Today is Saturday, March 12, the 72nd day of 2016. There are 294 days left in the year. Daylight Saving Time begins Sunday at 2 a.m. locally. Clocks go forward one hour.

On this date:

In 1664, England’s King Charles II granted an area of land on the East Coast of present-day North America known as New Netherland to his brother James, the Duke of York.

In 1857, the original version of Giuseppe Verdi’s opera “Simon Boccanegra” was poorly received at its premiere in Venice, Italy. (Verdi offered a revised version in 1881.)

In 1925, Chinese revolutionary leader Sun Yat-sen died.

In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered the first of his 30 radio addresses that came to be known as “fireside chats,” telling Americans what was being done to deal with the nation’s economic crisis.