On This Day, 8 March

8 March AD 2019

23 February AM 7527

12th Indiction

a.d. viii Id. Mart. MMDCCLXXII A.U.C.

Feast of Our Lady of Virtues, Lisbon, Portugal

Feast of St Felix of Dunwich († 647 or 648)

Feast of St John of God († 1550)

• 1126 – Urraca of León and Castile died (b. 1079)
• 1126 – Following the death of his mother Urraca, Alfonso VII is proclaimed king of Castile and León.
• 1144 – Pope Celestine II died
• 1495 – John of God, Portuguese friar and saint born (d. 8 March 1550)
• 1550 – John of God, Portuguese friar and saint died (b. 1495)
• 1702 – William III of England, usurper, died (b. 1650)
• 1702 – Queen Anne, the younger sister of Mary II, becomes Queen regnant of England, Scotland, and Ireland.
• 1844 – Charles XIV John of Sweden died (b. 1763)
• 1844 – King Oscar I ascends to the thrones of Sweden and Norway.
• 1867 - British House of Lords gives final reading to the British North America Act; the Act breezes through Parliament with few changes; few MPs and Lords attend to vote; more rush in after to vote against a more contentious bill to place a tax on dogs. BNA Act given Royal Assent March 22; proclaimed March 29. 
• 1900 - Members of the NWMP volunteering for the Lord Strathcona Horse, to fight during the South African Boer War, receive a sendoff at Parliament Hill. 
• 1901 - (Later, Sir) Samuel Benfield Steele 1849-1919 commanding Lord Strathcona's Horse, arrives back in Halifax with his regiment after fighting the Boers in South Africa. 
• 1937 – Spanish Civil War: The Battle of Guadalajara begins.
• 1971 - Closing of Halifax's Pier 21, since passenger liners have given way to plane travel; more than a million immigrants arrived there from 1928-71; on June 14, 2010, the House of Commons votes unanimously to designate Pier 21 as the country's national immigration museum. 
• 1982 - British House of Commons passes the Canada Act, allowing Canada to patriate its constitution; the House of Lords will give final reading March 25, 1982; Royal Assent March 29; Queen Elizabeth II will sign the Royal Proclamation of the Constitution in a ceremony April 17, 1982 on Parliament Hill.