January 8 - Events

Events

• 871 – Alfred the Great leads a West Saxon army to repel an invasion by Danelaw Vikings.
• 1297 – Monaco gains its independence.
• 1499 – Louis XII of France marries Anne of Brittany.
• 1734 – Premiere performance of George Frideric Handel's Ariodante at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.
• 1746 – Second Jacobite Rising: Bonnie Prince Charlie occupies Stirling.
• 1790 – George Washington delivers the first State of the Union Address in New York City.
• 1806 – Cape Colony becomes a British colony.
• 1811 – An unsuccessful slave revolt is led by Charles Deslondes in St. Charles and St. James, Louisiana.
• 1815 – War of 1812: Battle of New Orleans – Andrew Jackson leads American forces in victory over the British.
• 1835 – The United States national debt is 0 for the only time.
• 1838 – Alfred Vail demonstrates a telegraph system using dots and dashes (this is the forerunner of Morse code).
• 1863 – American Civil War: Second Battle of Springfield
• 1867 – African American men are granted the right to vote in Washington, D.C.
• 1877 – Crazy Horse and his warriors fight their last battle against the United States Cavalry at Wolf Mountain, Montana Territory.
• 1889 – Herman Hollerith is issued US patent #395,791 for the 'Art of Applying Statistics' — his punched card calculator.
• 1904 – The Blackstone Library is dedicated, marking the beginning of the Chicago Public Library system.
• 1906 – A landslide in Haverstraw, New York, caused by the excavation of clay along the Hudson River, kills 20 people.
• 1912 – The African National Congress is founded.
• 1918 – President Woodrow Wilson announces his "Fourteen Points" for the aftermath of World War I.
• 1940 – World War II: Britain introduces food rationing.
• 1956 – Operation Auca: Five U.S. missionaries are killed by the Huaorani of Ecuador shortly after making contact with them.
• 1961 – In France a referendum supports Charles de Gaulle's policies in Algeria.
• 1962 – The Harmelen train disaster killed 93 people in the Netherlands.
• 1963 – Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa is exhibited in the United States for the first time, at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
• 1964 – President Lyndon B. Johnson declares a "War on Poverty" in the United States.
• 1973 – Soviet space mission Luna 21 is launched.
• 1973 – Watergate scandal: The trial of seven men accused of illegal entry into Democratic Party headquarters at Watergate begins.
• 1975 – Ella Grasso becomes Governor of Connecticut, the first woman to serve as a Governor in the United States other than by succeeding her husband.
• 1977 – Three bombs went off in Moscow within 37 minutes, killing seven. The bombings are attributed to an Armenian separatist group.
• 1978 – Bowing to international pressure, President of Pakistan Zulfikar Ali Bhutto releases Bengali leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman from prison, who had been arrested after declaring the independence of Bangladesh.
• 1979 – The tanker Betelgeuse explodes in Bantry Bay, Ireland.
• 1981 – A local farmer reports a UFO sighting in Trans-en-Provence, France, "perhaps the most completely and carefully documented sighting of all time".
• 1982 – The break up of AT&T: AT&T agrees to divest itself of twenty-two subdivisions.
• 1989 – The Kegworth air disaster. British Midland flight 92 crashes into the M1 motorway killing 47 people out of 127 on board.
• 1989 – Beginning of Japanese Heisei era.
• 1994 – Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov on Soyuz TM-18 leaves for Mir. He would stay on the space station until March 22, 1995, for a record 437 days in space.
• 1996 – An Antonov 32 cargo turboprop powered plane crashes into the central market in Kinshasa, Zaire killing more than 350 people.
• 2002 – President George W. Bush signs into law the No Child Left Behind Act.
• 2003 – Turkish Airlines Flight 634 crashes near Diyarbakır Airport, Turkey, killing the entire crew and 70 of 75 passengers.
• 2004 – The RMS Queen Mary 2, the largest passenger ship ever built, is christened by her namesake's granddaughter, Queen Elizabeth II.
• 2005 – The nuclear sub USS San Francisco collides at full speed with an undersea mountain south of Guam. One man is killed, but the sub surfaces and is repaired.
• 2010 – Gunmen from an offshoot the Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda attacked the bus carrying the Togo national football team on its way to the 2010 African Cup of Nations, killing three.
• 2011 – An attempted assassination of Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and subsequent shooting in Casas Adobes, Arizona at a Safeway grocery store kills 6 people and wounds 13, including Giffords.