November 8Birthdays & History

On this day: November 8 in history

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

1. 960Battle of Andrassos: Byzantines under Leo Phokas the Younger score a crushing victory over the Hamdanid Emir of Aleppo, Sayf al-Dawla.Middle East
2. 1278Trần Thánh Tông, the second emperor of the Trần dynasty, decides to pass the throne to his crown prince Trần Khâm and take up the post of Retired Emperor.Asia
3. 1291The Republic of Venice enacts a law confining most of Venice's glassmaking industry to the "island of Murano".Europe
4. 1519Hernán Cortés enters Tenochtitlán and Aztec ruler Moctezuma welcomes him with a great celebration.Latin America
5. 1520After being crowned king of Sweden, Christian II gave the order to execute nearly 100 people, mostly noblemen, despite promises of general amnesty.Europe
6. 1576Eighty Years' War: Pacification of Ghent: The States General of the Netherlands meet and unite to oppose Spanish occupation.Europe
7. 1602The Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford is opened to the public.Europe
8. 1605Robert Catesby, ringleader of the Gunpowder Plotters, is killed.Europe
9. 1614Japanese daimyō Dom Justo Takayama is exiled to the Philippines by shōgun Tokugawa Ieyasu for being Christian.AsiaAsia
10. 1620The Battle of White Mountain takes place near Prague, ending in a decisive Catholic victory in only two hours.Europe
11. 1644The Shunzhi Emperor, the third emperor of the Qing dynasty, is enthroned in Beijing after the collapse of the Ming dynasty as the first Qing emperor to rule over China.Asia
12. 1745Charles Edward Stuart invades England with an army of approximately 5,000 that would later participate in the Battle of Culloden.Europe
13. 1837Mary Lyon founds Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, which later becomes Mount Holyoke College.Europe
14. 1861American Civil War: The "Trent Affair": The USS San Jacinto stops the British mail ship Trent and arrests two Confederate envoys, sparking a diplomatic crisis between the UK and US.North AmericaEurope
15. 1889Montana is admitted as the 41st U.S. state.North America
16. 1892The Carmaux-Bons Enfants bombing marks the start of Émile Henry's attacks into the Ère des attentats (1892–1894).Europe
17. 1892The New Orleans general strike begins, uniting black and white American trade unionists in a successful four-day general strike action for the first time.North America
18. 1895While experimenting with electricity, Wilhelm Röntgen discovers the X-ray.Europe
19. 1901Gospel riots: Bloody clashes take place in Athens following the translation of the Gospels into demotic Greek.Europe
20. 1917The first Council of People's Commissars is formed, including Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin.Europe
21. 1919Eichenfeld massacre: Members of the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine murder 136 Mennonite colonists at Jaskyowo, initiating a series of massacres that resulted in the deaths of 827 Ukrainian Mennonites.Europe
22. 1920Rupert Bear, illustrated by Mary Tourtel makes his first appearance in print.Europe
23. 1923Beer Hall Putsch: In Munich, Adolf Hitler leads the Nazis in an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the German government.Europe
24. 1932Franklin D. Roosevelt is elected as the 32nd President of the United States, defeating incumbent president Herbert Hoover.North America
25. 1933Great Depression: New Deal: US President Franklin D. Roosevelt unveils the Civil Works Administration, an organization designed to create jobs for more than four million unemployed.North America
26. 1936Spanish Civil War: Francoist troops fail in their effort to capture Madrid, but begin the three-year Siege of Madrid afterwards.Europe
27. 1937The Nazi exhibition Der ewige Jude ("The Eternal Jew") opens in Munich.Europe
28. 1939Venlo Incident: Two British agents of SIS are captured by the Germans.Europe
29. 1939In Munich, Adolf Hitler narrowly escapes the assassination attempt of Georg Elser while celebrating the 16th anniversary of the Beer Hall Putsch.Europe
30. 1940Greco-Italian War: The Italian invasion of Greece fails as outnumbered Greek units repulse the Italians in the Battle of Elaia–Kalamas.Europe
31. 1942World War II: French Resistance coup in Algiers, in which 400 civilian French patriots neutralize Vichyist XIXth Army Corps after 15 hours of fighting, and arrest several Vichyist generals, allowing the immediate success of Operation Torch in Algiers.EuropeAfrica
32. 1950Korean War: United States Air Force Lt. Russell J. Brown, while piloting an F-80 Shooting Star, shoots down two North Korean MiG-15s in the first jet aircraft-to-jet aircraft dogfight in history.AsiaNorth America
33. 1957Pan Am Flight 7 disappears between San Francisco and Honolulu. Wreckage and bodies are discovered a week later.North America
34. 1957Operation Grapple X, Round C1: The United Kingdom conducts its first successful hydrogen bomb test over Kiritimati in the Pacific.Europe
35. 1960John F. Kennedy is elected as the 35th President of the United States, defeating incumbent Vice President Richard Nixon, who would later be elected president in 1968 and 1972.North America
