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