Today in History: March 8, first U.S. combat troops arrive in Vietnam

Today is Sunday, March 8, the 67th day of 2026. There are 298 days left in the year. Daylight saving time returns at 2 a.m. local time.

Today in history:

On March 8, 1965, the United States landed its first combat troops in South Vietnam as 3,500 Marines arrived to defend the U.S. air base at Da Nang.

Also on this date:

In 1817, a constitution was adopted formally creating the New York Stock & Exchange Board, forerunner of the New York Stock Exchange. The constitution laid out rules for transactions and brokers initially gathered twice daily in a rented room on Wall Street to trade 30 stocks and bonds.

In 1917, protests against food rationing broke out in Petrograd (now St. Petersburg), triggering eight days of rioting that resulted in the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II and the end of the Russian monarchy.

In 1948, the Supreme Court, in McCollum v. Board of Education, struck down religious education classes during school hours in Champaign, Illinois, public schools, saying the program violated separation of church and state.

In 1971, in the first of three fights between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, Frazier defeated Ali by unanimous decision in what was billed as “The Fight of the Century” at Madison Square Garden in New York.

In 1983, in a speech to the National Association of Evangelicals convention in Orlando, Florida, President Ronald Reagan referred to the Soviet Union as an “evil empire.”

In 1988, 17 soldiers were killed when two Army helicopters from Fort Campbell, Kentucky, collided during a night training mission.

In 2008, President George W. Bush vetoed a bill that would have banned the CIA from using simulated drowning, or waterboarding, and other coercive interrogation methods to...