Today is Monday, March 12, the 72nd day of 2011. There are 294 days left in the year.

1642 ― Abel Tasman is first European in New Zealand

1848 ― Second Republic established in France

1912 ― Captain Albert Berry performs first parachute jump from an airplane

1930 ― Mohandas Gandhi begins 200-mile (321-km) march protesting British salt tax

1945 ― New York is first to prohibit discrimination by race and creed in employment

1945 ― The British Empire celebrates its first British Empire Day

1951 ― Communist troops driven out of Seoul

1963 ― Beatles perform as a trio, John Lennon is ill with a cold

1977 ― Egypt's Anwar Sadat pledges to regain Arab territory from Israel

1984 ― National Union of Mine Workers in England begin a 51-week strike