History Events on May 08

The creation of the Communist Party of Romania.

#Romanian_Communist_Party

Mexican-American War: Zachary Taylor defeats a Mexican force north of the Rio Grande in the first major battle of the war.

#Mexican-American_War

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.

#Vietnam_War

The Klaip?da Convention is signed formally incorporating Klaip?da Region (Memel Territory) into Lithuania.

#Klaip?da_Convention

A train derails and catches fire in Paris, killing between 52 and 200 people.

#Versailles_rail_accident

In Martinique, Mount Pelée erupts, destroying the town of Saint-Pierre and killing over 30,000 people. Only a handful of residents survive the blast.

#Mount_Pelée

The Philippine province of Davao is split into three: Davao del Norte, Davao del Sur, and Davao Oriental.

#Davao_(province)

Estonian schoolgirls Aili Jõgi and Ageeda Paavel blow up the Soviet memorial which stood in front of the Bronze Soldier of Tallinn.

#Aili_Jõgi

Emperor Honorius signs an edict providing tax relief for the Italian provinces Tuscia, Campania, Picenum, Samnium, Apulia, Lucania and Calabria, which were plundered by the Visigoths.

#Honorius_(emperor)

China Southern Airlines Flight 3456 crashes on approach into Bao'an International Airport, killing 35 people.

#China_Southern_Airlines_Flight_3456

The Thames Barrier is officially opened, preventing the floodplain of most of Greater London from being flooded except under extreme circumstances.

#Thames_Barrier

Hernando de Soto stops near present-day Walls, Mississippi, and sees the Mississippi River (then known by the Spanish as Río de Espíritu Santo, the name given to it by Alonso Álvarez de Pineda in 1519).

#Hernando_de_Soto

World War II: German forces in the west agree to an unconditional surrender.

#German_Instrument_of_Surrender

The Halifax riot starts when thousands of civilians and servicemen rampage through Halifax, Nova Scotia.

#Halifax_riot

World War II: The German Luftwaffe launches a bombing raid on Nottingham and Derby.

#World_War_II

Reccared I opens the Third Council of Toledo, marking the entry of Visigothic Spain into the Catholic Church.

#Reccared_I

The World Health Organization confirms the eradication of smallpox.

#World_Health_Organization

King Louis XVI of France attempts to impose the reforms of Étienne Charles de Loménie de Brienne by abolishing the parlements.

#Étienne_Charles_de_Loménie_de_Brienne

A British teenager, Isabelle Holdaway, 17, is reported to be the first patient ever to receive a genetically modified phage therapy to treat a drug-resistant infection.

#Phage_therapy

Spring and Autumn period: The house of Zhao defeats the house of Zhi, ending the Battle of Jinyang, a military conflict between the elite families of the State of Jin.

#Spring_and_Autumn_period

The rollercoaster The New Revolution, the first steel coaster with a vertical loop, opens at Six Flags Magic Mountain.

#The_New_Revolution_(roller_coaster)

Kentishmen revolt against King Henry VI.

#Jack_Cade's_Rebellion

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.

#Hu?_Ph?t_??n_shootings

Mohandas Gandhi begins a 21-day fast of self-purification and launched a one-year campaign to help the Harijan movement.

#Mahatma_Gandhi

The first ascent of Mount Everest without supplemental oxygen, by Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler.

#Mount_Everest

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.

#Battle_of_the_Coral_Sea

Greek War of Independence: The Greeks defeat the Turks at the Battle of Gravia Inn.

#Greek_War_of_Independence

Joan of Arc lifts the Siege of Orléans, turning the tide of the Hundred Years' War.

#Joan_of_Arc

Edward George Honey proposes the idea of a moment of silence to commemorate the Armistice of 11 November 1918 which ended World War I.

#Edward_George_Honey

End of the Prague uprising, celebrated now as a national holiday in the Czech Republic.

#Prague_uprising

Branded a traitor during the Reign of Terror, French chemist Antoine Lavoisier, who was also a tax collector with the Ferme générale, is tried, convicted and guillotined in one day in Paris.

#Reign_of_Terror

At Gilmore's Gardens in New York City, the first Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show opens.

#Westminster_Kennel_Club_Dog_Show

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".

The SAS kills eight Provisional Irish Republican Army volunteers and a civilian during an ambush in Loughgall, Northern Ireland.

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.

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.

Hundreds of Algerian civilians are killed by French Army soldiers in the Sétif massacre.

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.

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.

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.

Paramount Pictures is founded.

The Irish Literary Theatre in Dublin produced its first play.

The first games of the Italian football league system are played.

Pharmacist John Pemberton first sells a carbonated beverage named "Coca-Cola" as a patent medicine.

A group of imperial guards, led by Tr?nh Duy S?n, murdered Emperor Lê T??ng D?c and fled, leaving the capital Th?ng Long undefended.