April 8
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(Redirected from 8 April)
April 8 is the 98th day of the year (99th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 267 days remaining after April 8 until the end of the year.
[change] Births
- 563 BC – Gautama Buddha, religious leader (d. 483 BC)
- 1320 – King Peter I of Portugal (d. 1367)
- 1605 – King Philip IV of Spain (d. 1665)
- 1818 – King Christian IX of Denmark (d. 1906)
- 1842 – Elizabeth Bacon Custer, wife of George Armstrong Custer (d. 1933)
- 1859 – Edmund Husserl, philosopher (d. 1938)
- 1865 – Charles W. Woodworth, Entomologist (d. 1940)
- 1872 – Ivan Bloch, physician (d. 1922)
- 1874 – Stanisław Taczak, Polish general, commander-in-chief of the Greater Poland Uprising (1918-1919) against the Germans (d.1960)
- 1875 – King Albert I of Belgium (d. 1934)
- 1889 – Sir Adrian Boult, English conductor (d. 1983)
- 1892 – Mary Pickford, Canadian-born actress, studio founder (d. 1979)
- 1902 – Andrew Irvine, British mountaineer (d. 1924)
- 1904 – Ron Hicks, British economist (d. 1989)
- 1905 – Helen Joseph, South African anti-apartheid activist (d. 1992)
- 1910 – George Musso, American football player (d. 2000)
- 1911 – Emil Cioran, philosopher and essayist (d. 1995)
- 1911 – Melvin Calvin, American chemist, 1961 Nobel Prize in Chemistry (d. 1997)
- 1912 – Sonja Henie, Norwegian Olympic and World Champion figure skater (d. 1969)
- 1912 – Alois Brunner, Austrian Nazi (date of death unknown)
- 1913 – Sourou-Migan Apithy, President of Benin (d. 1989)
- 1914 – María Félix, Mexican actress (d. 2002)
- 1918 – Betty Ford, former First Lady of the United States (d. 2011)
- 1919 – Ian Smith, former Prime Minister of Rhodesia (d. 2007)
- 1919 – Virginia O'Brien, American actress (d. 2001)
- 1921 – Franco Corelli, Italian tenor (d. 2003)
- 1923 – Edward Mulhare, Irish actor (d. 1997)
- 1926 – Jürgen Moltmann, theologian
- 1926 – Shecky Greene, American comedian
- 1928 – John Gavin, actor
- 1928 – Leah Rabin, wife of Israeli Premier Yitzhak Rabin (d. 2000)
- 1929 – Walter Berry, Austrian bass-baritone (d. 2000)
- 1929 – Jacques Brel, Belgian singer and composer (d. 1978)
- 1930 – Carlos-Hugo of Bourbon-Parma, Spanish aristocrat (d. 2010)
- 1932 – Iskandar of Johor, 8th Yang di-Pertuan Agong (King) of Malaysia (d. 2010)
- 1933 – Fred Ebb, composer (d. 2004)
- 1938 – Kofi Annan, United Nations Secretary-General
- 1940 – John Havlicek, basketball star
- 1941 – Vivienne Westwood, English fashion designer
- 1943 – Miller Farr, American football player
- 1943 – Michael Bennett, American dancer, choreographer, theater director (d. 1987)
- 1943 – Tony Banks, British politician (d. 2006)
- 1946 – Catfish Hunter, American baseball pitcher (d. 1999)
- 1946 – Tim Thomerson, American actor
- 1947 – Tom DeLay, American politician
- 1949 – John Madden, director
- 1950 – Grzegorz Lato, Polish footballer
- 1951 – Geir Haarde, former Prime Minister of Iceland
- 1954 – Gary Carter, American baseball catcher
- 1955 – Barbara Kingsolver, novelist
- 1955 – Gerrie Coetzee, South African boxer
- 1957 – Andrea Ypsilanti, German politician
- 1960 – John Schneider, actor
- 1962 – Izzy Stradlin, American musician
- 1963 – Julian Lennon, English musician and singer
- 1963 – Alec Stewart, English cricketer
- 1966 – Robin Wright Penn, American actress
- 1966 – Mazinho, Brazilian footballer
- 1968 – Patricia Arquette, American actress
- 1972 – Paul Gray, American musician (Slipknot) (d. 2010)
- 1977 – Mark Spencer, computer programmer
- 1980 – Manuel Ortega, Austrian singer
- 1981 – Taylor Kitsch, Canadian actor and model
- 1983 – Edson Braafheid, Dutch footballer
- 1984 – Taran Noah Smith, American actor
- 1986 – Igor Akinfeev, Russian footballer
- 1987 – Royston Drenthe, Dutch footballer
[change] Deaths
- 217 – Caracalla, Roman Emperor (b. 188)
- 1848 – Gaetano Donizetti, Italian composer (b. 1797)
- 1906 – Auguste Deter, first-recorded victim of Alzheimer's disease (b. 1850)
- 1931 – Erik Axel Karlfeldt, Swedish writer (b. 1864)
- 1936 – Robert Bárány, Austrian doctor, won the 1914 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, (b. 1876)
- 1973 – Pablo Picasso, Spanish painter and sculptor (b. 1881)
- 1981 – Omar Bradley, American general (b. 1893)
- 1984 – Pyotr Kapitsa, Russian physicist (b. 1894)
- 1992 – Daniel Bovet, Swiss pharmacologist (b. 1907)
- 1993 – Marian Anderson, American contralto (b. 1897)
- 1994 – Kurt Cobain, American musician (Nirvana) (b. 1967)
- 2009 – Piotr Morawski, Polish mountaineer (b. 1976)
- 2010 – Malcolm McLaren, British music manager (b. 1946)
- 2010 – Abel Muzorewa, Zimbabwean politician (b. 1924)
[change] Events
- 217 – Roman emperor Caracalla is assassinated (and succeeded) by his Praetorian Guard prefect, Marcus Opellius Macrinus
- 1730 – Shearith Israel, the first synagogue in New York City, is dedicated.
