12 March 1949

A gas leak caused an explosion in East Harlem, New York City, destroying two apartment buildings and causing eight deaths.

The Turkish Armed Forces executed a "coup by memorandum", forcing the resignation of Prime Minister Süleyman Demirel (pictured).

General Suharto (pictured) seized power from President Sukarno when the Provisional People's Consultative Assembly sworn him in as acting president of Indonesia.

British diplomat Lord Ismay was appointed the first secretary general of NATO.

Cold War: U.S. president Harry S. Truman proclaimed the Truman Doctrine to help stem the spread of communism.

The Moscow Peace Treaty was signed, ending the Winter War between Finland and the Soviet Union.

Supported by the Estonian army, Konstantin Päts staged a coup d'état, beginning the Era of Silence.

Mahatma Gandhi began the Salt March (pictured), a 24-day nonviolent walk to defy the British salt tax in colonial India.

The failure of the St. Francis Dam (pictured) northwest of Los Angeles resulted in a flood that killed 400 people.

At a ceremony at Kurrajong Hill, Lady Denman, wife of the governor-general Lord Denman, announced that the future capital of Australia would be called Canberra.

Andrew Watson (pictured) captained the Scotland national football team against England, becoming the world's first black international footballer.

Ignatius of Loyola and Francis Xavier, founders of the Jesuits, were canonized by Pope Gregory XV.

Odo of Châtillon was elected as the 159th pope of the Catholic Church.

The United States suspends travel from Europe due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the House of Commons, the revised EU Withdrawal Bill was rejected by a margin of 149 votes.

US-Bangla Airlines Flight 211 crashes at Tribhuvan International Airport in Katmandu, killing 51 and injuring 20.

A gas explosion in the New York City neighborhood of East Harlem kills eight and injures 70 others.

A reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant explodes and releases radioactivity into the atmosphere a day after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami.

Financier Bernie Madoff pleads guilty to one of the largest frauds in Wall Street's history.

In Mahmoudiyah, Iraq, 14-year-old Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi is raped and murdered by five American soldiers of the 502nd Infantry Regiment, who also murder both of her parents and her sister.

President of South Korea, Roh Moo-hyun, is impeached by its National Assembly, the first such impeachment in the nation's history.

Zoran Đinđić, Prime Minister of Serbia, is assassinated in Belgrade.

The World Health Organization officially release a global warning of outbreaks of Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).

Former Warsaw Pact members the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland join NATO.