for her there unsurpassed dignity and grace, delicacy and purity in all that pertains to public life. There was a Christian home, quietly and constantly maintained in the Executive Mansion while she was its mistress.” She died in Andover, Mass., in 1863, saying among her last words: “Jesus, Lover of my Soul, let me to thy bosom fly.”

America’s best mother-mind,

Most ethical and most ornate,
Most feminine and most refined,

Most studious of her moral state,
Most helpful to her husband’s heart,

Most flexile in afflictions fierce, —
Until she panted to depart —
That “Mother-Mind” was Madame Pierce!
Not that she was all mind-ethereal;

Though intellectual, she lived to los’e.
With model form of fine material,

And beaming eyes, like Edward’s, lit above.
And yet those eyes had shed full shares of tears;

From infancy she’d often been bereft,
Had buried children in their budding years,

Till loving “Bennie’s” all that they have left.
And when at last, they to the White House went,

They had yet this one treasure more to yield,
To fit Frank Pierce in full for President —

They laid “fond Bennie” in the buried field!
The people gave them the best gift they had.

But coming to it caused this keenest grief,
It took the life of that as loving lad

As e’er was born of sanctified belief
Hence Pierce’s bold Inaugural began

By speaking of this “bitter sorrow” borne
When on their way to this last gift of man —

Full many tears there fell with them to mourn.
‘Twas in such sorrow — not a soul could know —

When Mrs. Pierce made her appearance where
Some souls had lately suffered nearly so —

‘Twas thus she came and served her country there!
Through wearisome ordeals this woman went,
The Peerless Wife of a proud President!”

From: Our presidents’ mothers, wives and daughters, and some Washington sermons
by Thomas Nelson Haskell, published in 1901
https://archive.org/details/ourpresidentsmot00hask/page/n51/mode/1up
Source says no known restrictions

Image: Daguerreotype of Jane Pierce with her son Benjamin who perished in a train accident when he was only 11 years old.
via Wikimedia Commons, public domain