Local history

50 years ago: A second murder in three days occurred in Blair County when George D. Karns, 18, was shot and killed in a robbery at the Shaw Oil Co. on Route 220 south of Newry.

25 years ago: The Altoona Hospital Surgical Unit was using a system called HERMES, named after a Greek god, a computer that did major operations through tiny openings without the need for a large incision.

10 years ago: The Van Zandt VA Medical Center opened its new $7.8 million Behavioral Health Building. It had a telehealth electronic system that was connected to the VA in Johnstown.

— Compiled by Tim Doyle

World history

Today is Thursday, March 12, the 71st day of 2026. There are 294 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On March 12, 1930, Mohandas Gandhi began his 24-day, 240-mile “Salt March” to the Indian village of Dandi (then called Navsari) as an act of nonviolent civil disobedience to protest the salt tax levied by colonial Britain.

On this date:

– In 1912, the Girl Scouts of the USA had its beginnings as Juliette Gordon Low of Savannah, Georgia, founded the first American troop of the Girl Guides.

– In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered the first of his “fireside chats,” a series of evening radio broadcasts to the American public.

– In 1938, Nazi Germany annexed Austria, as German troops crossed the border into the country.

– In 1947, President Harry S. Truman announced what became known as the “Truman Doctrine” to help Greece and Turkey resist communism during the Cold War.

– In 1980, a Chicago jury found John Wayne Gacy Jr. guilty of the murders of 33 men and boys. (The next day, Gacy was sentenced to death; he was executed in May 1994.)

– In 2021, the city of Minneapolis agreed to pay $27 million to settle a lawsuit filed by George Floyd’s family over the murder of the Black man by police.

— The Associated Press