March 8 is the 67th day of the year (68th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 298 days remaining until the end of the year.
- 1618 - Johannes Kepler discovers the third law of planetary motion.
- 1702 - Anne Stuart, the sister of the childless Mary II, becomes Queen regnant of England, Scotland, and Ireland after the death of William III of Orange.
- 1765 - The British House of Lords passes the Stamp Act to tax the American colonies.
- 1775 - Thomas Paine's African Slavery in America was published. It was the first article in the United States calling for the emancipation of all slaves and the abolition of slavery.
- 1777 - Regiments from Ansbach and Bayreuth, sent to support Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War, mutiny in the town of Ochsenfurt.
- 1782 - Gnadenhütten massacre: Some 90 Native Americans in Gnadenhutten, Ohio, who had converted to Christianity were killed by Pennsylvania militiamen in retaliation for raids carried out by other Indians.
- 1817 - The New York Stock Exchange is founded.
- 1844 - King Oscar I ascends to the throne of Sweden-Norway.
- 1854 - U.S. Commodore Matthew C. Perry makes his second landing in Japan, where he would conclude a treaty with the Japanese within a month.
- 1861 - St. Augustine, Florida, surrenders to Union forces.
- 1862 - American Civil War: The iron-clad CSS Virginia (formerly USS Merrimack) is launched at Hampton Roads, Virginia.
- 1884 - Susan B. Anthony addresses the U.S. House Judiciary Committee arguing for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution granting women the right to vote. Anthony's argument came 16 years after legislators had first introduced a federal women's suffrage amendment.
- 1894 - The state of New York enacts the nation's first dog-licensing law.
- 1911 - International Women's Day is launched in Copenhagen, Denmark, by Clara Zetkin, leader of the Women's Office for the Social Democratic Party in Germany.
- 1913 - The Internal Revenue Service begins to levy and collect federal income taxes, as provided for under the Sixteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Federal income taxes had previously been collected from 1864-1872.
- 1917 - Riots and strikes break out in St. Petersburg, Russia, marking the start of the Russian Revolution.
- 1917 - The U.S. Senate votes to limit filibusters by adopting the cloture rule.
- 1918 - The first case of Spanish flu occurs, the start of a devastating worldwide pandemic.
- 1921 - Spanish Premier Eduardo Dato Iradier is assassinated while exiting the parliament building in Madrid.
- 1924 - The Castle Gate mine disaster kills 172 coal miners near Castle Gate, Utah.
- 1930 - Mahatma Gandhi starts civil disobedience in India.
- 1934 - A photograph by astronomer Edwin Hubble shows there are as many galaxies in the universe as there are stars in the Milky Way.
- 1936 - The first stock car race is held in Daytona Beach, Florida.
- 1942 - World War II: The Dutch surrender to Japanese forces on Java.
- 1942 - World War II: Japan captures Rangoon, Burma.
- 1942 - World War II: British bombers begin a new style of air raid, using incendiary bombs to light the way for a nighttime attack on the Krupp armament works in Essen. The long series of attacks reduce the city to ruins.
- 1943 - World War II: Japanese troops counter-attack American forces on Hill 700 in Bougainville in a battle that would last five days.
- 1945 - Allied forces move large numbers of troops across the Rhine River to significantly reinforce and expand their tenuous hold on the captured Ludendorff Bridge (Bridge at Remagen), allowing them to push armor across the river and better secure the nascent lodgement.
- 1957 - Egypt re-opens the Suez Canal after the Suez Crisis.
- 1957 - The 1957 Georgia Memorial to Congress, which petitions the U.S. Congress to declare the ratification of the 14th & 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution null and void, is adopted by the state of Georgia.
- 1963 - The Ba'ath Party comes to power in Syria in a Coup d'état by a clique of quasi-leftist Syrian Army officers calling themselves the National Council of the Revolutionary Command.
- 1965 - Vietnam War: 3,500 United States Marines arrive in South Vietnam, becoming the first American combat troops in Vietnam.
- 1966 - Vietnam War: Australia announces it is going to substantially increase its number of troops in Vietnam.
- 1966 - A bomb planted by young Irish protesters destroys Nelson's Pillar in Dublin.
- 1971 - Joe Frazier becomes the undisputed world heavyweight boxing champion by winning a unanimous 15-round decision over Muhammad Ali at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
- 1974 - Charles de Gaulle Airport opens in Paris, France.
- 1978 - The first-ever radio episode of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams, is transmitted on BBC Radio 4.
- 1979 - The first extraterrestrial volcano is discovered on Io, a satellite of the planet Jupiter.
- 1980 - The first festival of rock music kicks off in the Soviet Union.
- 1983 - President Ronald Reagan calls the Soviet Union an "evil empire."
