Important Historical Events of the year 2008, Year 2008 in History
List of 2008 Major News Events in History, Most Important Historical Events in 2008
What happened in the year 2008?
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| January 4, 2008 | A Let L-410 Turbolet crashes in the Los Roques Archipelago in Venezuela, killing 14 people. |
| January 18, 2008 | The Euphronios Krater is unveiled in Rome after being returned to Italy by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. |
| February 5, 2008 | A major tornado outbreak across the Southern United States kills 57. |
| February 11, 2008 | Rebel East Timorese soldiers seriously wound President José Ramos-Horta. Rebel leader Alfredo Reinado is killed in the attack. |
| February 13, 2008 | Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd makes a historic apology to the Indigenous Australians and the Stolen Generations. |
| February 14, 2008 | Northern Illinois University shooting: A gunman opens fire in a lecture hall of Northern Illinois University in DeKalb County, Illinois, resulting in six fatalities (including the gunman) and 21 injuries. |
| February 17, 2008 | Kosovo declares independence from Serbia. |
| February 23, 2008 | A United States Air Force B-2 Spirit bomber crashes on Guam, marking the first operational loss of a B-2. |
| February 24, 2008 | Fidel Castro retires as the President of Cuba and the Council of Ministers after 32 years. He remains as head of the Communist Party for another three years. |
| February 26, 2008 | The New York Philharmonic performs in Pyongyang, North Korea; this is the first event of its kind to take place in North Korea. |
| February 27, 2008 | Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist Mas Selamat Kastari escapes from a detention center in Singapore, hiding in Johor, Malaysia until he was recaptured over a year later.[14] |
| February 29, 2008 | The United Kingdom's Ministry of Defence withdraws Prince Harry from a tour of Afghanistan after news of his deployment is leaked to foreign media. |
| February 29, 2008 | Misha Defonseca admits to fabricating her memoir, Misha: A Mémoire of the Holocaust Years, in which she claims to have lived with a pack of wolves in the woods during the Holocaust. |
| March 1, 2008 | The Armenian police clash with peaceful opposition rally protesting against allegedly fraudulent presidential elections, as a result ten people are killed. |
| March 6, 2008 | A suicide bomber kills 68 people (including first responders) in Baghdad on the same day that a gunman kills eight students in Jerusalem. |
| March 14, 2008 | A series of riots, protests, and demonstrations erupt in Lhasa and subsequently spread elsewhere in Tibet. |
| March 15, 2008 | Stockpiles of obsolete ammunition explode at an ex-military ammunition depot in the village of Gërdec, Albania, killing 26 people. |
| March 19, 2008 | GRB 080319B: A cosmic burst that is the farthest object visible to the naked eye is briefly observed. |
| March 23, 2008 | Official opening of Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in Hyderabad, India |
| March 24, 2008 | Bhutan officially becomes a democracy, with its first ever general election. |
| March 30, 2008 | Drolma Kyi arrested by Chinese authorities. |
| April 3, 2008 | ATA Airlines, once one of the ten largest U.S. passenger airlines and largest charter airline, files for bankruptcy for the second time in five years and ceases all operations. |
| April 3, 2008 | Texas law enforcement cordons off the FLDS's YFZ Ranch. Eventually 533 women and children will be taken into state custody. |
| April 6, 2008 | The 2008 Egyptian general strike starts led by Egyptian workers later to be adopted by April 6 Youth Movement and Egyptian activists. |
| April 8, 2008 | The construction of the world's first skyscraper to integrate wind turbines is completed in Bahrain. |
| April 16, 2008 | The U.S. Supreme Court rules in the Baze v. Rees decision that execution by lethal injection does not violate the Eighth Amendment ban against cruel and unusual punishment. |
| April 20, 2008 | Danica Patrick wins the Indy Japan 300 becoming the first female driver in history to win an Indy car race. |
| April 30, 2008 | Two skeletal remains found near Yekaterinburg, Russia are confirmed by Russian scientists to be the remains of Alexei and Anastasia, two of the children of the last Tsar of Russia, whose entire family was executed at Yekaterinburg by the Bolsheviks. |
