From Historynet: Today in History 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 .

1790          George Washington  delivers the first State of the Union address.

1853          The first bronze statue of Andrew Jackson  is unveiled in Washington, D.C.

1855          The first train crosses Niagara Falls on a suspension bridge.

1862          On the second day of the Battle of Pea Ridge, Confederate forces, including some Indian troops, under 

General Earl Van Dorn  surprise Union troops, but the Union troops win the battle.

1862          The Confederate ironclad C.S.S. Virginia (formerly U.S.S. Merrimack) is launched.

1880          President Rutherford B. Hayes  declares that the United States will have jurisdiction over any canal built across the Isthmus of Panama.

1904          The Bundestag in Germany lifts the ban on the Jesuit order of priests.

1908          The House of Commons, London, turns down the women's suffrage bill.

1909          Pope Pius X  lifts the church ban on interfaith marriages in Hungary.

1910          Baroness de Laroche  becomes the first woman to obtain a pilot's license in France.

1921          French troops occupy Dusseldorf.

1921          Spanish Premier Eduardo Dato  is assassinated while leaving Parliament in Madrid.

1941          Martial law is proclaimed in Holland in order to extinguish any anti-Nazi protests.

1942          Japanese troops capture Rangoon, Burma.

1943          Japanese forces attack American troops on Hill 700 in Bougainville. The battle will last five days.

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          The U.S. Supreme Court rules that religious instruction in public schools is unconstitutional.

1954          France and Vietnam open talks in Paris on a treaty to form the state of Indochina.

1961          Max Conrad  circles the globe in a record time of eight days, 18 hours and 49 minutes in Piper Aztec.

1965          More than 4,000 Marines land at Da Nang in South Vietnam and become the first U.S. combat troops in Vietnam.

1966          Australia announces that it will triple the number of troops in Vietnam.

1970          The Nixon administration discloses the deaths of 27 Americans in Laos.

1973          Two bombs explode near Trafalgar Square in Great Britain injuring 234 people.

1982          The United States accuses the Soviets of killing 3,000 Afghans with poison gas.

1985          Thomas Creighton dies after having three heart transplants in a 46-hour period.