July 8 - Events

Events

• 1099 – First Crusade: 15,000 starving Christian soldiers march in a religious procession around Jerusalem as its Muslim defenders look on.
• 1283 – War of the Sicilian Vespers: Roger of Lauria, commanding the Aragonese fleet defeats a Angevin fleet sent to put down a rebellion on Malta in the Battle of Malta.
• 1497 – Vasco da Gama sets sail on the first direct European voyage to India.
• 1579 – Our Lady of Kazan, a holy icon of the Russian Orthodox Church, is discovered underground in the city of Kazan, Tatarstan.
• 1663 – Charles II of England grants John Clarke a Royal charter to Rhode Island.
• 1709 – Great Northern War: Battle of Poltava – Peter I of Russia defeats Charles XII of Sweden at Poltava thus effectively ending Sweden's role as a major power in Europe.
• 1716 – Great Northern War: the naval Battle of Dynekilen takes place.
• 1730 – An estimated magnitude 8.7 earthquake causes a tsunami that damages more than 1,000 km (620 mi) of Chile's coastline.
• 1758 – French forces hold Fort Carillon against the British at Ticonderoga, New York.
• 1760 – French and Indian War: Battle of Restigouche – British forces defeat French forces in last naval battle in New France.
• 1775 – The Olive Branch Petition is signed by the Continental Congress of the Thirteen Colonies.
• 1808 – Joseph Bonaparte approves the Bayonne Statute, a royal charter intended as the basis for his rule as king of Spain.
• 1822 – Chippewas turn over a huge tract of land in Ontario to the United Kingdom.
• 1859 – King Charles XV & IV accedes to the throne of Sweden-Norway.
• 1864 – Ikedaya Incident: the Choshu Han shishi's planned Shinsengumi sabotage on Kyoto, Japan at Ikedaya.
• 1874 – The Mounties begin their March West.
• 1876 – White supremacists kill five Black Republicans in Hamburg, South Carolina.
• 1879 – Sailing ship USS Jeannette (1878) departs San Francisco carrying an ill-fated expedition to the North Pole.
• 1889 – The first issue of The Wall Street Journal is published.
• 1892 – St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada is devastated in the Great Fire of 1892.
• 1898 – The death of crime boss Soapy Smith, killed in the Shootout on Juneau Wharf, releases Skagway, Alaska from his iron grip.
• 1912 – Henrique Mitchell de Paiva Couceiro leads an unsuccessful royalist attack against the First Portuguese Republic in Chaves.
• 1932 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average reaches its lowest level of the Great Depression, closing at 41.22.
• 1937 – Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan sign the Treaty of Saadabad.
• 1947 – Reports are broadcast that a UFO crash landed in Roswell, New Mexico.
• 1948 – The United States Air Force accepts its first female recruits into a program called Women in the Air Force (WAF).
• 1960 – Francis Gary Powers is charged with espionage resulting from his flight over the Soviet Union.
• 1962 – Ne Win besieges and dynamites the Rangoon University Student Union building to crush the Student Movement.
• 1966 – King Mwambutsa IV Bangiriceng of Burundi is deposed by his son Prince Charles Ndizi.
• 1970 – Richard Nixon delivers a special congressional message enunciating Native American self-determination as official US Indian policy, leading to the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975.
• 1982 – Assassination attempt against Iraqi president Saddam Hussein in Dujail.
• 1988 – The Island Express train travelling from Bangalore to Kanyakumari derails on the Peruman bridge and falls into Ashtamudi Lake, killing 105 passengers and injuring over 200 more.
• 1994 – Kim Jong-il begins to assume supreme leadership of North Korea upon the death of his father, Kim Il-sung.
• 2011 – Space Shuttle Atlantis is launched in the final mission of the U.S. Space Shuttle program.