January 8
January 8 is the 8th day of the year in the
Gregorian Calendar. There are 357 days remaining (358 in
leap years).
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Events
\n* 871 - Battle of Ashdown - Ethelred of Wessex defeats Danish invasion army. \n* 1198 - Innocentius III becomes Pope.\n* 1734 - Premiere of George Frideric Handel's Ariodante at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.\n* 1746 - Bonnie Prince Charlie occupies Stirling.\n* 1806 - Cape Colony becomes a British colony.\n* 1815 - War of 1812: In the Battle of New Orleans Andrew Jackson leads American forces in victory over the British.\n* 1838 - Alfred Vail demonstrates a telegraph using dots and dashes (this is the forerunner of Morse code).\n* 1856 - Borax is discovered (John Veatch). \n* 1867 - African-American men granted the right to vote in the District of Columbia.\n* 1877 - Crazy Horse and his warriors fight their last battle with the United States Cavalry (Montana).\n* 1889 - Herman Hollerith receives a patent for his electric tabulating machine.\n* 1894 - A fire at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago causes a good deal of damage. \n* 1900 - United States President William McKinley places Alaska under military rule. \n* 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. \n* 1916 - World War I: Allied forces withdraw from Gallipoli.\n* 1918 - President Woodrow Wilson announces his "Fourteen Points" for the aftermath of World War I.\n* 1926 - Abdul-Aziz ibn Saud becomes the King of Hejaz and renames it Saudi Arabia.\n* 1935 - A.C. Hardy patents the spectrophotometer. \n* 1953 - René Mayer becomes Prime Minister of France\n* 1958 - 14 year old Bobby Fischer wins the United States Chess Championship. \n* 1959 - Michel Debré becomes Prime Minister of France\n* 1962 - Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa is exhibited in the United States for the first time (National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC). \n* 1964 - President Lyndon Johnson declares a "War on Poverty" in the United States. \n* 1973 - Watergate scandal: The trial of seven men accused of placing bugs in Democratic Party headquarters at Watergate begins. \n* 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.\n* 1982 - AT&T agrees to divest itself of twenty-two subdivisions.\n* 1992 - President of the United States George H. W. Bush becomes ill on a visit in Japan and vomits on the Japanese Prime Minister. \n* 1996 - An Antonov 32 cargo jet crashes into the central market in Kinshasa, Zaire killing more than 350\n* 1997 - Mister Rogers receives a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. \n* 1998 - Ramzi Yousef is sentenced to life in prison for planning the World Trade Center bombing and for planning Project Bojinka. \n* 1998 - Cosmologists announce that the expansion rate of the universe is increasing.\n* 2004 - Queen Elizabeth names the Queen Mary II cruise liner.
Births
\n* 1786 - Nicholas Biddle, President of the Second Bank of the United States (d. 1844)\n* 1821 - James Longstreet, Confederate General (d. 1904)\n* 1823 - Alfred Russel Wallace, naturalist and biologist (d. 1913)\n* 1824 - Wilkie Collins, novelist (d. 1889)\n* 1867 - Emily Greene Balch, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize 1946 (d. 1961)\n* 1870 - Miguel Primo de Rivera, dictator of Spain (d. 1930)\n* 1885 - John Curtin, fourteenth Prime Minister of Australia (d. 1945)\n* 1891 - Walther Bothe, physicist, winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1954 (d. 1957)\n* 1909 - Willy Millowitsch, actor (d. 1999)\n* 1910 - Galina Sergeyevna Ulanova, dancer (d. 1988)\n* 1912 - José Ferrer, actor (d. 1992)\n* 1925 - Gerald Durrell, British naturalist and writer (d. 1995)\n* 1925 - James Saunders, dramatist\n* 1926 - Soupy Sales, comedian\n* 1928 - Sander Vanocur, journalist\n* 1931 - Bill Graham, rock music entrepreneur (d. 1991)\n* 1933 - Charles Osgood, journalist, commentator\n* 1934 - Bart Starr, American football star\n* 1935 - Elvis Presley, singer and guitarist (d. 1977)\n* 1937 - Shirley Bassey, singer\n* 1937 - Bob Eubanks, game show host\n* 1941 - Graham Chapman, comedian (d. 1989)\n* 1942 - Stephen Hawking, theoretical physicist and author\n* 1942 - Junichiro Koizumi, Japanese politician\n* 1942 - Yvette Mimieux, actress\n* 1942 - George Passmore, artist, half of Gilbert and George\n* 1946 - Robby Krieger, musician ("The Doors")\n* 1947 - David Bowie, singer\n* 1947 - Samuel Schmid, member of the Swiss Federal Council\n* 1949 - Wolfgang Puck, celebrity chef\n* 1953 - Bruce Sutter, baseball relief pitcher\n* 1959 - Paul Hester, drummer\n* 1961 - Calvin Smith, American athlete\n* 1967 - Michelle Forbes, actress (Star Trek: The Next Generation, Homicide: Life on the Street, 24)\n* 1969 - R. Kelly, R&B singer\n* 1971 - Jason Giambi, Major League Baseball All-Star\n* 1973 - Sean Paul, Jamaican reggae singer\n* 1978 - Marco Fu, Hong Kong snooker player
Deaths
\n* 482 - Saint Severinus, monk\n* 1107 - King Edgar of Scotland (b. ca. 1072)\n* 1198 - Pope Celestine III (b. ca. 1106)\n* 1324 - Marco Polo Croatian explorer (b. 1254)\n* 1642 - Galileo Galilei, father of modern astronomy (b. 1564)\n* 1775 - John Baskerville, printer, typefounder (b. 1706)\n* 1880 - Joshua A. Norton, "Emperor Norton I of the United States of America" (b. 1811)\n* 1896 - Paul Verlaine, lyric poet (b. 1844)\n* 1941 - Lord Robert Baden-Powell, founder of Scouting (b. 1857)\n* 1958 - Paul Pilgrim, American athlete\n* 1969 - Albert Hill, British athlete\n* 1972 - Kenneth Patchen, poet and painter (b. 1911)\n* 1976 - Zhou Enlai, Premier of the People's Republic of China (b. 1898)\n* 1980 - John Mauchly, co-inventor of the ENIAC computer (b. 1907)\n* 1990 - Terry-Thomas, actor, comedian (b. 1911)\n* 1991 - Steve Clark, Def Leppard guitarist\n* 1996 - François Mitterrand, politician and President of France (b. 1916)\n* 1998 - Michael Tippett, composer (b. 1905)\n* 2000 - Fritz Thiedemann, German equestrianist (b. 1918)\n* 2002 - Dave Thomas, founder of Wendy's International (b. 1932)\n* 2002 - Alexander Prochorow, Russian physicist, winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics 1964 (b. 1916)\n* 2004 - John A. Gambling, Radio Talk-Show host (b. 1930)
Holidays and observances
\nJanuary 7 - January 9 - December 8 - February 8 -- listing of all days
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