June 8 in History

Historical Events on June 8

218

Battle of Antioch: With the support of the Syrian legions, Elagabalus defeats the forces of emperor Macrinus. He flees, but is captured near Chalcedon and later executed in Cappadocia.
632

Muhammad, Islamic prophet, dies in Medina.
793

Vikings raid the abbey at Lindisfarne in Northumbria, commonly accepted as the beginning of Norse activity in the British Isles.
1042

Edward the Confessor becomes King of England, one of the last Anglo-Saxon kings of England.
1191

Richard I arrives in Acre, beginning his crusade.
1405

Richard le Scrope, the Archbishop of York, and Thomas Mowbray, Earl of Norfolk, are executed in York on Henry IV's orders.
1776

American Revolutionary War: American attackers are driven back at the Battle of Trois-Rivières.
1783

Laki, a volcano in Iceland, begins an eight-month eruption which kills over 9,000 people and starts a seven-year famine.
1789

James Madison introduces twelve proposed amendments to the United States Constitution in Congress.
1794

Robespierre inaugurates the French Revolution's new state religion, the Cult of the Supreme Being, with large organized festivals all across France.
1856

A group of 194 Pitcairn Islanders, descendants of the mutineers of HMS Bounty, arrives at Norfolk Island, commencing the Third Settlement of the Island.
1861

American Civil War: Tennessee secedes from the Union.
1862

American Civil War: Battle of Cross Keys: Confederate forces under General Stonewall Jackson save the Army of Northern Virginia from a Union assault on the James Peninsula led by General George B. McClellan.
1867

Coronation of Franz Joseph as King of Hungary following the Austro-Hungarian compromise (Ausgleich).
1887

Herman Hollerith applies for US patent #395,781 for the 'Art of Compiling Statistics', which was his punched card calculator.
1906

Theodore Roosevelt signs the Antiquities Act into law, authorizing the President to restrict the use of certain parcels of public land with historical or conservation value.
1912

Carl Laemmle incorporates Universal Pictures.
1918

A solar eclipse is observed at Baker City, Oregon by scientists and an artist hired by the United States Navy.
1928

Second Northern Expedition: The National Revolutionary Army captures Peking, whose name is changed to Beijing ("Northern Capital").
1929

Margaret Bondfield is appointed Minister of Labour. She is the first woman appointed to the Cabinet of the United Kingdom.
1940

World War II: The completion of Operation Alphabet, the evacuation of Allied forces from Narvik at the end of the Norwegian Campaign.
1941

World War II: The Allies commence the Syria-Lebanon Campaign against the possessions of Vichy France in the Levant.
1942

World War II: The Japanese imperial submarines I-21 and I-24 shell the Australian cities of Sydney and Newcastle.
1949

Helen Keller, Dorothy Parker, Danny Kaye, Fredric March, John Garfield, Paul Muni and Edward G. Robinson are named in an FBI report as Communist Party members.
1949

George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four is published.
1953

An F5 tornado hits Beecher, Michigan, killing 116, injuring 844, and destroying 340 homes.
1953

The United States Supreme Court rules that restaurants in Washington, D.C. cannot refuse to serve black patrons.
1959

The USS Barbero and United States Postal Service attempt the delivery of mail via Missile Mail.
1966

An F-104 Starfighter collides with XB-70 Valkyrie prototype no. 2, destroying both aircraft during a photo shoot near Edwards Air Force Base. Joseph A. Walker, a NASA test pilot, and Carl Cross, a United States Air Force test pilot, are both killed.
1966

Topeka, Kansas, is devastated by a tornado that registers as an "F5" on the Fujita scale: The first to exceed US$100 million in damages. Sixteen people are killed, hundreds more injured, and thousands of homes damaged or destroyed.
1966

The National Football League and American Football League announced a merger effective in 1970.
1967

Six-Day War: The USS Liberty incident occurs, killing 34 and wounding 171.
1972

Vietnam War: Nine-year-old Phan Thị Kim Phúc is burned by napalm, an event captured by Associated Press photographer Nick Ut moments later while the young girl is seen running down a road, in what would become an iconic, Pulitzer Prize-winning photo.
1982

Bluff Cove Air Attacks during the Falklands War: Fifty-six British servicemen are killed by an Argentine air attack on two landing ships, RFA Sir Galahad and RFA Sir Tristram.
1984

Homosexuality is declared legal in the Australian state of New South Wales.
1987

New Zealand's Labour government establishes a national nuclear-free zone under the New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act 1987.
1992

The first World Oceans Day is celebrated, coinciding with the Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
1995

Downed U.S. Air Force pilot Captain Scott O'Grady is rescued by U.S. Marines in Bosnia.
2001

Mamoru Takuma kills eight and injures 15 in a mass stabbing at an elementary school in the Osaka Prefecture of Japan.
2004

The first Venus Transit in well over a century takes place, the previous one being in 1882.
2007

Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia, is hit by the State's worst storms and flooding in 30 years resulting in the death of nine people and the grounding of a trade ship, the MV Pasha Bulker.
2008

At least 37 miners go missing after an explosion in an Ukrainian coal mine causes it to collapse.
2008

At least seven people are killed and ten injured in a stabbing spree in Tokyo, Japan.
2009

Two American journalists are found guilty of illegally entering North Korea and sentenced to 12 years of penal labour.
2014

At least 28 people are killed in an attack at Jinnah International Airport, Karachi, Pakistan.

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