TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – MARCH 8
1618 Johannes Kepler discovers the third Law of Planetary Motion
1702 Queen Anne becomes the monarch of England upon the death of William III.
1782 A peaceful settlement of Delaware Indians were massacred by militia at Gnadenhutten in Ohio
1790 George Washington delivers the first State of the Union address.
1817 The New York Stock Exchange is founded
1862 The Confederate ironclad C.S.S. Virginia (formerly U.S.S. Merrimack) is launched.
1867 British North America Act is passed in the House of Commons, serves as Canada’s constitution for more than 100 years
1908 The House of Commons, London, turns down the women’s suffrage bill
1916 US invades Cuba for 3rd time, this to end corrupt Menocal regime
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
1934 Edwin Hubble photo shows as many galaxies as Milky Way has stars
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 US Supreme Court rules in McCollum v. Board of Education that religious instruction in public schools is unconstitutional
1957 The Suez Canal which connects the Mediterranean and the Red Sea is reopened to international traffic by Egypt after Israel withdraws from occupied Egyptian territory.
1958 William Faulkner says US schools degenerated to become babysitters
1965 More than 4,000 Marines land at Da Nang in South Vietnam and become the first U.S. combat troops in Vietnam.
1971 In the Fight of the Century, Joe Frazier triumphs over Muhammad Ali
1973 Two bombs explode near Trafalgar Square in Great Britain injuring 234 people.
1979 The compact disc is presented to the public
1982 The United States accuses the Soviets of killing 3,000 Afghans with poison gas.
1985 A car bomb in Beirut, Lebanon leaves 175 injured and 45 people dead, the target of the bomb was thought to be a fundamentalist Shia Muslim cleric, Sheikh Muhammad Husain Fadlallah.
2001 The Republican controlled House voted for the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act ( EGTRRA ) which would create a tax cut of nearly $1 trillion over the next decade.
2013 The US state of South Dakota passed a law that would allow teachers to be armed in schools. The law, aimed at preventing mass shootings, would allow schools and districts to choose whether or not to allow their staff to carry firearms
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
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
