Template:On This Day (nonfiction)/March 8
1618: Mathematician and astronomer Johannes Kepler discovers the third law of planetary motion.
1775: An anonymous writer, thought by some to be Thomas Paine, publishes "African Slavery in America", the first article in the American colonies calling for the emancipation of slaves and the abolition of slavery.
1822: Pharmacist, inventor, and industrialist Ignacy Łukasiewicz born. He will build the world's first oil refinery and invent the kerosene lamp.
1879: Chemist and academic Otto Hahn born. He will pioneer the fields of radioactivity and radiochemistry, winning the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1944 for the discovery and the radiochemical proof of nuclear fission.
1900: Physicist and computer scientist Howard H. Aiken born. He will design the Harvard Mark I computer.
1914: Physicist, astronomer, and cosmologist Yakov Borisovich Zel'dovich born. He will play a crucial role in the development of the Soviet Union's nuclear bomb project, studying the effects of nuclear explosions.
1923: Theoretical physicist and academic Johannes Diderik van der Waals dies. He won the 1910 Nobel Prize in physics for his work on the equation of state for gases and liquids.