By: HISTORY.com Editors

2020

Broadway goes dark due to COVID-19 pandemic

Published: February 23, 2021Last Updated: May 28, 2025

On March 12, 2020, after New York state and city leaders placed COVID-19-related restrictions on gatherings of more than 500 people, the Broadway theater district announces it will go dark for an unprecedented 32 days. The longest shutdown for the artistic mainstay in its history, the closure would end up being extended to the end of May 2021, adding up to billions in tourism losses.

High risk factors for theaters, according to The New York Times, included a typically older audience, often rife with tourists, along with cramped seating and an inability to practice social distancing in those spaces.

“There’s no such thing as social distancing for actors—our jobs sometimes require that we go to work and kiss our colleagues eight times a week,” actress Kate Shindle, president of the Actors' Equity Association labor union told the newspaper. “Although nobody wanted to close the theaters, at the same time people were starting to be scared to work, and with good reason.”

Thirty-one productions were showing on Broadway when the ban took effect, and a handful, including Disney's musical version of Frozen and Tina Fey's Mean Girls, were closed permanently due to the closure.

Previously, the longest the district was dark was 25 days in 1975 during a musicians' strike. Following the September 11 terrorist attacks, Broadway was shuttered for two business days.

Timeline

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Discover more of the major events, famous births, notable deaths and everything else history-making that happened on March 12th

1776

Public Notice urges recognition of ‘humane ladies’

On March 12, 1776, in Baltimore, Maryland, a public notice appears in local papers recognizing the sacrifice of women to the cause of the revolution. The notice urged others to recognize women’s contributions and announced, “The necessity of taking all imaginable care of those who may happen to be wounded in the country’s cause, urges […]

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1864

Red River Campaign begins

On March 12, 1864, one of the biggest military fiascos of the Civil War begins as a combined Union force of infantry and riverboats starts moving up the Red River in Louisiana. The month-long campaign was poorly managed and achieved none of the objectives set forth by Union commanders. The campaign had several strategic goals. […]

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1894

Coca-Cola sold in glass bottles for the first time

On March 12, 1894, Coca-Cola is first sold in bottles. Though today there is almost nothing as ubiquitous as a bottle of Coca-Cola, this was not always the case. For the first several years of its existence, Coke was only available as a fountain drink, and its producer saw no reason for that to change. […]

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1930

Mohandas Gandhi begins 241-mile civil disobedience march

On March 12, 1930, Indian independence leader Mohandas Gandhi begins a defiant march to the sea in protest of the British monopoly on salt, his boldest act of civil disobedience yet against British rule in India. Britain’s Salt Acts prohibited Indians from collecting or selling salt, a staple in the Indian diet. Citizens were forced […]

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1933

FDR broadcasts first ‘fireside chat’ during the Great Depression

On March 12, 1933, eight days after his inauguration, President Franklin D. Roosevelt gives his first national radio address—or “fireside chat”—broadcast directly from the White House. Roosevelt began that first address simply: “I want to talk for a few...

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1938

Germany annexes Austria

On March 12, 1938, German troops march into Austria to annex the German-speaking nation for the Third Reich. In early 1938, Austrian Nazis conspired for the second time in four years to seize the Austrian government by force and unite their nation with Nazi Germany. Austrian Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg, learning of the conspiracy, met […]

1:16m read

1945

General Fromm executed for plot against Hitler

On this day, the commander of the German Home Army, Gen. Friedrich Fromm, is shot by a firing squad for his part in the July plot to assassinate the Fuhrer. The fact that Fromm’s participation was half-hearted did not save him. By 1944, many high-ranking German officials had made up their minds that Hitler must […]

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1947

President Truman announces the Truman Doctrine

In a dramatic speech to a joint session of Congress, President Harry S. Truman asks for U.S. assistance for Greece and Turkey to forestall communist domination of the two nations. Historians have often cited Truman’s address, which came to be known as the Truman Doctrine, as the official declaration of the Cold War. In February […]

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1968

Oil discovered in Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay

On March 12, 1968, oil is discovered in Prudhoe Bay—a remote region along Alaska’s northernmost coast—profoundly transforming the state. When Alaska entered the Union in 1959, it was a poor, isolated territory, reliant on federal subsidies. Alaska’s Statehood Act specified that the state could claim 100 million acres to develop as it chose, independent of […]

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1969

London police conduct drug raid at home of George Harrison

The London drug squad appears at house of George Harrison and Pattie Boyd with a warrant and drug-sniffing canines. Boyd immediately used the direct hotline to Beatles headquarters and George returned to find his home turned upside down. He is reported to have told the officers “You needn’t have turned the whole bloody place upside […]

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1988

Hail causes stampede at soccer match in Nepal

On March 12, 1988, a sudden hail storm prompts fans at a soccer match in Kathmandu, Nepal, to flee. The resulting stampede killed at least 70 people and injured hundreds more. Approximately 30,000 people were watching the game between the Nepalese home team, Janakpur, and Muktijoddha, of Bangladesh, at the National Stadium. A storm approached quickly […]

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2003

Police recover Elizabeth Smart and arrest her abductors

Elizabeth Smart is found in Utah, 9 months after being abducted.

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2003

The Dixie Chicks backlash begins

In response to the critical comments made about him by singer Natalie Maines in the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, President George W. Bush offered this response: “The Dixie Chicks are free to speak their mind. They can say what they want to say.” Of the backlash the Chicks (then known as the […]

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Citation Information

Article Title: Broadway goes dark due to COVID-19 pandemic
Author: HISTORY.com Editors
Website Name: History
URL: https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/march-12/broadway-goes-dark-covid19-pandemic

Date Accessed: October 29, 2026
Publisher: A&E Television Networks
Last Updated: May 28, 2025
Original Published Date: February 23, 2021

Broadway goes dark due to COVID-19 pandemic

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