08 March History
- 1618 - Johann Kepler discovers the third Law of Planetary Motion.
- 1702 - Queen Ann becomes the monarch of England upon the death of William III.
- 1790 - George Washington delivers the first State of the Union address.
- 1853 - The first bronze statue of Andrew Jackson is unveiled in Washington, D.C.
- 1855 - The first train crosses Niagara Falls on a suspension bridge.
- 1862 - On the second day of the Battle of Pea Ridge, Confederate forces, including some Indian troops, under General Earl Van Dorn suprise Union troops, but the Union troops win the battle.
- 1862 - The Confederate ironclad C.S.S. Virginia (formerly U.S.S. Merrimack) is launched.
- 1880 - President Rutherford B. Hays declares that the United States will have jurisdiction over any canal built across the isthmus of Panama.
- 1904 - The Bundestag in Germany lifts the ban on the Jesuit order of priests.
- 1908 - The House of Commons, London, turns down the women's suffrage bill.
- 1909 - Pope Pius X lifts the church ban on interfaith marriages in Hungary.
- 1910 - Baroness de Laroche becomes the first woman to obtain a pilot's license in France.
- 1921 - Spanish Premier Eduardo Dato is assassinated while leaving Parliament in Madrid.
- 1921 - French troops occupy Dusseldorf.
- 1941 - Martial law is proclaimed in Holland in order to extinguish any anti-Nazi protests.
- 1942 - Japanese troops capture Rangoon, Burma.
- 1943 - Japanese forces attack American troops on Hill 700 in Bougainville. The battle will last five days.
- 1945 - Phyllis Mae Daley recieves a commission in the U.S. Navy Nurse Corps. She will become the first African-American nurse to serve duty in World War II.
- 1948 - The U.S. Supreme Court rules that religious instruction in public schools is unconstitutional.
- 1954 - France and Vietnam open talks in Paris on a treaty to form the state of Indochina.
- 1961 - Max Conrad circles the globe in a record time of eight days, 18 hours and 49 minutes in Piper Aztec.
- 1965 - More than 4,000 Marines land at Da Nang in South Vietnam and become the first U.S. combat troops in Vietnam.
- 1966 - Australia announces that it will triple the number of troops in Vietnam.
- 1970 - The Nixon administration discloses the deaths of 27 Americans in Laos.
- 1973 - Two bombs explode near Trafalgar Square in Great Britain injuring 234 people.
- 1982 - The United States accuses the Soviets of killing 3,000 Afghans with poison gas.
- 1985 - Thomas Creighton dies after having three heart transplants in a 46-hour period.
08 March Birthdays
- 1783 - Hannah Hoes Van Buren, wife of Martin Van Buren
- 1799 - Simon Cameron, political boss.
- 1804 - Alvan Clark, telescope manufacturer
- 1841 - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., U.S. Supreme Court Justice
- 1859 - Kenneth Grahame, Scottish author (The Wind in the Willows).
- 1879 - Otto Hahn, co-discoverer of nuclear fission
- 1902 - Louise Beavers, film actress.
- 1923 - Cyd Charisse, dancer, actress.
- 1923 - John McPhee, writer (Oranges, A Sense of Where You Are).