1576 A March 8, 1576 letter written by Diego García de Palacio, a member of the Royal Audience of Guatemala, to King Philip II of Spain contained the first European mention of the Mayan ruins of Copán in modern Honduras.
1618 Johannes Kepler's three laws of planetary motion provided evidence that the planets, including the Earth, orbit the Sun in an oval shape and that a planet's speed varies at different stages of its orbit. The German astronomer's first two laws were published in 1609. His third law, which he discovered on March 8, 1618, was outlined in Harmonice Mundi (Harmony of the Worlds) ten years later.
1655 On March 8, 1655, an African John Casor became the first person to be legally declared a slave for life in England's North American colonies. His master Anthony Johnson, a tobacco planter, consequently became the first legally recognized slave holder in American history, setting the precedent for lifelong slavery. Casor did indeed remain in Johnson’s service until his death.
1702 King William III of England had a horse called Sorrell who was blind in one eye. When Sorrell stumbled over a mole hill in Hampton Court Park, the English king fell off on breaking his collarbone. William died of complications (pneumonia) from his injuries on March 8, 1702. Because his horse had stumbled into a mole's burrow many Jacobites toasted "the little gentleman in the black velvet waistcoat."
1702 Anne the fourth child and second daughter of James, Duke of York (afterwards James II and VII) succeeded William III to become the Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland on March 8, 1702. She reigned until her death on August 1, 1714.
1790 During the French Revolution, the French government, with its new motto of Liberté, égalité, fraternité (‘Liberty, Fraternity, Equality’), voted on March 8, 1790 to keep slavery in its colonies. After the Revolution, the motto was sometimes written as "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death". The "death" part was later dropped for being too strongly associated with the Reign of Terror. Today 'Liberty, Fraternity, Equality’ is the national motto of France and the Republic of Haiti.
1839 Josephine Cochrane, the inventor of the first dishwasher, was born on March 8, 1839.
Exasperated with her staff’s ability to chip her fine china, Mrs. Josephine Cochrane of Shelbyville, Illinois invented the first dishwasher with her mechanic employee, George Butters in 1886.
Josephine Cochrane's dishwasher was manually operated and used a copper boiler outfitted with wire racks.
1862 The Battle of Hampton Roads was the most noted naval battle of the American Civil War. It was fought over two days, March 8–9, 1862, in Hampton Roads, a roadstead in Virginia. It was the first meeting in combat of ironclad warships, the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia. The result of the encounter was not a victory for either side. As the combat between ironclads was the primary significance of the battle, the general verdict is that the overall result was a draw.
1869 French Romantic composer Hector Berlioz is best known for his compositions Symphonie fantastique and Grande messe des morts (Requiem). He also made significant contributions to the modern orchestra with his Treatise on Instrumentation. Berlioz's mental and physical health declined rapidly in the late 1860s and Berlioz died a rather disconsolate figure on March 8, 1869.
1887 American minister and activist Henry Ward Beecher was one of the great preachers of the age, amongst the many thought-provoking quotes in his Life Thoughts was, “There are many people who think that Sunday is a sponge to wipe out all the sins of the week.” Beecher suffered a stroke and died in his sleep two days later on March 8, 1887. Brooklyn, still an independent city, declared a day of mourning. He is interred at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.
1889 Swedish-American inventor, John Ericsson died on March 8, 1889. He came to New York in 1839 with a commission to build a ship for the U.S. Navy. His propulsion system was used by commercial steamers and by the USS Princeton (1844), the world's first screw-propelled war vessel.
1909 British aeronautical engineer Beatrice (Tilly) Shilling OBE PhD MSc CEng was born on March 8, 1909. Shilling received the thanks of thousands of RAF pilots during World War II when she invented a diaphragm which allowed fuel to get to an aircraft’s Rolls-Royce Merlin engine regardless of the plane’s violent movements, ensuring the engine wouldn’t stall.
1910 Englishman John Moore-Brabazon learned to fly in 1908 in France in a Voisin biplane. On March 8, 1910, Moore-Brabazon became the first person to qualify as a pilot in the United Kingdom and was awarded Royal Aero Club Aviator's Certificate number 1; his car also bore the number-plate FLY 1. Only four months later, his friend Charles Rolls was killed in a flying accident and Moore-Brabazon's wife persuaded him to give up flying.
1910 French aviatrix Baroness Raymonde de Laroche was the first woman to receive a pilot's license. She received ticket No. 36 on March 8, 1910. soon after De Laroche participated in aviation meetings at Heliopolis in Egypt, Saint Petersburg, Budapest and Rouen. During the show in St. Petersburg, she was personally congratulated by Tsar Nicholas II.
1930 William Howard Taft, the 27th president of the United States, died on March 8, 1930 due to heart failure. William Taft was the American president between 1909-1913. In 1921 Taft was appointed Chief Justice, and served until a month before his death nine years later. Taft is the only man to have filled both offices of President and Chief Justice. Three days after his death, Taft became the first president to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
1969 "Happy Birthday" was the first song to be performed in outer space. On March 8, 1969, the astronauts on Apollo IX sang it to celebrate the birthday of Christopher Kraft, who at that time was director of NASA space operations.
