ON THIS DAY
MARCH 8
1868 Japanese samurai kill 11 French sailors in the port of Sakai, Osaka.
1917 International Women’s Day protests in St Petersburg, Russia, mark the beginning of the February Revolution
1922 Led by semi-skilled Afrikaner miners, white workers attempt to take over the Johannesburg post office and the power station, but are met with stout resistance from the police, and the day ends in fights between white strikers and black miners.
1947 Thirteen thousand troops of the Republic of China Army arrive in Taiwan after the February 28 Incident and launch crackdowns which kill thousands of people, including many elites. This turns into a major root of the Taiwan independence movement.
1957 Egypt re-opens the Suez Canal. 1965 Thirty-five hundred US Marines are the first American land combat forces committed during the Vietnam War.
1966 Nelson’s Pillar in Dublin, Ireland, is destroyed by a bomb planted by the Irish republicans seeking to make a point.
1968 K-129, a Soviet Golf Class missile submarine sinks with all hands in the Pacific.
1971 ‘Smoking’ Joe Frazier ends Muhammad Ali’s 31-fight winning streak at Madison Square Garden in the ‘Fight of the Century’.
1981 During a Sheffield Shield cricket match in Australia, fast bowler Dennis Lillee is caught by spinner Dennis Lillie, making it one of the most bizarre scorecard entries.
2004 Fifteen suspected mercenaries are arrested in Equatorial Guinea, including the alleged leader of the advance party, Nick du Toit. Most are South African.
2014 Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, carrying 239 people, disappears en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, prompting the most expensive search in history, which ends in June 2018 without success.
2020 Italy announces it is locking down the northern region of Lombardy – including Milan – with 16 million people, as Covid-19 cases reach 5 800 with 233 deaths.
2023 171 trillion pieces of plastic now litter the world’s oceans, increasing from 16 trillion in 2005, estimate scientists from the UN-backed Gyres Institute.