What Happened on May 8th in History
30 historical events on this date
Attempting to make the first non-stop transatlantic flight from Paris to New York, French war heroes Charles Nungesser and François Coli disappear after taking off aboard The White Bird biplane.
A transatlantic flight (TATL) is the flight of an aircraft across the Atlantic Ocean from Europe, Africa, South Asia, or the Middle East to North America, South America, or vice versa. Such flights...
Mohandas Gandhi begins a 21-day fast of self-purification and launched a one-year campaign to help the Harijan movement.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist and political ethicist who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful campaign for India's independence from...
World War II: The German Luftwaffe launches a bombing raid on Nottingham and Derby.
World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated. Tanks and aircraft played major...
World War II: The German 11th Army begins Operation Trappenjagd (Bustard Hunt) and destroys the bridgehead of the three Soviet armies defending the Kerch Peninsula.
The 11th Army was a World War II field army.
World War II: The Battle of the Coral Sea comes to an end with Imperial Japanese Navy aircraft carrier aircraft attacking and sinking the United States Navy aircraft carrier USS Lexington.
The Battle of the Coral Sea, from 4 to 8 May 1942, was a major naval battle between the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) and naval and air forces of the United States and Australia. Taking place in the...
World War II: Gunners of the Ceylon Garrison Artillery on Horsburgh Island in the Cocos Islands rebel in the Cocos Islands Mutiny. Their mutiny is crushed and three of them are executed, the only British Commonwealth soldiers to be executed for mutiny during the Second World War.
The Cocos (Keeling) Islands, officially the Territory of Cocos (Keeling) Islands, are an Australian external territory located in the Indian Ocean, comprising a small archipelago approximately...
World War II: The German Instrument of Surrender signed at Berlin-Karlshorst comes into effect. This is commemorated as Victory in Europe Day.
The German Instrument of Surrender was a legal document effecting the unconditional surrender of the remaining German armed forces to the Allies, ending World War II in Europe. It was signed at...
End of the Prague uprising, celebrated now as a national holiday in the Czech Republic.
The Prague uprising was a partially successful attempt by the Czech resistance movement to liberate the city of Prague from German occupation in May 1945, during the end of World War II. The...
Hundreds of Algerian civilians are killed by French Army soldiers in the Sétif massacre.
The Sétif and Guelma massacre was a series of massacres by French colonial authorities and pied-noir European settler militias on Algerian civilians in May and June 1945 around the towns of Sétif...
The Halifax riot starts when thousands of civilians and servicemen rampage through Halifax, Nova Scotia.
The Halifax VE-Day riots, 7–8 May 1945, in Halifax and Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, began as a celebration of the World War II victory in Europe. This rapidly evolved into a rampage by several thousand...
Estonian schoolgirls Aili Jõgi and Ageeda Paavel blow up the Soviet memorial which preceded the Bronze Soldier of Tallinn.
Aili Jõgi was an Estonian schoolgirl who on the night of 8 May 1946, together with her school friend Ageeda Paavel, blew up a Soviet War reburial monument : the preceding monument to the Bronze...
The Tollund Man is discovered in a peat bog near Silkeborg, Denmark.
The Tollund Man is a naturally mummified corpse of a man who lived during the 5th century BC, during the period characterised in Scandinavia as the Pre-Roman Iron Age. He was found in 1950,...
South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem begins a state visit to the United States, his regime's main sponsor.
Ngô Đình Diệm was a South Vietnamese politician who was the final prime minister of the State of Vietnam (1954–1955) and later the first president of South Vietnam from 1955 until his capture and...
South Vietnamese soldiers under the Roman Catholic President Ngo Dinh Diem open fire on Buddhists defying a ban on the flying of the Buddhist flag on Vesak, killing nine and sparking the Buddhist crisis.
On 8 May 1963, nine unarmed Buddhist civilians were shot by the Army of the Republic of Vietnam and security forces in Huế, South Vietnam. The army and police fired guns and launched grenades into a...
The Philippine province of Davao is split into three: Davao del Norte, Davao del Sur, and Davao Oriental.
