The feature “On this day in Stanford history” details events that occurred on the same date in past years at Stanford.

According to The Stanford Daily’s archives, on March 8 in….

1905: Junior Prom was called off in response to the death of Jane Stanford, one of the founders of the University, a week earlier. The motion to do so was passed unanimously by the junior class’ Prom committee.

1920: The Daily reported that Herbert Hoover, class of 1895, refused to allow his name to be entered in the Democratic presidential primaries.

1939: A series of stolen cars found hidden in bushes behind the bandhouse discredited the theory that a crime wave was taking place on campus. Instead, it was “nothing more serious than a gag,” campus police reported.

1950: In a vote of 261 to 110, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to make Hawaii part of the Union, The Daily reported. This came less than a week after Alaska’s admission to the U.S. passed in a vote of 186 to 146.

1967: The Winds of Freedom Foundation, a collective of conservative alumni, issued a bulletin calling for less left-wing influence on the University. The foundation wrote, “Stanford undergraduates are being given a heavily overbalanced presentation of philosophies leaning toward collectivism, the welfare state, and other socialist concepts.”

1978: The bronze statue of the Stanford family in the Art Gallery was vandalized over the weekend, the Daily reported, when someone cut off the thumb of Leland Jr. with a hacksaw. The perpetrator was unknown and the thumb had not yet been found.

1979: About 70 women and men marched through campus in a “Take Back the Night” protest to raise awareness of rape.

1991: The Daily reported on the government’s  plans to release 60,000 Iraqi prisoners of war as U.S. troops continued to return home from the Gulf War.

2000: The Daily announced that — for the first time ever — its profiles of ASSU candidates would be available online rather than in print.

Contact Brian Contreras at brianc42 ‘at’ stanford.edu.