Factory workers protest in the Russian capital of Petrograd, 8 March 1917. The left banner reads: “Feed the children of the defenders of the motherland“; the right: “Increase payments to the soldiers’ families – defenders of freedom and world peace“. Image in public domain.
- Nigel Burton Apsley Lowe is killed in action in France, just one day after his 21st birthday
- International Women’s Day is observed throughout Europe and Russia. The concept of an International Women’s Day was tabled at the International Conference of Working Women in Copenhagen in 1910 by Clara Zetkin of the German Social Democratic Party. First observed on 19 March 1911, International Women’s Day was transferred to 8 March in 1913. Women and the Great War
- Tens of thousands of women take to the streets of Petrograd to protest food shortages, government corruption and the death of more than two million Russians in the war. The “bread and peace” strike, as it became known, continues until Tsar Nicholas II abdicates and the provisional government grants women the right to vote. February Revolution Begins in Russia
- German soldiers on the Western Front launch five raids against British positions north of Wulverghem near Messines, as British troops advance in the Ancre valley
- Romanian forces on the Eastern Front lose three vantage positions north-west of Ocna in Moldavia, including Magyaros Ridge
- Allied troops cross the Tigris and advance to within ten kilometres of Baghdad
- Count Ferdinand Adolf Heinrich August Graf von Zeppelin dies in Berlin. A former German general, von Zeppelin later became an aircraft manufacturer, who founded the Zeppelin airship company.
