This Day in History
November 8

Copyright © 2006-2024 Ken Polsson
internet e-mail: ken@kpolsson.com
URL: http://kpolsson.com/thisday/
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What happened in history on this day: November 8?

On November 8 in ...

  • 618 - Saint Deusdedit I ends his reign as Catholic Pope.
  • 1308 - Death of Duns Scotus (original name: Johannes) in Cologne [Germany] (born in Scotland); Franciscan, controversial scholar, concluded that Mary had been born without sin.
  • 1519 - Hernando Cortez leaves Izapalapan. Cortez meets Emperor Montezuma in his capital city Tenochtitlan.
  • 1520 - In Sweden, followers of Sten Sture are tried in an ecclesiastic court presided over by the Archbishop, in the presence of the King. All are found guilty of heresy. Bishop Mattias of Strängnäs is beheaded first, then Bishop Vincentius of Skara. A total of 82 men are put to death over three hours. This becomes known as the Stockholm Bloodbath. Orders are sent to Finland for execution of Hemming Gadh. Kristina Gyllerstierna and Anna Bielke are taken as prisoners to Denmark.
  • 1656 - Birth of Edmond Halley first to calculate comet's orbit (Halley's Comet).
  • 1710 - Birth of Sarah Frelding in East Stour in Dorset, England; writer (The Governess (1749)).
  • 1789 - Bourbon whiskey is first distilled from corn (by Elijah Craig, Bourbon, Kentucky).
  • 1793 - Louvre Museum in Paris, France, opens.
  • 1805 - The Lewis and Clark expedition arrives at the Pacific Ocean, the first European explorers to do so by an overland route from the east.
  • 1823 - Birth of Charles Kennedy Burt in Edinburgh, Scotland; chief engraver for US Treasury Department for 20 years.
  • 1837 - Mount Holyoke Seminary in Massachusetts opens as the first US college founded for women.
  • 1848 - Birth of Gottlob Frege; German mathematician/logician (Begriffsschrift) (dies 1925).
  • 1861 - Captain Charles Wilkes of American steam-sloop San Jacinto fires shot across bow of British vessel Trent, stops it on high seas, takes four passengers off, two of them CSA envoys to France (Mason) and Great Britain (Slidell). They are taken to Fort Warren in Boston as prisoners.
  • 1864 - Abraham Lincoln elected to his second term as US President.
  • 1870 - Democratic governor elected in Tennessee.
  • 1876 - Birth of Frank L Gillespie in Arkansas, USA; founded Supreme Life Insurance Company.
  • 1883 - Birth of Arnold Bax in London, England; composer (Farewell My Youth).
  • 1887 - Death of John Henry "Doc" Holliday, peacefully in bed, of tuberculosis.
  • 1889 - Montana is admitted as 41st state of the USA.
  • 1892 - Grover Cleveland (Democrat) is elected President of the USA.
  • 1895 - German physicist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen becomes the first person to observe X-rays, electromagnetic energy waves.
  • 1896 - Birth of Bucky Harris; baseball manager (Philadelphia Phillies, New York Yankees).
  • 1897 - Birth of Dorothy Day; author (Stump the Authors).
  • 1900 - Birth of Margaret Mitchell; writer (Gone With the Wind).
  • 1904 - US President Theodore Roosevelt (Republican) defeats Alton B Parker (Democrat).
  • 1906 - British New Guinea name change to Territory of Papua under Australian administration.
  • 1910 - First Washington State election in which women could vote.
  • 1913 - Birth of Robert Strauss in New York City, New York, USA; actor (Sergeant Gruzewsky - Mona McCluskey).
  • 1914 - Birth of Norman Lloyd in Jersey City, New Jersey, USA; actor (Auschlander - Saint Elsewhere).
  • 1916 - Birth of June Havoc in Seattle, Washington, USA; actress (Willy, Panic, General Electric Theater).
  • 1916 - Birth of Peter Weiss in Germany; Swedish writer/dramatist/novelist (Marat/Sade).
  • 1917 - The second All-Russian Congress of Soviets approves the Council of People's Commissars, establishing the first Communist Government.
  • 1918 - American forces remove Germans from Bois des Caures, France.
  • 1921 - Birth of Gene Saks; actor/director (One and Only, Prisoner of Second Ave).
  • 1921 - Birth of Jerome Hines in Hollywood, California, USA; basso ("I am The Way").
  • 1922 - Birth of Christiaan Barnard in South Africa; surgeon (performs first heart transplant).
  • 1922 - Birth of Esther Rolle in Pompano Beach, Florida, USA; actress (Florida - Good Times, Maude).
  • 1924 - Birth of Joe Flynn in Youngstown, Ohio, USA; actor (McHale's Navy).
  • 1927 - Birth of Patti Page in Claremont, Oklahoma, USA; singer ("Tennessee Waltz").
  • 1930 - Birth of Bob Harris in Long Beach, California, USA; actor (Jim - Troubleshooters).
