August 8 - Events

Events

• 1220 – Sweden is defeated by Estonian tribes in the Battle of Lihula.
• 1503 – King James IV of Scotland marries Margaret Tudor, daughter of King Henry VII of England at Holyrood Abbey in Edinburgh, Scotland.
• 1576 – The cornerstone for Tycho Brahe's Uraniborg observatory is laid on Ven, Sweden.
• 1585 – John Davis enters Cumberland Sound in search of the Northwest Passage.
• 1588 – Anglo-Spanish War: Battle of Gravelines – The naval engagement ends, ending the Spanish Armada's attempt to invade England.
• 1605 – The city of Oulu, Finland, is founded by Charles IX of Sweden.
• 1647 – The Irish Confederate Wars and Wars of the Three Kingdoms: Battle of Dungan's Hill – English Parliamentary forces defeat Irish forces.
• 1709 – Bartolomeu de Gusmão demonstrates the lifting power of hot air in an audience before the King of Portugal in Lisbon, Portugal
• 1786 – Mont Blanc on the French – Italian border is climbed for the first time by Jacques Balmat and Dr. Michel-Gabriel Paccard.
• 1793 – The insurrection of Lyon occurs during the French Revolution.
• 1794 – Joseph Whidbey leads an expedition to search for the Northwest Passage near Juneau, Alaska.
• 1844 – The Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, headed by Brigham Young, is reaffirmed as the leading body of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church).
• 1863 – American Civil War: following his defeat in the Battle of Gettysburg, General Robert E. Lee sends a letter of resignation to Confederate President Jefferson Davis (which is refused upon receipt).
• 1870 – The Republic of Ploiești, a failed Radical-Liberal rising against Domnitor Carol of Romania.
• 1876 – Thomas Edison receives a patent for his mimeograph.
• 1908 – Wilbur Wright makes his first flight at a racecourse at Le Mans, France. It is the Wright Brothers' first public flight.
• 1918 – World War I: the Battle of Amiens begins a string of almost continuous victories with a push through the German front lines (Hundred Days Offensive).
• 1927 – The predecessor to the Philippine Stock Exchange opens.
• 1929 – The German airship Graf Zeppelin begins a round-the-world flight.
• 1940 – The "Aufbau Ost" directive is signed by Wilhelm Keitel.
• 1942 – Quit India Movement is launched in India against the British rule in response to Mohandas Gandhi's call for swaraj or complete independence.
• 1946 – First flight of the Convair B-36, the world's first mass-produced nuclear weapon delivery vehicle.
• 1960 – South Kasai secedes from the Congo.
• 1963 – Great Train Robbery: in England, a gang of 15 train robbers steal £2.6 million in bank notes.
• 1967 – The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is founded by Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.
• 1969 – At a zebra crossing in London, photographer Iain Macmillan takes the photo that becomes the cover of the Beatles album Abbey Road, one of the most famous album covers in recording history.
• 1973 – Kim Dae-jung, a South Korean politician and later president of South Korea, is kidnapped.
• 1974 – President Richard Nixon, in a nationwide television address, announces his resignation from the office of the President of the United States effective noon the next day.
• 1980 – The Central Hotel Fire occurs in Bundoran, Ireland.
• 1988 – The "8888 Uprising" occurs in Burma.
• 1989 – Space Shuttle program: STS-28 Mission – Space Shuttle Columbia takes off on a secret five-day military mission.
• 1990 – Iraq occupies Kuwait and the state is annexed to Iraq. This would lead to the Gulf War shortly afterward.
• 1991 – The Warsaw radio mast, at one time the tallest construction ever built, collapses.
• 2000 – Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley is raised to the surface after 136 years on the ocean floor and 30 years after its discovery by undersea explorer E. Lee Spence and 5 years after being filmed by a dive team funded by novelist Clive Cussler.
• 2007 – An EF2 tornado touches down in Kings County and Richmond County, New York, the most powerful tornado in New York to date and the first in Brooklyn since 1889.
• 2008 – A EuroCity express train en-route from Kraków, Poland to Prague, Czech Republic strikes a part of a motorway bridge that had fallen onto the railroad track near Studénka railway station in the Czech Republic and derails, killing 8 people and injuring 64 others.
• 2008 – A commercial bus carrying Vietnamese Catholics crashed off a bridge of U.S. 75 near Sherman, Texas killing 17.
• 2008 – The 2008 Summer Olympics officially opened with the opening ceremony at National Stadium, Beijing, China.
• 2010 – 2010 China floods: A mudslide in Zhugqu County, Gansu, China, kills more than 1,400 people.