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Explore 8 March

Explore 8 March, International Women’s Day: women’s protests in Petrograd spark the Russian Revolution, Raymonde de Laroche becomes the first licensed woman pilot and Joe Frazier beats Muhammad Ali in the Fight of the Century. Meet Otto Hahn and Cyd Charisse, born on this date.

This day through time →11 verified events across 3 eras

⌛11Full
Timeline ◈4Historic
Moments ♙6Born
Today ✦6Lives
Remembered ◉1Firsts &
Discoveries ☆1Sporting
Moments ☉1Observances
Women marching in Petrograd in 1917. This photograph is thought to date from April.
Women marching in Petrograd in 1917. This photograph is thought to date from April.
Image creditАтелье Буллы · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
1917

Women’s Day protests begin the Russian Revolution

On 8 March 1917 (23 February in the old Russian calendar) women textile workers in Petrograd marked International Women’s Day by walking out and marching for bread. They joined striking workers, and within days hundreds of thousands were on the streets, calling for an end to the war and to the Tsar.

When soldiers of the city garrison mutinied and joined the crowds, the old order collapsed. On 15 March Nicholas II gave up the throne, ending three centuries of Romanov rule. Because of the old calendar, the rising is known as the February Revolution.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: Russian Revolution, the February Revolution ↗
Lieutenant-General Hein ter Poorten (left) during the capitulation of the Dutch colonial army at Kalidjati, March 1942.
Lieutenant-General Hein ter Poorten (left) during the capitulation of the Dutch colonial army at Kalidjati, March 1942.
Image creditUnknown photographer (KITLV collection, Leiden University Libraries) · CC BY 4.0Resized and cropped for display.
1942

The Dutch surrender Java to Japan

On 8 March 1942, a week after Japanese troops landed on Java, the Dutch commander Lieutenant-General Hein ter Poorten met General Hitoshi Imamura at Kalidjati airfield near Bandung and accepted Japan’s terms. The surrender ended Dutch rule in the East Indies after more than three centuries; the formal signing is often dated to the next day.

On the same day Japanese forces entered Rangoon, the capital of Burma, as British troops retreated north. Within three months of Pearl Harbor, Japan controlled most of South-East Asia.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Netherlands Ministry of Defence (Defensiekrant): The Second World War in the Dutch East Indies ↗
Marines of the 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade on the beach at Da Nang, March 1965.
Marines of the 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade on the beach at Da Nang, March 1965.
Image creditUnited States Marine Corps (photograph A183813) · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
1965

US combat troops land at Da Nang

On the morning of 8 March 1965 a battalion of US Marines came ashore on a beach north-west of Da Nang in South Vietnam. They were the first American ground combat unit sent to the war; until then the United States had sent advisers and air power.

Their task was to guard the Da Nang air base, but the landing marked a turning point. By the end of 1965 more than 38,000 Marines were in Vietnam, and total US forces there would pass half a million.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: US Marine Corps History Division: US Marines in Vietnam, the landing and the build-up, 1965 ↗
Raymonde de Laroche, 1909.
Raymonde de Laroche, 1909.
Image creditBain News Service, publisher · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
1910

The first woman earns a pilot’s licence

On 8 March 1910 the Aéro-Club de France awarded a pilot’s licence to Raymonde de Laroche, a Frenchwoman who had learned to fly with the aircraft builder Charles Voisin. She was the first woman in the world to hold one.

She went on to win the Coupe Femina for a long-distance flight and in 1919 set a women’s altitude record of more than 4,700 metres. She died that same year in a crash at Le Crotoy.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum: Raymonde de Laroche ↗
♙
PEOPLE

Born Today

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
Image creditHarris & Ewing Collection · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
Born 1841

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

US Supreme Court justice for thirty years, famed for his dissents on free speech.

Konstantinos Karamanlis
Image creditBert Verhoeff for Anefo · CC0Resized and cropped for display.
Born 1907

Konstantinos Karamanlis

Greek statesman who restored democracy in 1974 and took Greece into the European Community.

Cyd Charisse
Image creditStudio · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
Born 1921

Cyd Charisse

American dancer and actress of Singin’ in the Rain and The Band Wagon.

◉
IDEAS THAT CHANGED THINGS

Firsts, Science & Discoveries

A Philips CD100, the first compact disc player sold, from 1982, at Amberley Museum in England.
A Philips CD100, the first compact disc player sold, from 1982, at Amberley Museum in England.
Image creditLes Chatfield from Brighton, England · CC BY 2.0Resized and cropped for display.
1979

Philips shows off the compact disc

On 8 March 1979 Philips invited the press to Eindhoven in the Netherlands to see a prototype player and a shiny disc 11.5 centimetres across, read by a laser, which it called a music box for the future. Two weeks later Sony agreed to develop the system with Philips.

The two firms settled on a disc of 12 centimetres, and the first CD players went on sale in 1982. The compact disc went on to replace the vinyl record and the cassette.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: IEEE (Engineering and Technology History Wiki): Milestone, Compact Disc Audio Player, 1979 ↗
☆
SPORTING HISTORY

Sporting Moments

Muhammad Ali avoids a punch from Joe Frazier during their first fight, 8 March 1971.
Muhammad Ali avoids a punch from Joe Frazier during their first fight, 8 March 1971.
Image creditUnited Press International · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
1971

Frazier beats Ali in the ‘Fight of the Century’

On 8 March 1971 two unbeaten heavyweights met at Madison Square Garden in New York: the champion Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali, returning after being stripped of his title for refusing the Vietnam draft. The fight drew a worldwide audience.

In the fifteenth and final round Frazier floored Ali with a left hook, and he won on a unanimous decision. It was Ali’s first defeat as a professional, and the first of three famous fights between them.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Sports Illustrated Vault: Ali and Frazier’s first fight, 15 March 1971 ↗
✦
LIVES REMEMBERED

Remembered Today

Ferdinand von Zeppelin
Image creditNicola Perscheid · CC BY-SA 3.0Resized and cropped for display.
Died 1917

Ferdinand von Zeppelin

German count whose rigid airships carried his name.

George Martin
Image creditAdamsharp · CC BY-SA 3.0Resized and cropped for display.
Died 2016

George Martin

English record producer of the Beatles.

☉
AROUND THE WORLD

Observances & Anniversaries

A German poster for Women's Day, 8 March 1914, demanding the vote for women.
A German poster for Women’s Day, 8 March 1914, demanding the vote for women.
Image creditKarl Maria Stadler (1888 – nach 1943) · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
Annual

International Women’s Day

International Women’s Day grew out of the labour and suffrage movements of the early 1900s and settled on 8 March after the Petrograd protests of 1917. The United Nations has marked it since 1975, and it is a public holiday in many countries.

Source: United Nations: International Women’s Day, background ↗
HISTORY & TIMELINE

Finished the highlights?

Follow 8 March chronologically, from the Middle Ages to the modern day, with 11 verified events and the sources behind them.

This day through time →
Sources & further reading