Davao, officially the Province of Davao, was a province in the Philippines on the island of Mindanao. The old province is coterminous with the present-day Davao Region or Region XI. It was divided...
The Beatles release their 12th and final studio album Let It Be.
The Beatles were an English rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960. The band comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the most influential band in...
Vietnam War: U.S. President Richard Nixon announces his order to place naval mines in major North Vietnamese ports in order to stem the flow of weapons and other goods to that nation.
The Vietnam War was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam and their allies. North Vietnam was supported by the Soviet Union and China, while...
A 71-day standoff between federal authorities and the American Indian Movement members occupying the Pine Ridge Reservation at Wounded Knee, South Dakota ends with the surrender of the militants.
The Wounded Knee Occupation, also known as Second Wounded Knee, began on February 27, 1973, when approximately 200 Oglala Lakota and followers of the American Indian Movement (AIM) seized and...
The rollercoaster The New Revolution, the first steel coaster with a vertical loop, opens at Six Flags Magic Mountain.
The Great American Revolution is a steel roller coaster located at Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, California, United States. Manufactured by Anton Schwarzkopf and designed by Werner Stengel,...
The first ascent of Mount Everest without supplemental oxygen, by Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler.
Mount Everest is the highest mountain on Earth above sea level. It lies in the Mahalangur Himal sub-range of the Himalayas and marks part of the China–Nepal border at its summit. Its height was most...
The World Health Organization confirms the eradication of smallpox.
The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) which coordinates responses to international public health issues and emergencies. It is headquartered in...
Corporal Denis Lortie enters the Quebec National Assembly and opens fire, killing three people and wounding 13. René Jalbert, Sergeant-at-Arms of the Assembly, succeeds in calming him, for which he will later receive the Cross of Valour.
Denis Lortie is a former Canadian Forces corporal. In 1984, he stormed into the Parliament Building in Quebec City and opened fire with several firearms, killing three government employees and...
The Soviet Union announces a boycott upon the Summer Olympics at Los Angeles, later joined by 14 other countries.
The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until its dissolution in 1991. It was the world's...
The Thames Barrier is officially opened, preventing the floodplain of most of Greater London from being flooded except under extreme circumstances.
The Thames Barrier is a retractable barrier system built to protect the floodplain of most of Greater London from exceptionally high tides and storm surges moving up from the North Sea. It has been...
The SAS kills eight Provisional Irish Republican Army volunteers and a civilian during an ambush in Loughgall, Northern Ireland.
The Special Air Service (SAS) is a special forces unit of the British Army. It was founded as a regiment in 1941 by David Stirling, and in 1950 it was reconstituted as a corps. The unit specialises...
A fire at Illinois Bell's Hinsdale Central Office triggers an extended 1AESS network outage once considered to be the "worst telecommunications disaster in US telephone industry history".
Illinois Bell Telephone Company, LLC is the Bell Operating Company serving Illinois. It is owned by AT&T through AT&T Teleholdings, formerly Ameritech.
China Southern Airlines Flight 3456 crashes on approach into Bao'an International Airport, killing 35 people.
China Southern Airlines Flight 3456 was a scheduled domestic passenger flight from Chongqing Jiangbei International Airport to Shenzhen Huangtian Airport. On 8 May 1997, the Boeing 737 performing...
British 17-year-old Isabelle Holdaway is reported to be the first patient ever to receive a genetically modified phage therapy to treat a drug-resistant infection.
Phage therapy, viral phage therapy, or phagotherapy is the therapeutic use of bacteriophages for the treatment of pathogenic bacterial infections. This therapeutic approach emerged at the beginning...
A car bomb explodes in front of a school in Kabul, capital city of Afghanistan killing at least 55 people and wounding over 150.
On 8 May 2021, a car bombing followed by two more improvised explosive device (IED) blasts occurred in front of Sayed al-Shuhada High School in Dashte Barchi, a predominantly Shia Hazara area in...
The 2025 papal conclave elects Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, taking the name Leo XIV as the 267th Pope of the Catholic Church.
A conclave was held on 7 and 8 May 2025 to elect a new pope to succeed Francis, who had died on 21 April 2025. Of the 135 eligible cardinal electors, all but two attended. On the fourth ballot, the...