- 1742 – The first performance of George Frideric Handel's oratorio Messiah, in Dublin.
- 1767 – Ayutthaya kingdom fell to Burmese invaders.
- 1820 – The Venus de Milo is discovered on the Aegean island of Melos.
- 1832 – Black Hawk War: Around 300 United States 6th Infantry troops leave Jefferson Barracks, St. Louis to fight the Sauk Native Americans.
- 1864 – American Civil War: Battle of Mansfield - Union General Nathaniel Banks' Red River Campaign is thwarted by Confederate General Richard Taylor's forces at Mansfield, Louisiana.
- 1893 – First recorded college basketball game occurs in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania when the Geneva College Covenanters defeated the New Brighton YMCA.
- 1899 – Martha Place becomes the first woman to be executed in an electric chair.
- 1904 – France and the United Kingdom sign the Entente cordiale.
- 1904 – Longacre Square in Midtown Manhattan is renamed Times Square after The New York Times.
- 1910 – The Los Angeles Motordome opened near Playa del Rey, California.
- 1913 – The Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified requiring direct election of Senators.
- 1916 – In Corona, California, auto racer Bob Burman crashed through a crowd barrier at the last Boulevard Race, killing himself, his mechanic and a track policeman, and badly injuring five spectators.
- 1918 – World War I: Actors Douglas Fairbanks and Charlie Chaplin sell war bonds on the streets of New York, New York's financial district.
- 1929 – Indian Independence Movement At Delhi Central Assembly, Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt threw handouts, and bombs in a corridor not to cause injury and courted arrest.
- 1935 – The Works Progress Administration is formed when the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935 becomes law.
- 1942 – World War II: Siege of Leningrad - Soviet Union forces open a much-needed railway link to Leningrad.
- 1945 – At the POW camp at Flossenbürg, pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer is hanged.
- 1952 – In a radio address to the nation from the White House, President Harry S. Truman calls for the seizure of all steel mills in the United States in order to prevent a nationwide strike.
- 1953 – Mau Mau leader Jomo Kenyatta is convicted by Kenya's British rulers.
- 1967 – In Vienna, Austria, Sandie Shaw wins the twelfth Eurovision Song Contest for the United Kingdom singing "Puppet on a String".
- 1971 – a 6 pound meteorite struck a house on Spring Street in Wethersfield, Connecticut
- 1974 – At the Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, Hank Aaron breaks baseball great's Babe Ruth's record by hitting his 715th home run.
- 1975 – Frank Robinson of the Cleveland Indians manages his first game as major league baseball's first African American manager.
- 1975 – Vietnam War: After spending a week in South Vietnam, U.S. Army Chief of Staff Frederick Weyand gives a report to the U.S. Congress that South Vietnam will fall without additional military aid.
- 1985 – Bhopal disaster: India files suit against Union Carbide for the disaster which killed an estimated 2,000 and injured another 200,000.
- 1986 – Clint Eastwood is elected mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California receiving 72% of the vote (voter turnout was also doubled over the previous mayoral election).
- 1987 – Los Angeles Dodgers executive Al Campanis resigns amid great controversy over racially-charged remarks he had made while on Nightline.
- 1989 – South Africa In Johannesburg, the Progressive Federal Party, Independent party, National Democratic Movement and the force of "Ontevrede Afrikaners" or dissatisfied Afrikaners merged to form the Democratic Party.
- 1990 – Twin Peaks premieres.
- 1992 – Retired tennis great Arthur Ashe announces to the world that he has AIDS, acquired from blood transfusions during one of his two heart surgeries.
- 1994 – The body of Kurt Cobain is discovered in his Washington home.
- 2000 – A U.S. Marine Corps V-22 Osprey crashes during landing at Marana, Arizona killing 19.
- 2002 – Ed McMahon files a US$20 million lawsuit against his insurance company and others regarding a toxic mold infecting McMahon's Beverly Hills, California home.
- 2004 – Darfur conflict: The Humanitarian Ceasefire Agreement is signed by the Sudanese government and two rebel groups.
- 2005 – Funeral of Pope John Paul II
- 2008 – Yo So-yeon becomes the first Korean woman in space.
