Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index January 8 is the 8th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. There are 357 days remaining (358 in leap years). Table of contents 1 Events 2 Births 3 Deaths 4 Holidays and observances 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. 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 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. 2000 - The 4th and final day of the 2000 Al Qaeda Summit 2004 - Queen Elizabeth names the Queen Mary II cruise liner. Births 1786 - Nicholas Biddle, President of the Second Bank of the United States († 1844) 1821 - James Longstreet, Confederate General († 1904) 1823 - Alfred Russel Wallace, naturalist and biologist († 1913) 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 - Walther Bothe, physicist, winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1954 († 1957) 1909 - Willy Millowitsch, actor († 1999) 1912 - José 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 1947 - Samuel Schmid, member of the Swiss Federal Council 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 1775 - John Baskerville, printer, typefounder 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 1972 - Kenneth Patchen, poet and painter 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 1991 - Steve Clark, Def Leppard guitarist 1996 - François 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 Holidays and observances See Also: January 7 - January 9 - December 8 - February 8 -- listing of all days January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.