- 1983 - The U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee endorses a nuclear weapons freeze with the Soviet Union, a move denounced by President Ronald Reagan.
- 1985 - A failed assassination attempt on Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah in a car-bombing in Beirut kills 85 people and injures 175.
- 1991 - The first U.S. troops arrive home from the Gulf War; Iraq hands over 40 foreign journalists and two American soldiers it had captured.
- 1999 - The Supreme Court of the United States upholds the murder convictions of Timothy McVeigh for the Oklahoma City bombing.
- 2004 - A new constitution is signed by Iraq's Governing Council.
- 1286 - John III, Duke of Brittany (d. 1341)
- 1293 - Beatrice of Castile, queen of Portugal (d. 1359)
- 1495 - John of God, Portuguese-born friar and saint (d. 1550)
- 1514 - Amago Haruhisa, Japanese samurai and warlord (d. 1562)
- 1560 - Don Carlo Gesualdo, Italian composer (d. 1613)
- 1659 - Isaac de Beausobre, French Protestant pastor (d. 1738)
- 1700 - Anne Bonny Irish-American pirate (d. 1782)
- 1712 - John Fothergill, English physician (d. 1780)
- 1714 - Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, German composer (d. 1788)
- 1726 - Richard Howe, British admiral (d. 1799)
- 1746 - André Michaux, French botanist (d. 1802)
- 1748 - William V of Orange, Stadtholder of the Dutch Republic
- 1783 - Hannah Van Buren, wife of Martin Van Buren (d. 1819)
- 1799 - Simon Cameron, U.S. Secretary of War (d. 1889)
- 1814 - Ede Szigligeti, Hungarian dramatist (d. 1878)
- 1822 - Ignacy Lukasiewicz, Polish inventor (d. 1882)
- 1827 - Wilhelm Bleek, German linguist (d. 1875)
- 1830 - João de Deus, Portuguese poet (d. 1896)
- 1841 - Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., U.S. Supreme Court Justice (d. 1935)
- 1856 - Bramwell Booth, the 2nd General of The Salvation Army (d. 1929)
- 1856 - Colin Campbell Cooper, American Impressionist painter (d. 1937)
- 1856 - Tom Roberts, Australian artist (d. 1931)
- 1859 - Kenneth Grahame, English author (d. 1932)
- 1865 - Frederic Goudy, American type designer (d. 1947)
- 1872 - Anna Held, Polish actress and singer (d. 1918)
- 1879 - Otto Hahn, German Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1968)
- 1886 - Edward Calvin Kendall, American chemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1972)
- 1891 - Sam Jaffe, American actor (d. 1984)
- 1892 - Mississippi John Hurt, American blues singer and guitarist (d. 1966)
- 1896 - Charlotte Whitton, Canadian politician (d. 1975)
- 1899 - Elmer Keith, American firearms developer (d. 1984)
- 1902 - Louise Beavers, American actress (d. 1962)
- 1902 - Jennings Randolph, America politician (d. 1998)
- 1907 - Constantine Karamanlis, Greek politician (d. 1998)
- 1910 - Bernard Benjamin, British statistician (d. 2002)
- 1910 - Claire Trevor, American actress (d. 2000)
- 1911 - Alan Hovhaness, American composer (d. 2000)
- 1912 - Preston Smith, America politician (d. 2003)
- 1914 - Yakov Borisovich Zel'dovich, Russian physicist (d. 1987)
- 1915 - Tapio Rautavaara, Finnish athlete, actor, and singer (d. 1979)
- 1916 - John Seybold, American economist (d. 2004)
- 1920 - Douglass Wallop, American novelist and playwright (d. 1985)
- 1921 - Alan Hale, Jr., American actor (d. 1990)
- 1922 - Cyd Charisse, American actress and dancer (d. 2008)
- 1922 - Shigeru Mizuki, Japanese soldier and Mangaka
- 1922 - Carl Furillo, American baseball player (d. 1989)
- 1922 - Ralph H. Baer, German-born American inventor
- 1925 - Warren Bennis, American educator and author
- 1926 - Francisco Rabal, Spanish actor (d. 2001)
- 1927 - Dick Hyman, American pianist and composer
- 1930 - Bob Grim, American baseball player (d. 1996)
- 1931 - John McPhee, American writer and professor
- 1931 - Neil Postman, American cultural critic (d. 2003)
- 1931 - Neil Adcock, South African Cricket player
- 1933 - Luca Ronconi, Italian theater and opera director
- 1933 - Evelyn Margaret Ay, American beauty pageant winner
- 1934 - Marv Breeding, American baseball player (d. 2006)
- 1936 - Gábor Szabó, Hungarian guitarist (d. 1982)
- 1937 - Juvénal Habyarimana, President of Rwanda (d. 1994)