| May 2, 2008 | Cyclone Nargis makes landfall in Burma killing over 138,000 people and leaving millions of people homeless. |
| May 2, 2008 | Chaitén Volcano begins erupting in Chile, forcing the evacuation of more than 4,500 people. |
| May 12, 2008 | An earthquake (measuring around 8.0 magnitude) occurs in Sichuan, China, killing over 69,000 people. |
| May 12, 2008 | U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducts the largest-ever raid of a workplace in Postville, Iowa, arresting nearly 400 immigrants for identity theft and document fraud. |
| May 14, 2008 | Battle of Piccadilly Gardens in Manchester city centre between Zenit supporters and Rangers supporters and the Greater Manchester Police, 39 policemen injured, one police-dog injured and 39 arrested. |
| May 15, 2008 | California becomes the second U.S. state after Massachusetts in 2004 to legalize same-sex marriage after the state's own Supreme Court rules a previous ban unconstitutional. |
| May 23, 2008 | The International Court of Justice (ICJ) awards Middle Rocks to Malaysia and Pedra Branca (Pulau Batu Puteh) to Singapore, ending a 29-year territorial dispute between the two countries. |
| May 25, 2008 | NASA's Phoenix lander touches down in the Green Valley region of Mars to search for environments suitable for water and microbial life. |
| May 26, 2008 | Severe flooding begins in eastern and southern China that will ultimately cause 148 deaths and force the evacuation of 1.3 million. |
| May 28, 2008 | The first meeting of the Constituent Assembly of Nepal formally declares Nepal a republic, ending the 240-year reign of the Shah dynasty. |
| May 29, 2008 | A doublet earthquake, of combined magnitude 6.1, strikes Iceland near the town of Selfoss, injuring 30 people. |
| May 30, 2008 | Convention on Cluster Munitions is adopted. |
| May 30, 2008 | TACA Flight 390 overshoots the runway at Toncontín International Airport in Tegucigalpa, Honduras and crashes, killing five people. |
| May 31, 2008 | Usain Bolt breaks the world record in the 100m sprint, with a wind-legal (+1.7 m/s) 9.72 seconds |
| June 1, 2008 | A fire on the back lot of Universal Studios breaks out, destroying the attraction King Kong Encounter and a large archive of master tapes for music and film, the full extent of which was not revealed until 2019. |
| June 8, 2008 | At least 37 miners go missing after an explosion in a Ukrainian coal mine causes it to collapse. |
| June 8, 2008 | At least seven people are killed and ten injured in a stabbing spree in Tokyo, Japan. |
| June 9, 2008 | Two bombs explode at a train station near Algiers, Algeria, killing at least 13 people. |
| June 10, 2008 | Sudan Airways Flight 109 crashes at Khartoum International Airport, killing 30 people. |
| June 11, 2008 | Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper makes a historic official apology to Canada's First Nations in regard to abuses at a Canadian Indian residential school. |
| June 11, 2008 | The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope is launched into orbit. |
| June 26, 2008 | A suicide bomber dressed as an Iraqi policeman detonates an explosive vest, killing 25 people. |
| June 27, 2008 | In a highly scrutinized election, President of Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe is re-elected in a landslide after his opponent Morgan Tsvangirai had withdrawn a week earlier, citing violence against his party's supporters. |
| July 1, 2008 | Riots erupt in Mongolia in response to allegations of fraud surrounding the 2008 legislative elections. |
| July 2, 2008 | Colombian conflict: Íngrid Betancourt, a member of the Chamber of Representatives of Colombia, is released from captivity after being held for six and a half years by FARC. |
| July 10, 2008 | Former Macedonian Interior Minister Ljube Boškoski is acquitted of all war-crimes charges by a United Nations Tribunal. |
| July 13, 2008 | Battle of Wanat begins when Taliban and al-Qaeda guerrillas attack US Army and Afghan National Army troops in Afghanistan. The U.S. deaths were, at that time, the most in a single battle since the beginning of operations in 2001. |
| July 21, 2008 | Ram Baran Yadav is declared the first President of Nepal. |
