On March 8, 1917, the February Revolution (so known because of Russia’s use of the Julian calendar) begins when riots and strikes over the scarcity of food erupt in Petrograd. One week later, centuries of czarist rule in Russia ended with the abdication of Nicholas II, and Russia took a dramatic step closer toward communist revolution.

On March 8, 1950, Volkswagen begins production of its second vehicle model. The famed Beetle was officially known by the company as the Volkswagen Type 1. Now they introduce the Volkswagen Type 2, nicknamed the Transporter. We'll know it even better as the microbus.


On March 8, 1971 in Madison Square Garden, Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier square off for the first of three epic bouts. It's Ali's first fight in 3 and a half years, since he was stripped of his boxing license and his WBA heavyweight championship over his refusal to submit to the draft. Frazier earned the title in the interim, and will retain it tonight in a 15-round decision. It is the first loss of Ali's career.


On March 8, 1993, MTV debuts a new animated series, Beavis and Butthead, which will quickly become the network's highest-rated series to date. The apocalypse is near.

On March 9, 1862, one of the most significant battles in the history of naval warfare takes place, as the USS Monitor and CSS Virginia trade shots off Hampton Roads, VA. It is the first battle between ironclad warships, and it is a draw, as neither ship's guns are able to penetrate the other's armor.


On the night of March 9, 1945, U.S. warplanes launch a new bombing offensive against Japan. Over the next 48 hours, 2,000 tons of incendiary bombs are dropped on Tokyo. Almost 16 square miles in and around the Japanese capital are incinerated, and between 80,000 and 130,000 Japanese civilians were killed in the worst single firestorm in recorded history.

On March 9, 1959, the first Barbie doll goes on display at the American Toy Fair in New York City. Eleven inches tall, with a waterfall of blond hair, Barbie was the first mass-produced toy doll in the United States with adult features. Barbie has been the subject of enormous controversy over the decades for stereotyping an unrealistic female body image - at adult life size, her measurements would be 36-18-38 - but more than a billion Barbie dolls have been sold worldwide since her introduction, and since 1993, she's generated more than a billion dollars annually including sales of accessories.

On March 10, 1959, some 300,000 Tibetans surround the summer palace of the Dalai Lama, believing he is about to be kidnapped by Chinese occupation forces. China had occupied Tibet nearly a decade earlier, and the Tibetan government had capitulated under the condition that the Dalai Lama would retain power over domestic affairs. But resistance to the occupation has been building for several years. By March 17 the Dalai Lama will be evacuated to neighboring India, where he maintains a government-in exile to this day.


On March 10, 1831, French king Louis Phillippe, looking for a means to both bolster his military and find use of the country's large refugee population, forms a new military unit, the French Foreign Legion. Soldiers of the FFL are by definition not citizens of France (though they are led by French officers), though they may apply for citizenship after 3 years of service. Since its inception, the Foreign Legion has participated in every military campaign undertaken by the regular French army. It still exists today, although about 25% of its number are now French citizens.


On March 10, 1864, President Abraham Lincoln promotes Major General Ulysses S. Grant to the rank of lieutenant general of the U.S. Army, and gives him command of all troops fighting the Confederacy. Grant is the first lieutenant general (a 3-star general in today's rank structure) to carry that rank into combat; it had been previously held only by George Washington (appointed by President Adams a year before Washington's death as a contingency) and by temporary appointment to Winfield Scott before the war.

March 11, 1918, Private Albert Gitchell, U.S. Army stationed at Fort Riley, Kansas, skips breakfast and checks in to the infirmary with sore throat, fever and a headache. He'll soon be considered Patient Zero of the Spanish Flu Epidemic of 1918. By noon, over 100 of his fellow soldiers have reported similar symptoms. The flu would eventually kill 675,000 Americans and an estimated 20 million to 50 million people around the world (the estimated range is probably so wide because so many civilians and soldiers were infected in the final months of WWI, and deaths could be attributed to the flu or the war). It will be days before the New Year before the outbreak finally fizzles out.

On March 11, 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt orders General Douglas MacArthur off the island fortress of Corregidor in the Philippines. About 90,000 malnourished and under supplied American and Filipino troops are left behind to eventually surrender to the Japanese. MacArthur and his family are taken by PT boat to the island of Mindanao, 560 miles away, and then by B-17 to Australia. Within minutes of his arrival in Melbourne on March 21, he makes a statement to the press in which he makes his famous "I shall return" remark. It will be October of 1944 before he can deliver on that promise.


On March 11, 1779, Congress establishes the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as a civilian branch of the military to help plan, design and prepare environmental and structural facilities for the U.S. Army. During the Revolutionary War, the USACE would play an essential role in critical battles at Bunker Hill, Saratoga and Yorktown. Following the war, Congress would merge engineering and artillery as one branch of the peacetime army, but reestablished the Corps of Engineers as a separate unit permanently in 1802. In 1824, the USACE was given the additional task of managing navigation and flood control of the nation's rivers. Today, the Corps consists of more than 35,000 people, both civilian and military.

My wife and I both caught the flu 2 years ago despite flu shots. I had no symptoms but she was pretty miserable. And we were diagnosed a few days before Christmas, so we had to quarantine ourselves through the holiday. It sucked.