January 8


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
   * 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.
   * 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.
   * 1958 - 14 year old Bobby Fischer wins the United States Chess
     Championship.
   * 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 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.
   * 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.
   * 1998 - Cosomolgists announce that the expansion rate of the universe is
     increasing.

Births

   * 1786 - Nicholas Biddle, President of the Second Bank of the United
     States (+ 1844)
   * 1821 - James Longstreet, Confederate General (+ 1904)
   * 1824 - Wilkie Collins, novelist (+ 1889)
   * 1867 - Emily Greene Balch, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize 1946 (+
     1961)
   * 1870 - Miguel Primo de Rivera, dictator of Spain (+ 1930)
   * 1891 - Walter Bothe, physicist, winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics
     in 1954 (+ 1957)
   * 1909 - Willy Millowitsch, actor (+ 1999)
   * 1912 - Josˇ Ferrer, actor (+ 1992)
   * 1910 - Galina Sergeyevna Ulanova, dancer (+ 1988)
   * 1925 - James Saunders, dramatist
   * 1926 - Soupy Sales, comedian
   * 1928 - Sander Vanocur, journalist
   * 1931 - Bill Graham, rock music entrepreneur (+ 1991)
   * 1933 - Charles Osgood, journalist, commentator
   * 1934 - Bart Starr, American football star
   * 1935 - Elvis Presley, singer and guitarist (+ 1977)
   * 1937 - Shirley Bassey, singer
   * 1937 - Bob Eubanks, game show host
   * 1941 - Graham Chapman, comedian (+ 1989)
   * 1942 - Stephen Hawking, theoretical physicist and author
   * 1942 - Yvette Mimieux, actress
   * 1942 - George Passmore, artist, half of Gilbert and George
   * 1946 - Robby Krieger, musician ("The Doors")
   * 1949 - Wolfgang Puck, celebrity chef
   * 1947 - David Bowie, singer
   * 1959 - Paul Hester, drummer
   * 1973 - Sean Paul, Jamaican reggae singer

Deaths

   * 482 - Saint Severinus, monk
   * 1107 - King Edgar of Scotland
   * 1642 - Galileo Galilei, father of modern astronomy
   * 1880 - Joshua A. Norton, "Emperor Norton I of the United States of
     America"
   * 1896 - Paul Verlaine, lyric poet
   * 1941 - Lord Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scouts
   * 1976 - Zhou Enlai, Premier of the People's Republic of China
   * 1980 - John Mauchly, co-inventor of the ENIAC computer
   * 1990 - Terry-Thomas, actor, comedian
   * 1996 - Francois Mitterrand, politician and President of France.
   * 1998 - Michael Tippett, composer
   * 2002 - Dave Thomas, founder of Wendy's International
   * 2002 - Alexander Prochorow (65) - Russian physicist, winner of the
     Nobel Prize for Physics 1964