TODAY IN HISTORY: JANUARY 8

 

January 8

 

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" as conditions for ending 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.

2023 – Supporters of former Brazil president Jair Bolsonaro storm the Brazilian Congress.