On May 8th...

links will open in a new window

1541 Hernando de Soto discovered the Mississippi River.

1587 Three ships set sail from England, bound for Roanoke Island, Virginia.

1639 William Coddington founded Newport, Rhode Island.

1660 The English Parliament declared Charles Stuart to be King Charles II.

1721 Michelangiolo dei Conti became Pope Innocent XIII.

1737 Historian Edward Gibbon was born.

1792 George Vancouver sighted and named Mount Rainier.

1794 Chemist Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier died.

1819 King Kamehameha I of Hawaii died.

1823 "Home! Sweet Home!" by John Howard Payne was first sung in London, England.

1828 Jean-Henri Dunant, founder of the Red Cross, was born.

1835 The first installment of Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales was published in Copenhagen, Denmark.

1840 Alexander Wolcott patented a photographic process.

1842 Fire on a Versailles-to-Paris, France, train killed 50 persons.

1846 The Battle of Palo Alto (Texas) was fought.

1847 Scott Robert Thompson patented the rubber tire.

1858 John Brown held an antislavery convention.

1861 Richmond, Virginia, was named capital of the Confederate States of America.

1864 The Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse (Virginia) began.

1873 Philosopher John Stuart Mill died.

1877 The first Westminster Dog Show was held.

1879 George Selden applied for a patent for a gasoline-driven automobile.

1884 Harry S. Truman, 33rd President of the United States, was born.

1886 Jacob's Pharmacy in Atlanta, Georgia, sold the first Coca-Cola.

1895 Televangelist Fulton J. Sheen was born.

1899 Ernest Rutherford published his discovery of two different kinds of radiation.

1902 Mount Pelee erupted, wiping out St Pierre, Martinique, and killing 30,000 people.

1903 Painter Paul Gauguin died.

1904 Eadweard Muybridge, pioneer in the field of "stop-action" photography, died.

1907 Tommy Burns defeated Jack O'Brien in 20 rounds for the heavyweight boxing title.
1907 Edmund G. Ross, U.S. Senator who cast the deciding vote against impeaching President Andrew Johnson, died.

1912 Paramount Pictures was founded.

1915 Joe Notter rode Regret to victory in the Kentucky Derby.

1916 A German munitions bunker at Fort Douaumont, France, exploded, killing 679 German soldiers.

1919 Edward George Honey first proposed the idea of a moment of silence to commemorate the Armistice of the First Wold War.

1920 Ted Rice rode Paul Jones to victory in the Kentucky Derby.

1921 Sweden abolished capital punishment.

1926 Naturalist David Attenborough was born.
1926 Comedian Don Rickles was born.

1932 Boxer Sonny Liston was born.

1933 Mohandas Gandhi began a fast to protest British oppression in India.

1937 Charley Kurtsinger rode War Admiral to victory in the Kentucky Derby.

1940 Author Peter Benchley was born.
1940 Singer Ricky Nelson was born.
1940 Toni Tennille was born.

1942 The Battle of the Coral Sea ended in an Allied victory.

1945 The Allies declared victory in Europe (V-E Day).

1952 The first issue of Mad Magazine was published.
1952 William Fox, founder of 20th Century Fox, died.

1953 Drummer Alex Van Halen was born.

1955 Actor Stephen Furst was born.

1958 U. S. Vice-President Richard Nixon and his wife were met with catcalls and stone throwing while on a goodwill visit to Lima, Peru.
1958 A train crash outside Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, killed 128 persons and injured more than 300.
1958 A U. S. Air Force F-104 Starfighter set a world altitude record of 91,249 feet.

1959 An estimated 200 persons were drowned during a Sabbath excursion cruise on the Nile River when the riverboat Dandarah capsized within a few feet of shore.
1959 Employees of seven hospitals in New York City, New York, went on strike.

1961 A 7-hour cyclonic storm claimed the lives of 430 persons in East Pakistan.

1962 The world's largest submarine, the U.S.S. Lafayette, was christened.

1963 The James Bond movie Dr. No premiered in the United States.

1964 Actress Melissa Gilbert was born.
1964 Auto racer Bobby Labonte was born.

1966 Frank Robinson became the only player ever to hit a baseball completely out of Baltimore's Memorial Park.

1967 Singer LaVerne Andrews died.

1970 Hundreds of construction workers and anti-war demonstrators clashed in the Wall Street area of New York City, New York.
1970 The New York Knicks defeated the Los Angeles Lakers 113-99 to win the NBA Championship.
1970 The Beatles released their Let It Be album.

1972 Edward VIII, King of Great Britain, died.

1975 Singer Enrique Iglesias was born.
1975 Avery Brundage, former CEO of the International Olympic Committee, died.

1976 M. B. Skaggs, founder of Safeway, died.

1978 David Berkowitz pleaded guilty to six of the "Son of Sam" killings.

1980 The World Health Organization announced that smallpox had been eradicated.

1982 Auto racer Gilles Villeneuve was killed in a crash while qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix.

1984 The Thames Barrier in London, England, was officially completed.
1984 The Soviet Union announced that it would not participate in the Los Angeles Summer Olympics.
1984 Auto racer Gino Bianco died.

1985 Actor Edmond O'Brien died.

1988 Author Robert A. Heinlein died.

1991 Composer Jean Langlais died.

1993 16-year-old Keron Thomas disguised himself as a motorman and took a New York City, New York, subway train and 2,000 passengers on a 3-hour ride.
1993 Phil Ware won the ABC Masters Bowling Tournament.
1993 Lennox Lewis defeated Tony Tucker in 12 rounds for the heavyweight boxing title.

1994 Actor George Peppard died.

1996 South Africa's Constitutional Convention adopted a permanent post-apartheid constitution.
1996 Illustrator Garth Williams died.

1998 Banker Bebe Rebozo died.

1999 Nancy Mace became the first female to graduate from The Citadel military college.
1999 Actor Ed Gilbert died.

2005 Auto racer Nicolás Vuyovich died.

2008 Singer Eddy Arnold died.

2013 An overloaded bus fell into a river in Himachal Pradesh, India, killing 33 persons.
2013 Actress Jeanne Cooper died.

2014 Roger L. Easton, principal inventor of GPS, died.

Questions or comments about this page?

This page was last updated on June 28, 2018.