- 1938 - Pete Dawkins, American football player
- 1939 - Jim Bouton, American baseball player and author
- 1939 - Lidia Skoblikova, Russian skater
- 1939 - Robert Tear, Welsh tenor
- 1940 - Susan Clark, Canadian actress
- 1941 - Andrei Mironov, Soviet actor (d. 1987)
- 1942 - Ann Packer, British athlete
- 1942 - Dick Allen, American baseball player
- 1943 - Lynn Redgrave, English actress
- 1944 - Buzz Hargrove, Canadian labour leader
- 1944 - Sergey Nikitin, Russian composer
- 1944 - Pepe Romero, Spanish guitarist
- 1944 - Palito Ortega, Argentine singer and actor
- 1945 - Bruce Broughton, American composer
- 1945 - Jim Chapman, American politician
- 1945 - Anselm Kiefer, German painter
- 1945 - Micky Dolenz, American musician (The Monkees)
- 1946 - Randy Meisner, American musician (The Eagles)
- 1947 - Mike Allsup, American musician (Three Dog Night)
- 1947 - Carole Bayer Sager, American composer
- 1947 - Florentino Pérez, Spanish football executive
- 1948 - Peggy March, American pop singer
- 1949 - Karel Lismont, Belgian athlete
- 1952 - George Felix Allen, American politician
- 1953 - Bob Brozman, American musician
- 1953 - Jim Rice, American baseball player
- 1953 - Don Werner, American baseball player
- 1954 - Cheryl Baker, British singer (Bucks Fizz)
- 1954 - David Wilkie, Scottish swimmer
- 1955 - Don Ashby, Canadian ice hockey player (d. 1981)
- 1956 - John Kapelos, Canadian actor
- 1956 - Laurie Cunningham, English former footballer (d. 1989)
- 1957 - Clive Burr, British musician (Iron Maiden)
- 1957 - Billy Childs, composer/pianist
- 1957 - Cynthia Rothrock, American actress
- 1957 - Bob Stoddard, American baseball player
- 1957 - John Butcher, American baseball player
- 1958 - Gary Numan, British singer
- 1958 - Nick Capra, American baseball player
- 1959 - Aidan Quinn, American actor
- 1960 - Max Metzker, Australian swimmer
- 1961 - Camryn Manheim, American actress
- 1961 - Larry Murphy, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1961 - Mark Salas, American baseball player
- 1963 - Mike Lalor, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1964 - Lance McCullers, American baseball player
- 1964 - Thomas Bezucha, American screenwriter and director
- 1965 - Fátima Lopes, Portuguese fashion designer
- 1967 - Joel Johnston, American baseball player
- 1968 - Michael Bartels, German race car driver
- 1968 - Ellen Forney, American cartoonist
- 1968 - Shawn Mullins, American musician
- 1968 - Jim Dougherty, American baseball player
- 1969 - Andrea Parker, American actress, ballet dancer
- 1970 - Jason Elam, American football player
- 1971 - Kit Symons, Welsh footballer
- 1972 - Angie Hart, Australian pop singer
- 1972 - Fergal O'Brien, Irish snooker player
- 1972 - Georgios Georgiadis, Greek footballer
- 1973 - Anneke van Giersbergen, Dutch singer (The Gathering)
- 1973 - Boris Kodjoe, Austrian model
- 1973 - Kurt Mollekens, Belgian racing car driver
- 1973 - Justin Thompson, American baseball player
- 1973 - Mark Lukasiewicz, American baseball player
- 1974 - Mike Moriarty, American baseball player
- 1975 - Fardeen Khan, Indian actor
- 1975 - Peggy Zina, Greek singer
- 1976 - Gaz Coombes, English singer (Supergrass)
- 1976 - Juan Encarnacion, American baseball player
- 1976 - Ryan Freel, American baseball player
- 1976 - Hines Ward, American football player
- 1976 - Freddie Prinze Jr., American actor
- 1977 - James Van Der Beek, American actor
- 1977 - Johann Vogel, Swiss footballer
- 1978 - Mohammed Bouyeri, Dutch-Moroccan assassin
- 1978 - Nick Zano, American actor
- 1979 - Tom Chaplin, English singer (Keane)
- 1979 - Andy Ross, American guitarist (OK Go)
- 1980 - Stephen Milne, Australian rules footballer
- 1981 - Michael Beauchamp, Australian footballer
- 1981 - Jessica Jaymes, American porn actress
- 1981 - Timothy Jordan II, American musician (The All American Rejects, Jonezetta) (d. 2005)
- 1982 - Nicoleta Onel, Romanian gymnast
- 1982 - Kat Von D, Mexican-American tattoo artist
- 1982 - Nicolas Armindo, French race car driver
- 1982 - Leonidas Kabantais, Greek footballer
- 1982 - Craig Stansberry, American baseball player
- 1983 - Mark Worrell, American baseball player.
