Today in History.....March 8

On this day in …
* 1854, U.S. Commodore Matthew C. Perry made his second landing in Japan; within a month, he concluded a treaty with the Japanese

* 1917, Russia's "February Revolution" (so called because of the Old Style calendar being used by Russians at the time) began with rioting and strikes in St. Petersburg. ALSO: the U.S. Senate voted to limit filibusters by adopting the cloture rule

* 1942, Japanese forces captured Rangoon, Burma, during World War II

* 1965, the United States landed about 3,500 Marines in South Vietnam

* 1996, Wall Street plummeted in a major selloff triggered by seemingly good economic news — a drop in the nation's unemployment rate and the biggest jobs gain in more than a decade. (Investors apparently worried that a stronger economy would mean no more interest rate cuts from the Federal Reserve.) ALSO: Dr. Jack Kevorkian was acquitted of assisted suicide for helping two suffering patients kill themselves

* 2001, the Republican-controlled House voted for an across-the-board tax cut of nearly $1 trillion in the next decade, handing President Bush a major victory only 48 days into his term

* 2005, President Bush said authoritarian rule in the Middle East had begun to ease, and he insisted anew that Syria had to end its nearly three-decade occupation of Lebanon. ALSO: Hundreds of thousands jammed a central Beirut square, chanting support for Syria in a thundering show of strength by the militant group Hezbollah.
Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov was killed in northern Chechnya during a raid by Russian forces