On This Day: N.Y. Gov. Spitzer resigns amid prostitution scandal

March 12 (UPI) -- On this date in history:

In 1912, Juliette Gordon Low organized the first Girl Scouts of America troop in Savannah, Ga.

In 1933, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt made the first of his Sunday evening "fireside chats" -- informal radio addresses from the White House to the American people.

In 1938, Nazi Germany invaded and occupied Austria.

In 1947, in a speech to Congress, U.S. President Harry Truman outlined what became known as the Truman Doctrine, calling for U.S. aid to countries threatened by communist revolution.

In 1963, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to grant former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill honorary U.S. citizenship.

File Photo courtesy Cecil Beaton/Imperial War Museums

In 1993, more than 250 people were killed and at least 700 injured in 13 coordinated terrorist bombings in Mumbai.

In 1994, the Church of England ordained its first female priests.

In 1999, former Soviet allies Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic joined NATO.

In 2003, Elizabeth Smart, 15, who had been kidnapped from her Salt Lake City home in June 2002, was found in the custody of a panhandler and his wife in nearby Sandy, Utah.

President George W. Bush greets Elizabeth Smart (C) and her mother, Lois Smart, in the Roosevelt Room on April 30, 2003. File Photo by Eric Draper/The White House

In 2008, New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer resigned after being caught in a high-priced prostitution scandal.

In 2009, admitted Wall Street swindler Bernard Madoff, accused of defrauding thousands of clients of billions of dollars in a massive Ponzi scheme over 20 years, pleaded guilty to 11 felonies. He was later given a 150-year prison sentence.

In 2014, an explosion caused by a gas leak knocked down two apartment buildings in New York City's East Harlem, killing eight people and injuring dozens of others.

File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI