TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – MARCH 8
1531 Henry VIII recognised as supreme head of Church in England by the Convocation of Canterbury
1618 Johannes Kepler discovers the third Law of Planetary Motion.
1702 Queen Anne becomes the monarch of England upon the death of William III.
1790 George Washington delivers the first State of the Union address.
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
1880 President Rutherford B. Hayes declares that the United States will have jurisdiction over any canal built across the Isthmus of Panama.
1908 The House of Commons, London, turns down the women’s suffrage bill.
1911 International Women’s Day (1st celebrated
1913 Internal Revenue Service begins to levy & collect income taxes
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
1917 US invades Cuba for 3rd time
1921 Spanish Premier Eduardo Dato is assassinated while leaving Parliament in Madrid.
1941 Martial law is proclaimed in Holland in order to extinguish any anti-Nazi protests.
1945 Phyllis Mae Daley receives 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.
1963 Syrian Arab Republic Revolution Day: Military coup in Syria
1971 In the Fight of the Century, Joe Frazier triumphs over Muhammad Ali
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
1979 The compact disc is presented to the public The CD was developed by Philips and Sony. The companies later collaborated to produce a standard format and CD players.
1982 The United States accuses the Soviets of killing 3,000 Afghans with poison gas.
1983 House Foreign Affairs Committee endorses nuclear weapons freeze with USSR
1991 Planeloads of US troops arrive home from the Persian Gulf, Iraq hands over 40 foreign journalists & 2 American soldiers it captured
1994 Defense Department announces smoking ban in workplaces
2014 Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 with 239 people loses contact and disappears, prompting the most expensive search effort in history
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