| July 26, 2008 | Fifty-six people are killed and over 200 people are injured, in the Ahmedabad bombings in India. |
| July 31, 2008 | East Coast Jets Flight 81 crashes near Owatonna Degner Regional Airport in Owatonna, Minnesota, killing all eight people on board. |
| August 1, 2008 | The Beijing–Tianjin Intercity Railway begins operation as the fastest commuter rail system in the world. |
| August 1, 2008 | Eleven mountaineers from international expeditions died on K2, the second-highest mountain on Earth in the worst single accident in the history of K2 mountaineering. |
| August 6, 2008 | A military junta led by Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz stages a coup d'état in Mauritania, overthrowing president Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi. |
| August 7, 2008 | The start of the Russo-Georgian War over the territory of South Ossetia. |
| August 8, 2008 | A EuroCity express train en route from Kraków, Poland to Prague, Czech Republic strikes a part of a motorway bridge that had fallen onto the railroad track near Studénka railway station in the Czech Republic and derails, killing eight people and injuring 64 others. |
| August 8, 2008 | The 29th modern summer Olympic Games took place in Beijing, China until August 24. |
| August 13, 2008 | Russo-Georgian War: Russian units occupy the Georgian city of Gori. |
| August 16, 2008 | The Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago is topped off at 1,389 feet (423 m), at the time becoming the world's highest residence above ground-level. |
| August 17, 2008 | American swimmer Michael Phelps becomes the first person to win eight gold medals at one Olympic Games. |
| August 18, 2008 | The President of Pakistan, Pervez Musharra, resigns under threat of impeachment. |
| August 18, 2008 | War of Afghanistan: The Uzbin Valley ambush occurs. |
| August 20, 2008 | Spanair Flight 5022, from Madrid, Spain to Gran Canaria, skids off the runway and crashes at Barajas Airport. Of the 172 people on board, 146 die immediately, and eight more later die of injuries sustained in the crash. |
| August 24, 2008 | Sixty-five passengers are killed when Iran Aseman Airlines Flight 6895 crashes during an emergency landing at Manas International Airport in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. |
| August 24, 2008 | A Cessna 208 Caravan crashes in Cabañas, Zacapa, Guatemala, killing 11 people. |
| August 30, 2008 | A Conviasa Boeing 737 crashes into Illiniza Volcano in Ecuador, killing all three people on board. |
| September 1, 2008 | Iraq War: The United States Armed Forces transfers control of Anbar Province to the Iraqi Armed Forces. |
| September 2, 2008 | Google launches its Google Chrome web browser. |
| September 7, 2008 | The United States government takes control of the two largest mortgage financing companies in the US, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. |
| September 10, 2008 | The Large Hadron Collider at CERN, described as the biggest scientific experiment in history, is powered up in Geneva, Switzerland. |
| September 11, 2008 | A major Channel Tunnel fire breaks out on a freight train, resulting in the closure of part of the tunnel for six months. |
| September 12, 2008 | The 2008 Chatsworth train collision in Los Angeles between a Metrolink commuter train and a Union Pacific freight train kills 25 people. |
| September 13, 2008 | Delhi, India, is hit by a series of bomb blasts, resulting in 30 deaths and 130 injuries. |
| September 13, 2008 | Hurricane Ike makes landfall on the Texas Gulf Coast of the United States, causing heavy damage to Galveston Island, Houston, and surrounding areas. |
| September 14, 2008 | Aeroflot Flight 821, a Boeing 737-500, crashes into a section of the Trans-Siberian Railway while on approach to Perm International Airport, in Perm, Russia, killing all 88 people on board. |
| September 15, 2008 | Lehman Brothers files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the largest bankruptcy filing in U.S. history. |
| September 20, 2008 | A dump truck full of explosives detonates in front of the Marriott hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan, killing 54 people and injuring 266 others. |
| September 23, 2008 | Matti Saari kills ten people at a school in Finland before committing suicide. |