36. 1963Finnair's Aero Flight 217 crashes near Mariehamn Airport in Jomala, Åland, killing 22 people.Europe
37. 1965The 173rd Airborne is ambushed by over 1,200 Viet Cong in Operation Hump during the Vietnam War, while the 1st Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment fight one of the first set-piece engagements of the war between Australian forces and the Viet Cong at the Battle of Gang Toi.AsiaOceania
38. 1965The Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act 1965 is given Royal Assent, formally abolishing the death penalty in the United Kingdom for almost all crimes.Europe
39. 1965American Airlines Flight 383 crashes in Constance, Kentucky, killing 58.North America
40. 1965The British Indian Ocean Territory is created, consisting of Chagos Archipelago, Aldabra, Farquhar and Des Roches islands.Europe
41. 1966Former Massachusetts Attorney General Edward Brooke becomes the first African American elected to the United States Senate since Reconstruction.North AmericaAfrica
42. 1966U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signs into law an antitrust exemption allowing the National Football League to merge with the upstart American Football League.North America
43. 1968The Vienna Convention on Road Traffic is signed to facilitate international road traffic and to increase road safety by standardising the uniform traffic rules among the signatories.Europe
44. 1972American pay television network Home Box Office (HBO) launches.North America
45. 1973The right ear of John Paul Getty III is delivered to a newspaper outlet along with a ransom note, convincing his father to pay US$2.9 million.North America
46. 1977Manolis Andronikos, a Greek archaeologist and professor at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, discovers the tomb of Philip II of Macedon at Vergina.Europe
47. 1981Aeroméxico Flight 110 crashes near Zihuatanejo, Mexico, killing all 18 people on board.Latin America
48. 1983TAAG Angola Airlines Flight 462 crashes after takeoff from Lubango Airport killing all 130 people on board. UNITA claims to have shot down the aircraft, though this is disputed.Africa
49. 1987Remembrance Day bombing: A Provisional IRA bomb explodes in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland during a ceremony honouring those who had died in wars involving British forces. Twelve people are killed and sixty-three wounded.Europe
50. 1988U.S. Vice President George H. W. Bush is elected as the 41st president.North America
51. 1994Republican Revolution: On the night of the 1994 United States midterm elections, Republicans make historic electoral gains by securing massive majorities in both houses of Congress (54 seats in the House and eight seats in the Senate, additionally), thus bringing to a close four decades of Democratic domination.North America
52. 1997Eritrea adopts the nakfa as its official currency.Africa
53. 1999Bruce Miller is killed at his junkyard near Flint, Michigan. His wife Sharee Miller, who convinced her online lover Jerry Cassaday to kill him (before later killing himself) was convicted of the crime, in what became the world's first Internet murder.North America
54. 2002Iraq disarmament crisis: UN Security Council Resolution 1441: The United Nations Security Council unanimously approves a resolution on Iraq, forcing Saddam Hussein to disarm or face "serious consequences".Middle East
55. 2004Iraq War: More than 10,000 U.S. troops and a small number of Iraqi army units participate in a siege on the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah.Middle EastNorth America
56. 2006Israeli-Palestinian conflict: The Israeli Defense Force kill 19 Palestinian civilians in their homes during the shelling of Beit Hanoun.Middle East
57. 2011The potentially hazardous asteroid 2005 YU55 passes 0.85 lunar distances from Earth (about 324,600 kilometres or 201,700 miles), the closest known approach by an asteroid of its brightness since 2010 XC15 in 1976.World
58. 2013Typhoon Haiyan, one of the strongest tropical cyclones ever recorded, strikes the Visayas region of the Philippines; the storm left at least 6,340 people dead with over 1,000 still missing, and caused $2.86 billion (2013 USD; equivalent to $3.95 billion in 2025) in damage.Asia
59. 2016Donald Trump is elected the 45th President of the United States, defeating Hillary Clinton, the first woman ever to receive a major party's nomination.North America
60. 2016Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi publicly announces the withdrawal of ₹500 and ₹1000 denomination banknotes.Asia
61. 2017The Louvre Abu Dhabi was inaugurated by the French president Emmanuel Macron and then-crown prince of Abu Dhabi Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.Middle EastEurope
62. 2020Myanmar holds the 2020 general election, re-electing a government led by the National League for Democracy, which is deposed by the Burmese military the following February during the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état.Asia

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