What Happened on March 8
Important Events
- 1531 Henry VIII recognised as supreme head of Church in England by the Convocation of Canterbury
- 1817 The New York Stock Exchange is founded
- 1867 British North America Act is passed in the House of Commons, serves as Canada's constitution for more than 100 years
- 1917 Russian "February Revolution" begins in earnest with protests celebrating International Woman's Day and riots in St Petersburg over food rations and conduct of the war [OS=Feb 23]
- 1948 US Supreme Court rules in McCollum v. Board of Education that religious instruction in public schools is unconstitutional
- 1973 The Provisional Irish Republican Army undertakes its first operation in Great Britain, planting four car bombs in London; 10 members of PIRA are arrested at Heathrow Airport while trying to leave the country
- 2014 Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 with 239 people loses contact and disappears, prompting the most expensive search effort in history and one of the most enduring aviation mysteries
Mar 8 in Film & TV
- 1996 "Fargo" directed and written by Joel and Ethan Coen, starring Frances McDormand, William H. Macy and Steve Buscemi released in the US
Mar 8 in Music
- 1902 1st performance of Jean Sibelius' 2nd Symphony, his most popular, by the Helsinki Philharmonic Society
Mar 8 in Sport
- 1936 The first stock car race is held in Daytona Beach, Florida.
- 1971 Joe Frazier ends Muhammad Ali's 31-fight winning streak at Madison Square Garden, NYC; retains heavyweight boxing title by unanimous points decision over 15 rounds in the "Fight of the Century"
Did You Know?
Baroness Raymonde de Laroche of Paris becomes the 1st ever licensed female pilot
On March 8, 1910
Anne Bonny
Karl Ferdinand von Graefe
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr
Claire Trevor
Juvénal Habyarimana
James Van Der BeekWould You Believe?
Aboriginal DNA study by University of Adelaide shows Aboriginal population dates back 50,000 years from one migration
On March 8, 2017
Famous Weddings
- 1418 Jacqueline, Countess of Haintaut marries her cousin John IV Duke of Brabant in The Hague
- 1820 5th US President James Monroe's daughter Maria 1st child of a President to marry in the White House
- 1848 Confederate General James Longstreet (27) weds Maria Louisa Garland in Lynchburg, Virginia
Bill the Butcher
Millard Fillmore
John Ericsson
Ferdinand von Zeppelin
William Howard Taft
Joe DiMaggioArticles, Photos and Quiz
Sinatra Snaps the Fight of the Century
Sinatra does it his way and secures a ringside seat as a photographer for the "Fight of the Century" between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier.
March 8, 1971Flight MH370 Disappears
Post-it notes written by well-wishers in Malaysia after Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 went missing
March 8, 2014Weekly Quiz for March 2 - 8
Which musical film starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer was released this week in 1965? Which country was the Spanish Flu 1st recorded in 1918?
March in History
Birdseye – the Father of Frozen Food
Indigenous Canadians showed Clarence Birdseye how they preserved fish they had caught. Intrigued, he saw the possibilities and the frozen food industry was born.
March 6, 1930Telephone Invention Dispute? That Rings a Bell
There was fierce competition among 19th Century inventors to come up with a working telephone. Alexander Graham Bell won and was granted a patent on this day.
March 7, 1876One-Man War Finally Ends
Japanese soldier Hiroo Onoda finally surrendered on this day – nearly 30 years after the Second World War had ended.
March 9, 1974Mr. Watson come here, I want you
Alexander Graham Bell spoke only briefly by phone to his assistant on this day in 1876, but it proved to be a pioneering moment in telecoms history.
March 10, 1876