1971 Muhammad Ali lost a 15-round decision to the heavyweight champion Joe Frazier in New York City on March 8, 1971. Ali won a unanimous decision over Frazier in the return fight, a non-title fight in New York City on January 28, 1974. The animosity between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier was so great that they once wrestled each other to the floor in a TV studio and were fined $5,000 each for "deplorable conduct demeaning to boxing."
1971 The Citizens’ Commission to Investigate the FBI was a small group that broke into an FBI field office on March 8, 1971. They stole documents that revealed the FBI’s spying on and infiltration of left-wing organizations across the US.
1978 The writer Douglas Adams first came up with the idea for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy in 1971. He was lying drunk in a field near Innsbruck, Austria with a copy of The Hitchhiker's Guide to Europe. Looking up at the stars, Adams thought it would be a good idea for someone to write a hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy as well. BBC Radio 4 first began transmitting The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy as a science fiction radio series on March 8, 1978.
1979 The Compact Disc is an evolution of LaserDisc technology. Prototypes were developed by Philips and Sony independently from the mid-to-late 1970s. Philips publicly demonstrated a prototype of an optical digital audio disc for the first time on March 8, 1979 at a press conference called "Philips Introduce Compact Disc" in Eindhoven, Netherlands.
1983 During a speech to the National Association of Evangelicals in Orlando, Florida on March 8, 1983, in the midst of the Cold War, U.S. President Ronald Reagan described the Soviet Union as an "evil empire".
1985 On March 8, 1985, every Chinese child was ordered to give one Feng, roughly two pence or three cents at the time, to save the giant panda from extinction. At last count in 2014, there were about 1,864 individual pandas alive in the wild, according to China’s fourth decadal survey. There used to be only 1200, so the number has grown significantly.
1999 Italian-American baseball center fielder Joe DiMaggio was a heavy smoker for much of his adult life. He was admitted to Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood, Florida, on October 12, 1998, for lung cancer surgery, and remained there for three months. He returned to his Florida home on January 19, 1999, where he died on March 8th.
 |
| The West Court of Copán |
1618 Johannes Kepler's three laws of planetary motion provided evidence that the planets, including the Earth, orbit the Sun in an oval shape and that a planet's speed varies at different stages of its orbit. The German astronomer's first two laws were published in 1609. His third law, which he discovered on March 8, 1618, was outlined in Harmonice Mundi (Harmony of the Worlds) ten years later.
1655 On March 8, 1655, an African John Casor became the first person to be legally declared a slave for life in England's North American colonies. His master Anthony Johnson, a tobacco planter, consequently became the first legally recognized slave holder in American history, setting the precedent for lifelong slavery. Casor did indeed remain in Johnson’s service until his death.
1702 King William III of England had a horse called Sorrell who was blind in one eye. When Sorrell stumbled over a mole hill in Hampton Court Park, the English king fell off on breaking his collarbone. William died of complications (pneumonia) from his injuries on March 8, 1702. Because his horse had stumbled into a mole's burrow many Jacobites toasted "the little gentleman in the black velvet waistcoat."
 |
| Statue of an idealized William III by John Michael Rysbrack erected in Bristol in 1736 By Ad Meske |
1702 Anne the fourth child and second daughter of James, Duke of York (afterwards James II and VII) succeeded William III to become the Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland on March 8, 1702. She reigned until her death on August 1, 1714.
1790 During the French Revolution, the French government, with its new motto of Liberté, égalité, fraternité (‘Liberty, Fraternity, Equality’), voted on March 8, 1790 to keep slavery in its colonies. After the Revolution, the motto was sometimes written as "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death". The "death" part was later dropped for being too strongly associated with the Reign of Terror. Today 'Liberty, Fraternity, Equality’ is the national motto of France and the Republic of Haiti.
 |
| A propaganda poster from 1793 representing the French First Republic |
1839 Josephine Cochrane, the inventor of the first dishwasher, was born on March 8, 1839.
Exasperated with her staff’s ability to chip her fine china, Mrs. Josephine Cochrane of Shelbyville, Illinois invented the first dishwasher with her mechanic employee, George Butters in 1886.
Josephine Cochrane's dishwasher was manually operated and used a copper boiler outfitted with wire racks.
1862 The Battle of Hampton Roads was the most noted naval battle of the American Civil War. It was fought over two days, March 8–9, 1862, in Hampton Roads, a roadstead in Virginia. It was the first meeting in combat of ironclad warships, the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia. The result of the encounter was not a victory for either side. As the combat between ironclads was the primary significance of the battle, the general verdict is that the overall result was a draw.
 |
| A chromolithograph of the Battle of Hampton Roads |
1869 French Romantic composer Hector Berlioz is best known for his compositions Symphonie fantastique and Grande messe des morts (Requiem). He also made significant contributions to the modern orchestra with his Treatise on Instrumentation. Berlioz's mental and physical health declined rapidly in the late 1860s and Berlioz died a rather disconsolate figure on March 8, 1869.
