On February 8th...

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1265 Mongol ruler Hulagu Khan died.

1296 King Przemysl II of Poland died.

1513 Explorer Alonso de Ojeda died.

1575 The University of Leiden was founded.

1587 Mary, Queen of Scots, was executed.

1622 King James I disbanded the English Parliament.

1676 Tsar Alexis I of Russia died.

1690 French and Indian troops set fire to Schenectady, New York.

1693 The College of William and Mary was chartered.

1725 Tsar Peter the Great of Russia died.

1802 Simon Willard patented the banjo clock.

1809 King Franz I of Austria declared war on France.

1819 Essayist and critic John Ruskin was born.

1820 William Tecumseh Sherman, American Civil War general, was born.

1828 Novelist Jules Verne was born.

1834 Chemist Dmitri Mendeleev was born.

1837 Richard Johnson became the first Vice-President of the United States to be chosen by the Senate.

1861 The Confederate States of America was formally organized.

1865 Martin Robison Delany became the first black to be appointed Major in the U. S. Army.

1873 John White Geary, American Civil War general, died.

1877 Antarctic explorer Charles Wilkes died.

1887 The Dawes Act authorized the President of the United States to survey Native American tribal land and divide it into individual allotments.

1888 Confederate Brigadier General Robert H. Anderson died.

1889 The U. S. Department of Agriculture became a Cabinet-level department.

1894 Film director King Vidor was born.

1898 John Ames Sherman patented an envelope folding and gumming machine.

1910 The Boy Scouts of America was incorporated.

1912 The first eastbound U. S. transcontinental airplane flight landed in Jacksonville, Florida.

1915 D. W. Griffith's silent film Birth of a Nation premiered at Clune's Auditorium in Los Angeles.

1916 The French cruiser Admiral Charner was torpedoed off the coast of Syria, killing 374 persons.

1918 The first edition of Stars and Stripes was published.

1920 Actress Lana Turner was born.

1923 An explosion in a coal mine at Dawson, New Mexico, killed 120 persons.

1925 Actor Jack Lemmon was born.

1926 Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio became Walt Disney Studios.
1926 Actress Audrey Meadows was born.
1926 Biologist William Bateson died.

1928 The first transatlantic television image was received in Hartsdale, New York.

1929 Queen Maria Christina of Austria died.

1931 A gas explosion and fire in a coal mine in Manchuria killed about 3,000 people.
1931 Actor James Dean was born.

1934 The Export-Import Bank was organized.

1935 Jay Berwanger of the University of Chicago became the first ever NFL draft pick (by the Eagles).

1936 Charles Curtis, former U. S. Congressman, Senator, and Vice-President, died.

1940 Television journalist Ted Koppel was born.

1941 Actor Nick Nolte was born.

1942 Music producer Terry Melcher was born.

1946 Chemist Felix Hoffman died.

1948 Musician Dan Seals was born.

1949 A Boeing XB-47 set a transcontinental speed record of 607.8 mph over a distance of 2,289 miles.

1952 Elizabeth II was proclaimed Queen of Great Britain.

1953 Actress Mary Steenburgen was born.

1955 Actor Ethan Phillips was born.

1956 Connie Mack, professional baseball player/manager/team owner, died.

1957 Actress Susan Hayward and attorney Floyd Eaton Chalkley were married in Phoenix, Arizona.

1958 Scientists at Osaka University achieved a temperature of 1 million degrees C in Japan's first controlled nuclear reaction.
1958 Algerian-based French aircraft bombed and strafed the Tunisian village of Sakiet-Sidi-Youssef.
1958 Sebastiano Nani, alleged former Mafia leader, was deported from New York to Italy.

1961 Rock singer Vince Neil was born.

1962 The Cessna Model 205 was test flown for the first time by R.W. Stephens.

1963 Premier Abdel Karem Kassim of Iraq was assassinated in a bloody military coup.

1965 An Eastern Airlines DC-7B crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off Jones Beach, New Jersey, killing 84 persons.
1965 U. S. President Lyndon Johnson sent 3,500 Marines to protect a U. S. air base near Da Nang, Vietnam.
1965 The Supremes released "Stop In the Name of Love."

1968 Police officers killed 3 students demonstrating at South Carolina State University.
1968 Actor Gary Coleman was born.

1969 The last edition of Saturday Evening Post was published.

1970 Actress Stephanie Courtney was born.

1974 The last crew left the Skylab Space Station.
1974 Military officers took over the government of Upper Volta in a bloodless coup.
1974 Ringo Starr released "You're 16."
1974 Actor Seth Green was born.

1976 The movie Taxi Driver was released.

1978 Proceedings of the United States Senate were broadcast on radio for the first time.

1979 Denis Sassou-Nguesso became the President of the Republic of the Congo.

1982 Businessman Henry S. Morgan died.

1983 Ariel Sharon resigned from the Israeli government.
1983 Eric Peters set a transatlantic sailboat record (east-to-west) of 46 days.
1983 Kentucky Derby-winning stallion Shergar was kidnapped in Ireland.
1983 Wayne Gretzky set an NHL All-Star record of 4 goals in 1 period.

1984 The XIV Winter Olympic Games opened in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia.

1986 Arleigh McCree and Ronald Ball were killed while trying to dismantle two pipe bombs at the Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles, California.

1989 A Boeing 707 crashed into the Santa Maria Mountains in Arizona, killing 145 persons.

1990 Singer Del Shannon died.

1992 The XVI Winter Olympic Games opened in Albertville, France.

1995 A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck Trujillo, Colombia, killing 46 persons.
1995 American politician William Fulbright died.

1998 Finland defeated Sweden 6-0 in Nagano, Japan, in the first ever women's ice hockey game played in Olympics history.

2000 Football player Derrick Thomas died.

2002 The IXX Winter Olympic Games opened in Salt Lake City, Utah.
2002 Ong Teng Cheong, former President of Singapore, died.

2005 Israeli and Palestinian leaders declared a truce.
2005 Drummer Keith Knudsen died.

2007 Model Anna Nicole Smith died.

2013 A series of bombings in Iraq killed 29 persons and injured 69 others.
2013 A market bombing in Kalaya, Pakistan, killed 16 persons and wounded 27 others.

2014 A hotel fire in Medina, Saudi Arabia, killed 15 persons and injured 130 others.
2014 A truck and bus collision in Mendoza, Argentina, killed 17 persons.

2018 A Bangladesh court sentenced former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia to 5 years in prison for corruption.

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This page was last updated on February 08, 2019.