Today in History - History - March 8th

1978The first-ever radio episode of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams, is transmitted on BBC Radio 4.

1930Babe Ruth signs 2-year contract for $160,000 with NY Yankee GM Ed Barrow, wrongly predicts "No one will ever be paid more than Ruth"

1959Mickey Wright wins LPGA Jacksonville Golf Open

19806th People's Choice Awards: Burt Reynolds & Jane Fonda win (Motion Picture) and Alan Alda & Carol Burnett win (TV)

1986Martina Navratilova is 1st tennis player to earn $10 million

1983President Reagan calls the USSR an "Evil Empire"

1998The Screen Actors Guild award Gloria Stuart (Old Rose in "Titanic") with their Founders Award

1934Edwin Hubble photo shows as many galaxies as Milky Way has stars

1981Nancy Lopez wins LPGA Arizona Copper Golf Classic

1958William Faulkner says US school degenerated to become babysitters

1841Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr, Boston Massachusetts, 59th Supreme Court justice (1902-32)

1909Claire Trevor, [Wemlinger], NYC, actress (Marjorie Morningstar)

1787Karl Ferdinand von Graefe, German surgeon who helped create modern plastic surgery

1702Anne Bonny, Kinsale Ireland, Irish pirate (date is approximate)

1952Future US President Ronald Reagan (41) marries Nancy Davis (30)

18205th US President James Monroe's daughter Maria 1st child of a President to marry in the White House

1969Businessman Ray Kroc (66) weds philanthropist Joan Mansfield (40)

1848Confederate General James Longstreet (27) weds Maria Louisa Garland in Lynchburg, Virginia

1923Johannes van der Waals, Dutch physicist (Nobel 1910), dies at 85

1917Ferdinand von Zeppelin, Dutch count/air pioneer, dies at 78

1999Joe DiMaggio, American baseball player (b. 1914)

1874Millard Fillmore, 13th president (1850-53), dies at 74

1930William Howard Taft, 27th US pres (1909-13)/Chief Justice, dies at 72

1998Ray Nitschke, American football player, dies of a heart attack at 61