January

January 8 is the 8th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. There are 357 days remaining (358 in leap years).

Events

• 871 - Battle of Ashdown - Ethelred of Wessex defeats Danish invasion army.
• 1198 - Innocentius III becomes Pope.
• 1734 - Premiere of George Frideric Handel's Ariodante at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.
• 1746 - Bonnie Prince Charlie occupies Stirling.
• 1806 - Cape Colony becomes a British colony.
• 1815 - War of 1812: In the Battle of New Orleans Andrew Jackson leads American forces in victory over the British.
• 1838 - Alfred Vail demonstrates a telegraph using dots and dashes (this is the forerunner of Morse code).
• 1856 - Borax is discovered (John Veatch).
• 1867 - African-American men granted the right to vote in the District of Columbia.
• 1877 - Crazy Horse and his warriors fight their last battle with the United States Cavalry (Montana).
• 1889 - Herman Hollerith receives a patent for his electric tabulating machine.
• 1894 - A fire at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago causes a good deal of damage.
• 1900 - United States President William McKinley places Alaska under military rule.
• 1906 - A landslide in Haverstraw, New York kills 20 due to the excavation of clay along the Hudson River.
• 1908 - A train collision occurs in the Park Avenue Tunnel in New York City killing 17, injuring 38 and leading to increased demand for electric trains.
• 1916 - World War I: Allied forces withdraw from Gallipoli.
• 1918 - President Woodrow Wilson announces his "Fourteen Points" for the aftermath of World War I.
• 1926 - Abdul-Aziz ibn Saud becomes the King of Hejaz and renames it Saudi Arabia.
• 1935 - A.C. Hardy patents the spectrophotometer.
• 1953 - René Mayer becomes Prime Minister of France
• 1958 - 14 year old Bobby Fischer wins the United States Chess Championship.
• 1959 - Michel Debré becomes Prime Minister of France
• 1962 - Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa is exhibited in the United States for the first time (National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC).
• 1964 - President Lyndon B. Johnson declares a "War on Poverty" in the United States.
• 1973 - Watergate scandal: The trial of seven men accused of placing bugs in Democratic Party headquarters at Watergate begins.
• 1975 - Ella Grasso becomes Governor of Connecticut, becoming the first woman to serve as a Governor in the United States who did not succeed her husband.
• 1982 - AT&T agrees to divest itself of twenty-two subdivisions.
• 1992 - President of the United States George H. W. Bush becomes ill on a visit in Japan and vomits on the Japanese Prime Minister.
• 1996 - An Antonov 32 cargo jet crashes into the central market in Kinshasa, Zaire killing more than 350
• 1997 - Mister Rogers receives a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
• 1998 - Ramzi Yousef is sentenced to life in prison for planning the World Trade Center bombing and for planning Project Bojinka.
• 1998 - Cosmologists announce that the expansion rate of the universe is increasing.
• 2004 - Queen Elizabeth names the Queen Mary II cruise liner.

Births

• 1735 - John Carroll - First Roman Catholic Archbishop in the U.S.
• 1786 - Nicholas Biddle, President of the Second Bank of the United States (d. 1844)
• 1821 - James Longstreet, Confederate General (d. 1904)
• 1823 - Alfred Russel Wallace, naturalist and biologist (d. 1913)
• 1824 - Wilkie Collins, novelist (d. 1889)
• 1867 - Emily Greene Balch, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize 1946 (d. 1961)
• 1870 - Miguel Primo de Rivera, dictator of Spain (d. 1930)
• 1885 - John Curtin, fourteenth Prime Minister of Australia (d. 1945)
• 1891 - Walther Bothe, physicist, winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1954 (d. 1957)
• 1909 - Willy Millowitsch, actor (d. 1999)
• 1910 - Galina Sergeyevna Ulanova, dancer (d. 1988)
• 1912 - José Ferrer, actor (d. 1992)
• 1925 - Gerald Durrell, British naturalist and writer (d. 1995)
• 1925 - James Saunders, dramatist
• 1926 - Soupy Sales, comedian
• 1928 - Sander Vanocur, journalist
• 1931 - Bill Graham, rock music entrepreneur (d. 1991)
• 1933 - Charles Osgood, journalist, commentator
• 1934 - Bart Starr, American football star
• 1935 - Elvis Presley, singer and guitarist (d. 1977)
• 1937 - Shirley Bassey, singer
• 1938 - Bob Eubanks, game show host
• 1941 - Graham Chapman, comedian (d. 1989)
• 1942 - Stephen Hawking, theoretical physicist and author
• 1942 - Junichiro Koizumi, Japanese politician
• 1942 - Yvette Mimieux, actress
• 1942 - George Passmore, artist, half of Gilbert and George
• 1946 - Robby Krieger, musician ("The Doors")
• 1947 - David Bowie, singer
• 1947 - Samuel Schmid, member of the Swiss Federal Council
• 1949 - Wolfgang Puck, celebrity chef
• 1953 - Bruce Sutter, baseball relief pitcher
• 1959 - Paul Hester, drummer
• 1961 - Calvin Smith, American athlete
• 1962 - Joseph Hamrick, Scientist
• 1967 - Michelle Forbes, actress (Star Trek: The Next Generation, Homicide: Life on the Street, 24)
• 1969 - R. Kelly, R&B singer
• 1971 - Jason Giambi, Major League Baseball All-Star
• 1973 - Sean Paul, Jamaican reggae singer
• 1978 - Marco Fu, Hong Kong snooker player
• 1980 - Robert Updegrove, writer, amateur historian

Deaths

• 482 - Saint Severinus, monk
• 1107 - King Edgar of Scotland (b. ca. 1072)
• 1198 - Pope Celestine III (b. ca. 1106)
• 1324 - Marco Polo Croatian explorer (b. 1254)
• 1642 - Galileo Galilei, father of modern astronomy (b. 1564)
• 1775 - John Baskerville, printer, typefounder (b. 1706)
• 1880 - Joshua A. Norton, "Emperor Norton I of the United States of America" (b. 1811)
• 1896 - Paul Verlaine, lyric poet (b. 1844)
• 1941 - Lord Robert Baden-Powell, founder of Scouting (b. 1857)
• 1958 - Paul Pilgrim, American athlete
• 1969 - Albert Hill, British athlete
• 1972 - Kenneth Patchen, poet and painter (b. 1911)
• 1976 - Zhou Enlai, Premier of the People's Republic of China (b. 1898)
• 1980 - John Mauchly, co-inventor of the ENIAC computer (b. 1907)
• 1989 - Bruce Chatwin, novelist (b. 1940)
• 1990 - Terry-Thomas, actor, comedian (b. 1911)
• 1991 - Steve Clark, Def Leppard guitarist
• 1996 - François Mitterrand, politician and President of France (b. 1916)
• 1998 - Michael Tippett, composer (b. 1905)
• 2000 - Fritz Thiedemann, German equestrianist (b. 1918)
• 2002 - Dave Thomas, founder of Wendy's International (b. 1932)
• 2002 - Alexander Prochorow, Russian physicist, winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics 1964 (b. 1916)
• 2004 - John A. Gambling, Radio Talk-Show host (b. 1930)

Holidays and observances

January 7 - January 9 - December 8 - February 8 -- listing of all days

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