June 8Birthdays & History

On this day: June 8 in history

Oldest first. Tap a year to see it on the World Chronicle timeline.

1. 218Battle of Antioch: With the support of the Syrian legions, Elagabalus defeats the forces of emperor Macrinus.Middle East
2. 452Attila leads a Hun army in the invasion of Italy, devastating the northern provinces as he heads for Rome.Europe
3. 536Election of pope Silverius following the death of pope Agapetus I earlier that year.Europe
4. 793Vikings raid the abbey at Lindisfarne in Northumbria, commonly accepted as the beginning of Norse activity in the British Isles.Europe
5. 1042Edward the Confessor becomes King of England – the country's penultimate Anglo-Saxon king.Europe
6. 1057The Byzantine general Isaac Komnenos is proclaimed Byzantine Emperor in opposition to reigning emperor Michael VI Bringas.Europe
7. 1191English forces under King Richard I arrive in Acre, joining the already arrived French and German forces of the Third Crusade.Europe
8. 1663Portuguese Restoration War: Portuguese victory at the Battle of Ameixial ensures Portugal's independence from Spain.Europe
9. 1772Alexander Fordyce flees to France to avoid debt repayment, triggering the credit crisis of 1772 in the British Empire and the Dutch Republic.Europe
10. 1776American Revolutionary War: Continental Army attackers are driven back at the Battle of Trois-Rivières.North America
11. 1783Laki, a volcano in Iceland, begins an eight-month eruption which kills over 9,000 people and starts a seven-year famine.Europe
12. 1789James Madison introduces twelve proposed amendments to the United States Constitution in Congress.North America
13. 1794Maximilien Robespierre inaugurates the French Revolution's new state religion, the Cult of the Supreme Being, with large organized festivals all across France.Europe
14. 1856A group of 194 Pitcairn Islanders, descendants of the mutineers of HMS Bounty, arrives at Norfolk Island, commencing the Third Settlement of the Island.Oceania
15. 1861American Civil War: Tennessee secedes from the Union.North America
16. 1862American Civil War: A Confederate victory by forces under General Stonewall Jackson at the Battle of Cross Keys, along with the Battle of Port Republic the next day, prevents Union forces from reinforcing General George B. McClellan in his Peninsula campaign.North America
17. 1867Coronation of Franz Joseph as King of Hungary following the Austro-Hungarian compromise (Ausgleich).Europe
18. 1887Herman Hollerith applies for US patent #395,781 for the 'Art of Compiling Statistics', which was his punched card calculator.North America
19. 1906Theodore 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.North America
20. 1924British Mount Everest expedition: British mountaineers Andrew Irvine and George Mallory go missing.Europe
21. 1928Second Northern Expedition: The National Revolutionary Army captures Beijing, whose name is changed to Beiping ("Northern Peace").Asia
22. 1929Margaret Bondfield is appointed Minister of Labour. She is the first woman appointed to the Cabinet of the United Kingdom.Europe
23. 1940World War II: The completion of Operation Alphabet, the evacuation of Allied forces from Narvik at the end of the Norwegian campaign.Europe
24. 1941World War II: The Allies commence the Syria–Lebanon Campaign against the possessions of Vichy France in the Levant.Middle EastEurope
25. 1942World War II: The Imperial Japanese Navy submarines I-21 and I-24 shell the Australian cities of Sydney and Newcastle.AsiaOceania
26. 1943World War II: The two-day Battle of Porta between the Royal Italian Army and the Greek People's Liberation Army begins.Europe
27. 1949George Orwell's dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four is published in the United StatesNorth America
28. 1953The United States Supreme Court rules in District of Columbia v. John R. Thompson Co. that restaurants in Washington, D.C., cannot refuse to serve black patrons.North America
29. 1953An F5 tornado hits Beecher, Michigan, United States, killing 116, injuring 844, and destroying 340 homes.North America
30. 1959USS Barbero and the United States Postal Service attempt the delivery of mail via Missile Mail.North America
31. 1961Marriage of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent to Katharine Worsley at York Minster.Europe
32. 1966Topeka, Kansas, United States is devastated by a tornado that registers as an "F5" on the Fujita scale, exceeding US$200 million in damages. Seventeen people are killed, over five hundred more injured, and thousands of homes damaged or destroyed.North America
33. 1966An 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.North America
34. 1967Six-Day War: The USS Liberty incident: A United States Navy spy ship is attacked by the Israeli Air Force and Navy, resulting in 34 deaths and 171 wounded.North AmericaMiddle East
35. 1968James Earl Ray, the man who assassinated Martin Luther King Jr. is arrested at London Heathrow Airport.Europe
36. 1972Vietnam War: Nine-year-old Phan Thị Kim Phúc is burned by napalm, an event captured in a photograph moments later while the young girl is seen running naked down a road, in what would become an iconic, Pulitzer Prize-winning photo.Asia
37. 1982VASP Flight 168 crashes in Pacatuba, Ceará, Brazil, killing 128 people.Latin America
38. 1982Bluff 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.Latin AmericaEurope
39. 1983Reeve Aleutian Airways Flight 8 loses one of its propellers in flight resulting in damage to the flight controls. The Lockheed L-188 Electra makes an emergency landing at Anchorage International Airport and there are no injuries.North America
40. 1984Homosexuality is decriminalized in the Australian state of New South Wales.OceaniaEurope
41. 1987New Zealand's Labour government establishes a national nuclear-free zone under the New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act 1987.Oceania
42. 1992GP Express Airlines Flight 861 crashes on approach to Anniston Regional Airport in Anniston, Alabama, killing three.North America
43. 1992The first World Oceans Day is celebrated, coinciding with the Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.Latin America
44. 1995Downed U.S. Air Force pilot Captain Scott O'Grady is rescued by U.S. Marines in Bosnia.North AmericaEurope
45. 2001Mamoru Takuma kills eight and injures 15 in a mass stabbing at an elementary school in the Osaka Prefecture of Japan.Asia
46. 2004The first Venus Transit in well over a century takes place, the previous one being in 1882.World
47. 2007Newcastle, 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.EuropeOceania
48. 2007Space Shuttle Atlantis is launched on STS-117 carrying two truss segments and solar arrays to the International Space Station.World
49. 2008Seven people are killed and 11 more are injured in a massacre in Akihabara.Asia
50. 2023Former US President Donald Trump is indicted on federal charges of misusing classified information.North America

Source: Wikipedia "June 8" / CC BY-SA 4.0