1887 American minister and activist Henry Ward Beecher was one of the great preachers of the age, amongst the many thought-provoking quotes in his Life Thoughts was, “There are many people who think that Sunday is a sponge to wipe out all the sins of the week.” Beecher suffered a stroke and died in his sleep two days later on March 8, 1887. Brooklyn, still an independent city, declared a day of mourning. He is interred at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.
 |
| Henry Ward Beecher |
1889 Swedish-American inventor, John Ericsson died on March 8, 1889. He came to New York in 1839 with a commission to build a ship for the U.S. Navy. His propulsion system was used by commercial steamers and by the USS Princeton (1844), the world's first screw-propelled war vessel.
1909 British aeronautical engineer Beatrice (Tilly) Shilling OBE PhD MSc CEng was born on March 8, 1909. Shilling received the thanks of thousands of RAF pilots during World War II when she invented a diaphragm which allowed fuel to get to an aircraft’s Rolls-Royce Merlin engine regardless of the plane’s violent movements, ensuring the engine wouldn’t stall.
1910 Englishman John Moore-Brabazon learned to fly in 1908 in France in a Voisin biplane. On March 8, 1910, Moore-Brabazon became the first person to qualify as a pilot in the United Kingdom and was awarded Royal Aero Club Aviator's Certificate number 1; his car also bore the number-plate FLY 1. Only four months later, his friend Charles Rolls was killed in a flying accident and Moore-Brabazon's wife persuaded him to give up flying.
1910 French aviatrix Baroness Raymonde de Laroche was the first woman to receive a pilot's license. She received ticket No. 36 on March 8, 1910. soon after De Laroche participated in aviation meetings at Heliopolis in Egypt, Saint Petersburg, Budapest and Rouen. During the show in St. Petersburg, she was personally congratulated by Tsar Nicholas II.
1930 William Howard Taft, the 27th president of the United States, died on March 8, 1930 due to heart failure. William Taft was the American president between 1909-1913. In 1921 Taft was appointed Chief Justice, and served until a month before his death nine years later. Taft is the only man to have filled both offices of President and Chief Justice. Three days after his death, Taft became the first president to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
1969 "Happy Birthday" was the first song to be performed in outer space. On March 8, 1969, the astronauts on Apollo IX sang it to celebrate the birthday of Christopher Kraft, who at that time was director of NASA space operations.
1971 Muhammad Ali lost a 15-round decision to the heavyweight champion Joe Frazier in New York City on March 8, 1971. Ali won a unanimous decision over Frazier in the return fight, a non-title fight in New York City on January 28, 1974. The animosity between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier was so great that they once wrestled each other to the floor in a TV studio and were fined $5,000 each for "deplorable conduct demeaning to boxing."
1971 The Citizens’ Commission to Investigate the FBI was a small group that broke into an FBI field office on March 8, 1971. They stole documents that revealed the FBI’s spying on and infiltration of left-wing organizations across the US.
1978 The writer Douglas Adams first came up with the idea for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy in 1971. He was lying drunk in a field near Innsbruck, Austria with a copy of The Hitchhiker's Guide to Europe. Looking up at the stars, Adams thought it would be a good idea for someone to write a hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy as well. BBC Radio 4 first began transmitting The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy as a science fiction radio series on March 8, 1978.
1979 The Compact Disc is an evolution of LaserDisc technology. Prototypes were developed by Philips and Sony independently from the mid-to-late 1970s. Philips publicly demonstrated a prototype of an optical digital audio disc for the first time on March 8, 1979 at a press conference called "Philips Introduce Compact Disc" in Eindhoven, Netherlands.
1983 During a speech to the National Association of Evangelicals in Orlando, Florida on March 8, 1983, in the midst of the Cold War, U.S. President Ronald Reagan described the Soviet Union as an "evil empire".
1985 On March 8, 1985, every Chinese child was ordered to give one Feng, roughly two pence or three cents at the time, to save the giant panda from extinction. At last count in 2014, there were about 1,864 individual pandas alive in the wild, according to China’s fourth decadal survey. There used to be only 1200, so the number has grown significantly.
 |
| By J. Patrick Fischer - Wikipedia Commons |
1999 Italian-American baseball center fielder Joe DiMaggio was a heavy smoker for much of his adult life. He was admitted to Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood, Florida, on October 12, 1998, for lung cancer surgery, and remained there for three months. He returned to his Florida home on January 19, 1999, where he died on March 8th.
2019 The record for the most high explosives detonated in a single film take belongs to the James Bond movie No Time to Die (2021). The stunt crew used a whopping 136.4 kilograms of TNT equivalent in the climatic finale, filmed on Salisbury Plain in England on March 8, 2019. This achievement puts it ahead of the previous record holder, another James Bond film, Spectre (2015).
Comments
Post a Comment