  • 1931 - Birth of Morley Safer in Toronto, Canada; TV newscaster (60 Minutes).
  • 1931 - French police launch a large scale raid against Corsican bandits.
  • 1931 - The Panama Canal is closed for a couple of weeks due to damage caused by a number of earthquakes.
  • 1932 - Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Democrat) elected President of US.
  • 1933 - US President Franklin Roosevelt creates the Civil Works Administration.
  • 1933 - King Nadir, Shah of Afghanistan, assassinated by Abdul Khallig.
  • 1935 - Birth of Alain Delon in France; actor (Honor Among Thieves).
  • 1936 - Birth of Edward G Gibson in Buffalo, New York, USA; astronaut (Skylab 4).
  • 1939 - (2120 hours) In Munich, Germany, a bomb explodes in Bürgerbräukeller, fifteen minutes after Adolf Hitler left the building. Eight are killed, sixty-three injured. George Elser set the bomb in a gap under a wood panel, possibly arranged by Heinrich Himmler.
  • 1942 - Birth of Angel Cordero Junior; jockey (won over 6,000 races).
  • 1942 - Operation Torch begins, as Allied forces land in Northern Africa. The Western Task Force with 24,500 Americans under Major General George Patton land at Fedala (15 miles north of Casablanca), Mehdia (55 miles south of Casablanca), and Safi (140 miles south of Casablanca). The Center Task Force with 18,500 Americans under Major General Lloyd Fredenall land near Oran. The Eastern Task Force with 9000 British and 9000 Americans and 2000 British Commandos under American Major General Charles Ryder land at Algiers.
  • 1944 - 25,000 Hungarian Jews are loaned to Germany for forced labor.
  • 1947 - Birth of Margaret Rhea Seddon in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, USA; MD/astronaut (STS 51D, STS 40).
  • 1947 - Birth of Minnie Ripperton in Chicago, Illinois, USA; singer ("Loving You").
  • 1948 - Birth of Dale A Gardner in Fairmont, Minnesota, USA; Commander US Navy/astronaut (STS 8, STS 51A).
  • 1949 - Birth of Bonnie Raitt in Louisiana, USA; singer/guitarist ("Green Light", "The Glow", "Thing Called Love").
  • 1950 - First jet-plane battle of Korean War.
  • 1951 - Birth of Mary Hart in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, USA; TV hostess (Entertainment Tonight).
  • 1952 - Birth of Christie Hefner, daughter of Hugh Hefner; Playboy CEO.
  • 1954 - American League approves Philadelphia Athletics' move to Kansas City.
  • 1954 - Birth of Rickie Lee Jones in Chicago, Illinois, USA; singer ("Chuck E's in Love").
  • 1956 - Birth of Randi Brooks in New York City, USA; actress (The Man With Two Brains, Tightrope).
  • 1956 - United Nations demands USSR leave Hungary.
  • 1960 - John Kennedy (Massachusetts-Democrat-Senator) beats Vice President Richard Nixon (Republican) for US President.
  • 1961 - Birth of Leif Garrett in Hollywood, California, USA; singer/actor ("Devil x 5", "Three for the Road").
  • 1965 - NBC-TV airs the first episode of soap opera Days of Our Lives.
  • 1965 - British Indian Ocean Territory is established, comprising Aldabra, Farquhar, and Des Roches islands from Seychelles, and the Chagos Island group from Mauritius.
  • 1965 - Dorothy Kilgallen, columnist (What's My Line?), dies at age 52.
  • 1966 - Movie actor Ronald Reagan elected governor of California.
  • 1966 - US President Lyndon Johnson signs anti-trust immunity to AFL-NFL merger.
  • 1967 - Birth of Courtney Thorne-Smith; actress (Day by Day, Lucas, Summer School).
  • 1967 - Birth of Kim Dugger in Wichita, Kansas, USA; Miss Kansas-America (1991).
  • 1967 - Silver hits record US$1.951 an ounce in London, England.
  • 1968 - Birth of Parker Posey in Baltimore, Maryland, USA; actress (Tess Shelby - As the World Turns).
  • 1968 - Death of Wendell Corey at age 54; actor (11th Hour, Peck's Bad Girl).
  • 1969 - Kam Tong, actor (Have Gun Will Travel, Mr Garlund), dies at age 62.
  • 1970 - Tom Dempsey of New Orleans Saints kicks NFL record 63-yard field goal.
  • 1973 - Nevada approves pari-mutuel betting on Jai Alai.
  • 1974 - Death of Ivory Joe Hunter at age 60 of lung cancer; singer/songwriter/pianist ("Since I Met You Baby", "I Almost Lost My Mind", "I Need You So").
  • 1977 - Bucky Harris dies on his 81st birthday in Bethesda, Maryland, USA; Major League Baseball player-manager for the Washington Senators in the 1920s.
  • 1978 - Death of Norman Rockwell, American artist and illustrator, at age 84 in Stockbridge, Massachusetts (born 1894).
