MOMENTS IN TIME

• On March 6, 1899, the Imperial Patent Office in Berlin registers Aspirin, the brand name for acetylsalicylic acid, on behalf of the German pharmaceutical company Friedrich Bayer & Co. In its primitive form, the active ingredient, salicin, had been used for centuries in folk medicine.

• On March 7, 1946, actress Joan Crawford, born Lucille Fay Le Sueur in 1905 in Texas, is awarded the Oscar for her performance in "Mildred Pierce." Crawford made some of the finest films of her career after age 40.

• On March 8, 1986, "Mask," starring Eric Stoltz and Cher, opens. Cher, who had launched a serious acting career with her appearance in Robert Altman's "Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean" in 1982, received the Best Actress prize at the Cannes Film Festival for her role in "Mask."

• On March 9, 1913, writer Virginia Woolf delivers the manuscript of her first novel, "The Voyage Out," to her publisher. In 1941, fearful for her own mental state and afraid of the coming world war, she filled her pockets with rocks and drowned herself.

• On March 10, 1876, the first discernible speech is transmitted over a telephone system when inventor Alexander Graham Bell summons his assistant in another room by saying, "Mr. Watson, come here; I want you."

• On March 11, 1888, in one of the worst blizzards in U.S. history, New York City grinds to a near halt, with elevated trains blocked by snow drifts and unable to move. Up to 15,000 people were stranded on the elevated trains.

• On March 12, 1969, the London drug squad appears at the house of Beatle George Harrison and wife Pattie Boyd with a warrant and drug-sniffing canines. Sergeant Norman Pilcher, the man behind the raid, was convicted of planting drugs in other cases and went to jail in 1972.