Questions & Answers about Co wydarzyło się pierwszego marca?
Why do we use the Genitive case pierwszego marca here instead of the Nominative pierwszy marzec?
In Polish, when you want to express on a specific date (answering the question "when did something happen?"), you put the whole date in the Genitive case. Since we are asking what happened on March 1st, we use pierwszego marca. If you were simply stating today's date, you would use the Nominative: Dziś jest pierwszy marzec (Today is March 1st).
Why does the past tense verb wydarzyło have the neuter ending -o?
Why does the word for March change to marca instead of just adding an ending to the base word (like "marzeca")?
The noun marzec has what is known as a "mobile e" or "fleeting e". In many Polish masculine nouns ending in -ec, the final e drops out when you add a case ending. Therefore, the base word marzec loses its e and adds the Genitive ending -a, becoming marca.
Could I ask co się stało instead of co wydarzyło się?