SATURDAY, MARCH 8, 2008

Today is Saturday, March 8, the 68th day of 2008. There are 298 days left in the year.

1722 _ Afghan monarch Mir Mahmud occupies Persia

1854 _ U.S. Commodore Matthew C. Perry's second trip to Japan

1858 _ Leoncavallo's opera ``I Pagliacci" is produced (Naples)

1916 _ U.S. invades Cuba for third time, this to end corrupt Menocal regime

1917 _ Russian revolution breaks out (in Petrograd/St Petersburg)

1930 _ Babe Ruth signs two-year contract for $160,000 with New York Yankees, wrongly predicts ``No one will ever be paid more than Ruth"

1945 _ International Women's Day is first observed

1983 _ President Reagan calls the USSR an ``evil empire"

1991 _ Planeloads of U.S. troops arrive home from the Persian Gulf, Iraq hands over 40 foreign journalists and two American soldiers it captured

1994 _ 20th People's Choice Awards