Important Historical Events Today, What Happened Today in History?
Today's Historical Events. What Happened This Day In History? Here is a chronological timetable of historical events that occurred on this day in history. Historical facts of the day in the areas of military, politics, science, music, sports, arts, entertainment and more. Discover what happened 8 January in history.
Historical Events on January 8
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 307 | Jin Huaidi becomes emperor of China in succession to his father, Jin Huidi, despite a challenge from his uncle, Sima Ying. |
| 871 | Æthelred I and Alfred the Great lead a West Saxon army to repel an invasion by Danelaw Vikings. |
| 1297 | François Grimaldi, disguised as a monk, leads his men to capture the fortress protecting the Rock of Monaco, establishing his family as the rulers of Monaco. |
| 1454 | The papal bull Romanus Pontifex awards the Kingdom of Portugal exclusive trade and colonization rights to all of Africa south of Cape Bojador. |
| 1499 | Louis XII of France marries Anne of Brittany in accordance with a law set by his predecessor, Charles VIII. |
| 1547 | The first Lithuanian-language book, the Catechism of Martynas Mažvydas, is published in Königsberg. |
| 1735 | The premiere of George Frideric Handel's Ariodante takes place at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. |
| 1746 | Second Jacobite rising: Bonnie Prince Charlie occupies Stirling. |
| 1790 | George Washington delivers the first State of the Union address in New York City. |
| 1806 | The Dutch Cape Colony in southern Africa becomes the British Cape Colony as a result of the Battle of Blaauwberg. |
| 1811 | Charles Deslondes leads an unsuccessful slave revolt in the North American settlements of St. Charles and St. James, Louisiana. |
| 1815 | War of 1812: Battle of New Orleans: Andrew Jackson leads American forces in victory over the British. |
| 1828 | The Democratic Party of the United States is organized. |
| 1835 | US President Andrew Jackson announces a celebratory dinner after having reduced the United States national debt to zero for the only time. |
| 1863 | American Civil War: Second Battle of Springfield. |
| 1867 | The United States Congress passes the bill to allow African American men the right to vote in Washington, D.C. |
| 1877 | Crazy Horse and his warriors fight their last battle against the United States Cavalry at Wolf Mountain, Montana Territory. |
| 1889 | Herman Hollerith is issued US patent #395,791 for the 'Art of Applying Statistics' — his punched card calculator. |
| 1900 | President William McKinley places Alaska under military rule. |
| 1912 | The African National Congress is founded, under the name South African Native National Congress (SANNC). |
| 1918 | U.S. President Woodrow Wilson announces his "Fourteen Points" for the aftermath of World War I. |
| 1920 | The steel strike of 1919 ends in failure for the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers labor union. |
| 1926 | Crown Prince Nguyễn Phúc Vĩnh Thuỵ is crowned emperor of Vietnam, the country's last monarch. |
| 1926 | Abdul-Aziz ibn Saud is crowned King of Hejaz. |
| 1936 | Kashf-e hijab decree is made and immediately enforced by Reza Shah, Iran's head of state, banning the wearing of Islamic veils in public. |
| 1940 | World War II: Britain introduces food rationing. |
| 1945 | World War II: Philippine Commonwealth troops under the Philippine Commonwealth Army units enter the province of Ilocos Sur in Northern Luzon and attack invading Japanese Imperial forces. |
| 1946 | Andrei Zhdanov, Chairman of the Finnish Allied Commission, submitted to the Finnish War Criminal Court an interrogation report by General Erich Buschenhagen, a German prisoner of war, on the contacts between Finnish and German military personnel before the Continuation War and a copy of Hitler's Barbarossa plan. |
| 1956 | Operation Auca: Five U.S. missionaries are killed by the Huaorani of Ecuador shortly after making first contact. |
| 1959 | Charles de Gaulle is proclaimed as the first President of the French Fifth Republic. |
| 1961 | In France a referendum supports Charles de Gaulle's policies in Algeria. |
| 1964 | President Lyndon B. Johnson declares a "War on Poverty" in the United States. |
| 1972 | Bowing to international pressure, President of Pakistan Zulfikar Ali Bhutto releases Bengali leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman from prison, who had been arrested after declaring the independence of Bangladesh. |
| 1973 | Soviet space mission Luna 21 is launched. |
| 1973 | Watergate scandal: The trial of seven men accused of illegal entry into Democratic Party headquarters at Watergate begins. |
| 1975 | Ella T. Grasso becomes Governor of Connecticut, the first woman to serve as a Governor in the United States other than by succeeding her husband. |
| 1977 | Three bombs explode in Moscow, Russia, Soviet Union, within 37 minutes, killing seven. The bombings are attributed to an Armenian separatist group. |
| 1981 | A local farmer reports a UFO sighting in Trans-en-Provence, France, claimed to be "perhaps the most completely and carefully documented sighting of all time". |
| 1982 | Breakup of the Bell System: In the United States, AT&T agrees to divest itself of twenty-two subdivisions. |
| 1989 | Kegworth air disaster: British Midland Flight 92, a Boeing 737-400, crashes into the M1 motorway, killing 47 of the 126 people on board. |
| 1994 | Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov on Soyuz TM-18 leaves for Mir. He would stay on the space station until March 22, 1995, for a record 437 days in space. |
| 1996 | An Antonov An-32 cargo aircraft crashes into a crowded market in Kinshasa, Zaire, killing up to 223 people on the ground; two of six crew members are also killed. |
| 2002 | President of the United States George W. Bush signs into law the No Child Left Behind Act. |
| 2003 | Turkish Airlines Flight 634 crashes near Diyarbakır Airport, Turkey, killing the entire crew and 70 of the 75 passengers. |
| 2003 | Air Midwest Flight 5481 crashes at Charlotte-Douglas Airport, in Charlotte, North Carolina, killing all 21 people on board. |
| 2004 | The RMS Queen Mary 2, then the largest ocean liner ever built, is christened by her namesake's granddaughter, Queen Elizabeth II. |
| 2005 | The nuclear sub USS San Francisco collides at full speed with an undersea mountain south of Guam. One man is killed, but the sub surfaces and is repaired. |
| 2009 | A 6.1-magnitude earthquake in northern Costa Rica kills 15 people and injures 32. |
| 2010 | Gunmen from an offshoot of the Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda attack a bus carrying the Togo national football team on its way to the 2010 Africa Cup of Nations, killing three people and injuring another nine. |
| 2011 | Sitting US Congresswoman Gabby Giffords is shot in the head along with 18 others in a mass shooting in Tucson, Arizona. Giffords survived the assassination attempt, but six others died, including John Roll, a federal judge. |
| 2016 | Joaquín Guzmán, widely regarded as the world's most powerful drug trafficker, is recaptured following his escape from a maximum security prison in Mexico. |
| 2016 | West Air Sweden Flight 294 crashes near the Swedish reservoir of Akkajaure; both pilots, the only people on board, are killed. |
| 2020 | Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 crashes immediately after takeoff at Tehran Imam Khomeini International Airport; all 176 on board are killed. The plane was shot down by an Iranian anti-aircraft missile. |
| 2021 | Twenty-three people are killed in what is described as a police ″massacre″ in La Vega, Caracas, Venezuela. |
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