  • 1979 - ABC-TV begins airing a new late-night news program, The Iran Crisis: America Held Hostage.
  • 1980 - In Gorda Plate, a magnitude 7.2 earthquake occurs. Most of the damage occurred east of Fields Landing, where two sections of an overpass on U.S. Highway 101 collapsed onto the railroad tracks below.
  • 1980 - Voyager 1 space probe discovers 15th moon of Saturn.
  • 1982 - In Wethersfield, Connecticut, USA a falling meteorite pierces the roof of a house.
  • 1983 - In Belgium, a magnitude 4.9 earthquake occurs.
  • 1983 - Birth of Blanka VlaÜic; Croatian high jumper.
  • 1984 - STS 51-A mission launched. Anna Fisher becomes the first "mom" to go into orbit.
  • 1985 - Birth of Jack Osbourne; English television personality.
  • 1986 - Death of Beatrice Kay at age 78; singer, actress (Sister Sue - Calvin and the Colonel).
  • 1987 - Eleven die as a bomb planted by the Irish Republican Army explodes at Ulster Remembrance Day Service at Enniskillen.
  • 1988 - George Bush (Republican) beats Mike Dukakis (Democrat) for American Presidency.
  • 1990 - 100,000 additional US troops are sent to the Persian Gulf.
  • 1990 - Saddam Hussein fires his army chief and threatens to destroy Arabian peninsula.
  • 1991 - CBS-TV premieres The Carol Burnette Show.
  • 1994 - Georgia Representative Newt Gingrich leads the United States Republican Party in taking control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate in midterm congressional elections. This is the first time in 40 years that the Republicans secure control of both houses of Congress. George W. Bush is elected Governor of Texas.
  • 1995 - Daniel McLain (aka Country Dick Montana) of the underground rock band The Beat Farmers, dies on stage of a heart attack during a performance at the Longhorn Saloon in Whistler, British Columbia, Canada.
  • 1996 - Buena Vista releases the film Ransom to theaters.
  • 1996 - In Zurich, Switzerland, David Feldman sells at auction a Sweden 1855 3-skilling banco stamp, error of color, used, for US$2,270,000, a world record auction bid for a postage stamp.
  • 1999 - The German Gerichtshof (supreme court) sentences Egon Krenz, former East German political leader, to prison for his role in the killing of East Germans seeking to flee the country.
  • 2002 - The United Nations Security Council unanimously approves Resolution 1441, telling Iraq's Saddam Hussein to disarm or face "serious consequences".
  • 2003 - Birth of Lady Louise Windsor, daughter of Earl and Countess of Wessex.
  • 2004 - Microsoft agrees to pay US$536 million to Novell to settle legal claims related to Novell's NetWare operating system.
  • 2005 - French President Jacques Chirac declares a state of emergency on the 12th day of the French civil unrest.
  • 2006 - U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld resigns; President Bush nominates Robert Gates, a former Central Intelligence Agency director, as his replacement.
  • 2006 - Margaret Chan is elected as the Director-General of the World Health Organization.
  • 2006 - A transit of Mercury occurs.
  • 2007 - The 8th annual Latin Grammy Awards are held at the Mandalay Bay Events Center at Mandalay Bay on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada, USA, near Las Vegas.
  • 2007 - BHP Billiton announces plans to acquire Rio Tinto, giving the combined company a market capitalization of about US$360 billion, the biggest merger in history.
  • 2007 - Death of Chad Varah, English Anglican priest, founder of the Samaritans (born 1911).
  • 2008 - An accident aboard Russian submarine K-152 Nerpa kills 20.
  • 2008 - New Zealand's opposition National Party ends Prime Minister Helen Clark's nine-year Labour government, winning 45 percent to 34. The United Future and ACT parties will join the National Party to form the next government.
  • 2008 - India's Chandrayaan 1 spacecraft enters orbit of the Moon, the first Indian satellite to reach the Moon.
  • 2008 - Death of Mieczyslaw Rakowski, age 81, Polish communist journalist (24-year editor of Polityka), politician.
  • 2009 - In Valencia, Spain, round 17 of the FIM MotoGP Championship is won by Dani Pedrosa.
  • 2009 - The FIM MotoGP Championship is won by Valentino Rossi.
  • 2009 - Vitaly Ginzburg, Russian physicist (Soviet atomic bomb project, 2003 Nobel Prize for physics of superconductors), dies in Moscow, Russia, after a long illness at age 93.
  • 2010 - Death of Admiral Emilio Eduardo Massera, commander of junta in Argentina.
  • 2013 - Typhoon Haiyan ("Yolanda") hits the Philippines and Vietnam, causing devastation with at least 6,241 dead.
  • 2018 - The Camp Fire ignites in Butte County, California.
  • 2020 - The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 passes 50 million worldwide.
  • 2022 - In the USA, the Powerball lottery is won, $2.04 billion.

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