site.btaToday's Observances: March 12

The world:

- National Day of Mauritius: Independence Day (1968)

- Day One of World Glaucoma Week (March 12-18)

- World Kidney Day (marked since 2006).

On this date in Bulgarian history:

1912: The PFC Botev Plovdiv football club is established.

1946: Parliament passes the Earned Landed Property Act, ushering in the collectivization of agriculture under communism.

1921: The Municipal Theatre in the seaside city of Varna stages its first play, "The Instinct" by Henry Kestmeker.

1998: President Peter Stoyanov receives a copy of the 18th-century "Slav-Bulgarian History" and announces his decision to return the book to the National Museum of History.

2002: Exarch Stefan of Sofia and Patriarch Kiril of Plovdiv are proclaimed posthumously as Righteous Among the Nations by the Yad Vashem Institute, honouring them for helping rescue 50,000 Bulgarian Jews from deportation to Nazi death camps during World War II.

2004: By Decree No. 56, the Council of Ministers establishes a Public Procurement Agency, according to the Public Procurement Act adopted on March 24, 2004.