| September 24, 2008 | Thabo Mbeki resigns as president of South Africa. |
| September 26, 2008 | Swiss pilot and inventor Yves Rossy becomes first person to fly a jet engine-powered wing across the English Channel. |
| September 27, 2008 | CNSA astronaut Zhai Zhigang becomes the first Chinese person to perform a spacewalk. |
| September 28, 2008 | Falcon 1 becomes the first privately developed liquid-fuel ground-launched vehicle to put a payload into orbit by the RatSat mission. |
| September 28, 2008 | The Singapore Grand Prix is held as Formula One's inaugural night race, with Fernando Alonso winning the event. Almost a year later it was revealed that Alonso's team-mate Nelson Piquet Jr. had been ordered to crash his car to help bring out the safety car and give Alonso the advantage and win.[5] |
| September 29, 2008 | The stock market crashes after the first United States House of Representatives vote on the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act fails, leading to the Great Recession. |
| October 3, 2008 | The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 for the U.S. financial system is signed by President George W. Bush. |
| October 7, 2008 | Asteroid 2008 TC3 impacts the Earth over Sudan, the first time an asteroid impact is detected prior to its entry into earth's atmosphere. |
| October 7, 2008 | Qantas Flight 72 experiences an in-flight upset near Learmonth, Victoria, Australia, injuring 112. |
| October 15, 2008 | The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes down 733.08 points, or 7.87%, the second worst percentage drop in the Dow's history. |
| October 22, 2008 | India launches its first unmanned lunar mission Chandrayaan-1. |
| October 24, 2008 | "Bloody Friday" saw many of the world's stock exchanges experience the worst declines in their history, with drops of around 10% in most indices. |
| October 29, 2008 | Delta Air Lines merges with Northwest Airlines, creating the world's largest airline and reducing the number of US legacy carriers to five. |
| October 29, 2008 | A pair of deadly earthquakes hits Baluchistan, Pakistan, killing 215. |
| November 2, 2008 | Lewis Hamilton secured his maiden Formula One Drivers' Championship Title by one point ahead of Felipe Massa at the Brazilian Grand Prix, after a pass for fifth place against the Toyota of Timo Glock on the final lap of the race.[38] |
| November 4, 2008 | Barack Obama becomes the first person of biracial or African-American descent to be elected as President of the United States. |
| November 10, 2008 | Over five months after landing on Mars, NASA declares the Phoenix mission concluded after communications with the lander were lost. |
| November 14, 2008 | The first G-20 economic summit opens in Washington, D.C. |
| November 25, 2008 | Cyclone Nisha strikes northern Sri Lanka, killing 15 people and displacing 90,000 others while dealing the region the highest rainfall in nine decades. |
| November 26, 2008 | Mumbai attacks, a series of terrorist attacks killing approximately 166 citizens by 10 members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan based extremist Islamist terrorist organisation. |
| November 26, 2008 | The ocean liner Queen Elizabeth 2, now out of service, docks in Dubai. |
| November 27, 2008 | XL Airways Germany Flight 888T: An Airbus A320 performing a flight test crashes near the French commune of Canet-en-Roussillon, killing all seven people on board. |
| December 9, 2008 | Governor of Illinois Rod Blagojevich is arrested by federal officials for crimes including attempting to sell the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by President-elect Barack Obama. |
| December 11, 2008 | Bernie Madoff is arrested and charged with securities fraud in a $50 billion Ponzi scheme. |
| December 22, 2008 | An ash dike ruptured at a solid waste containment area in Roane County, Tennessee, releasing 4.2 million m3 (1.1 billion US gal) of coal fly ash slurry. |
| December 23, 2008 | A coup d'état occurs in Guinea hours after the death of President Lansana Conté. |
| December 24, 2008 | The Lord's Resistance Army, a Ugandan rebel group, begins a series of attacks against civilians in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, massacring more than 400. |
| December 27, 2008 | Operation Cast Lead: Israel launches three-week operation on Gaza. |