- 1984 - Dave Moffatt, Canadian musician
- 1985 - Ewa Sonnet, Polish model and pop singer
- 1988 - Armanti Edwards, American college football player
- 1990 - Ben Tozer, English footballer
- 1991 - Devon Werkheiser, American actor
- 1992 - Charlie Ray, American actress
- 1996 - Lorna Fitzgerald, English actress
- 1126 - Urraca of León (b. 1082)
- 1144 - Pope Celestine II
- 1202 - Sverre of Norway
- 1223 - Wincenty Kadłubek, Polish chronicler (b. 1161)
- 1550 - Saint John of God, a saint (b. 1495)
- 1641 - Xu Xiake, Chinese adventurer (b. 1587)
- 1674 - Charles Sorel, sieur de Souvigny, French writer (b. 1597)
- 1702 - William III of England (b. 1650)
- 1731 - Ferdinand Brokoff, Czech sculptor (b. 1688)
- 1757 - Thomas Blackwell, Scottish classical scholar (b. 1701)
- 1771 - Louis August le Clerc, French-born sculptor (b. 1688)
- 1819 - Benjamin Ruggles Woodbridge, doctor, Massachusetts militia officer, member of the Massachusetts legislature (b. 1739)
- 1844 - Charles XIV John of Sweden (b. 1763)
- 1855 - William Poole, Infamous member of New York City's Bowery Boys gang (b. 1821)
- 1869 - Hector Berlioz, French composer (b. 1803)
- 1872 - Cornelius Krieghoff, Canadian painter (b. 1815)
- 1874 - Millard Fillmore, 13th President of the United States (b. 1800)
- 1887 - Henry Ward Beecher, American clergyman (b. 1813)
- 1887 - James Buchanan Eads, American engineer (b. 1820)
- 1889 - John Ericsson, Swedish inventor (b. 1803)
- 1917 - Ferdinand von Zeppelin, German aircraft manufacturer (b. 1838)
- 1923 - Johannes Diderik van der Waals, Dutch Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1837)
- 1923 - Krišjānis Barons, Latvian writer (b. 1835)
- 1930 - William Howard Taft, 27th President of the United States (b. 1857)
- 1930 - Edward Terry Sanford, Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court (b. 1865)
- 1937 - Howie Morenz, Canadian ice hockey player (b. 1902)
- 1941 - Sherwood Anderson, American author (b. 1876)
- 1942 - José Raúl Capablanca, Cuban chess player (b. 1888)
- 1957 - Othmar Schoeck, Swiss composer and conductor (b. 1886)
- 1961 - Thomas Beecham, English conductor (b. 1879)
- 1971 - Harold Lloyd, American actor (b. 1893)
- 1972 - Erich von dem Bach, Nazi official (b. 1899)
- 1973 - Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, American musician (b. 1945)
- 1975 - George Stevens, American director (b. 1904)
- 1976 - Alfons Rebane, Estonian military commander (b. 1908)
- 1983 - William Walton, English composer (b. 1902)
- 1985 - Edward Andrews, American actor (b. 1914)
- 1986 - Kersti Merilaas, Estonian author, poet (b. 1913)
- 1988 - Amar Singh Chamkila, Punjabi folk singer (b. 1961)
- 1988 - Werner Hartmann, German physicist (b. 1912)
- 1988 - Henryk Szeryng, Polish-born violinist (b. 1918)
- 1993 - Billy Eckstine, American musician (b. 1914)
- 1995 - Ingo Schwichtenberg, German drummer (b. 1965)
- 1998 - Ray Nitschke, American football player (b. 1936)
- 1999 - Peggy Cass, American actress and comedian (b. 1924)
- 1999 - Joe DiMaggio, American baseball player (b. 1914)
- 1999 - Adolfo Bioy Casares, Argentine writer (b. 1914)
- 2001 - Edward Winter, American actor (b. 1937)
- 2003 - Adam Faith, English singer and actor (b. 1940)
- 2003 - Karen Morley, American actress (b. 1909)
- 2004 - Abu Abbas, founder of the Palestine Liberation Front (b. 1948)
- 2004 - Robert Pastorelli, American actor (b. 1954)
- 2005 - Aslan Maskhadov, Chechen leader (b. 1951)
- 2005 - César Lattes, Brazilian physicist (b. 1924)
- 2006 - Brian Barratt-Boyes, New Zealand heart surgeon (b. 1924)
- 2007 - John Inman, English actor (b. 1935)
- 2007 - Viky Vanita, Greek actress (b. 1948)
- 2007 - John Vukovich, American baseball player and coach.. (b. 1947)
- 2008 - Carol Barnes, former ITV news presenter (b. 1944)
